As
the furor continues, the mayor is seeking to appear less defensive while more
openly acknowledging Chicago faces serious police problems.
The latest
iteration of that effort came in an op-ed letter from the mayor to the city's
newspapers published Friday evening, entitled "Police misconduct in
Chicago: I own it; I'll fix it." While the title would suggest a mea
culpa, the letter's core is a point-by-point defense of Emanuel's decision to
withhold the McDonald video and a pushback against the notion of a cover-up, a
narrative that has continued to gain traction.
Public
skepticism is only likely to increase after Emanuel's police department late
Friday released hundreds of pages of police reports that are dramatically at
odds with the dashboard camera video of the shooting. The reports show that at
least six officers said that McDonald moved or turned toward police. At least
one said McDonald was advancing on the officers in a menacing way and swung his
knife at them in an "aggressive, exaggerated manner" before Officer
Jason Van Dyke shot the teen. The video of the October 2014 shooting, however,
showed McDonald was walking away when he was killed.
In his
letter, Emanuel does not address the fact that the initial police reports
contradict what's on the video. The mayor wrote that if he had seen the video, he
might have "released the tape before the prosecutors had acted."
What's left unsaid is that Emanuel's aides briefed him on what the video showed
before asking the City Council in April to sign off on a $5 million settlement
to McDonald's family, a week after the mayor won re-election.
Emanuel
wrote in his letter that he rejected "the suggestion the videotape of the
McDonald shooting was withheld from the public because of the election."
Harking back
to a phrase a sweater-clad Emanuel used in his famous March campaign ad, the
mayor also writes: "At the end of the day, I am the mayor and I own it.
"I take
responsibility for what happened and I will fix it," he wrote.
"Nothing less than complete and total reform of the system and the culture
will meet the standards we have set for ourselves."
Those words
contrast with how Emanuel presented the McDonald case 11 days earlier.
On
Nov. 24, the mayor and then-police Superintendent Garry McCarthy held a news conference moments before
releasing the police dashboard camera video. Standing side by side at the
city's police headquarters, the duo defended the Police Department's practices
while condemning Van Dyke's actions.
McCarthy
talked of a reduction in police shootings, more internal affairs officers,
staffing changes and a culture that had changed "in a positive
fashion." Asked how he could prevent another Van Dyke shooting, McCarthy
responded, "At the end of the day, it's always going to be the judgment in
the eyes of the officer, which is why I said that the officer in this case is
going to have to account for his actions. I can't do it. Nobody else can. Only
he can."
Emanuel
stood by his top cop, often deferring to McCarthy to give the answers.
When one
reporter insisted the mayor step forward and explain whether there was a
problem with how officers were investigated and whether a "lack of
openness" existed, Emanuel responded by touting the city's two civilian
boards overseeing the department. He did not mention that of 409 shootings
since the Independent Police Review Authority's formation in September 2007,
only two have led to allegations against an officer being found credible,
according to the agency.
"Is it
perfect? Nothing is perfect," Emanuel said of police oversight. "Do
we have the spirit and desire constantly to improve it and make it transparent
so people believe that people will be held accountable for their actions? That
is what exists."
Emanuel
and McCarthy spent most of the 26 minutes behind a lectern portraying Van Dyke
as an isolated rogue cop and deflecting questions about systemic problems by
calling on Chicagoans to "look within ourselves and reach for the future
of the city of Chicago we know we can be," as the mayor put it.
The video
went online minutes later. As 24-hour news anchors, newspaper columnists and
radio pundits recounted the details of the McDonald case, Emanuel spent seven
days out of the public spotlight. Protesters, though, took to the streets,
chanting "16 shots!" and shut down Magnificent Mile stores on what's
traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year.
Emanuel
re-emerged, but only after firing McCarthy and appointing a task force the
mayor said would recommend fixes for the city's police problems.
"The
horrifying shooting of Mr. McDonald requires more than words of sadness,"
Emanuel said. "It requires that we act, that we take more concrete steps
to prevent such abuses in the future, (and) secure the safety and the rights of
all Chicagoans."
During this
appearance, in a sweltering briefing room in his fifth floor City Hall office packed with reporters, Emanuel
took a step toward acknowledging systemic problems, but still defended moves he
said his administration had taken to address police misconduct. The mayor cited
"reinvigorated community policing" and "a level of transparency"
in releasing police data — a point at odds with the fact that an open records
lawsuit led a Cook County judge to order him to release of the video.
"I beg
to differ," Emanuel responded to the suggestion he hadn't done much in
four-plus years to address the Police Department's lengthy track record of
misconduct and excessive force. "There's a long history. We have made
progress, but our work is not done."
Hours
after the mayor fired McCarthy, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan called for a U.S. Justice Department civil rights
investigation of the Police Department's use of excessive and deadly force, its
investigation of police shootings and whether Chicago has a pattern of
discriminatory policing. "Trust in the Chicago Police Department is
broken," Madigan wrote.
The
following morning, in an interview with Politico reporters Wednesday, Emanuel
called such a broader investigation "misguided," pointing instead to
his new task force. That proved to be another miscalculation, as Democratic
presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton also called for a Justice Department
investigation, which was followed by similar requests from U.S. Sen. Dick
Durbin and Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez.
By Thursday
morning, Emanuel had issued a statement seeking to "clarify" his
remarks from the day before. Privately, the mayor's aides suggested Emanuel had
just misunderstood the questions on the issue the day before. His answers,
however, were clear — and the damage was done.
Later,
facing a crush of reporters after cutting the ribbon on Google's new West Loop
offices, Emanuel offered a more blunt answer: "I own the confusion."
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