The links posted are videos of family and others reactions....I could not embed them
In a stunning blow to the prosecution, a Cook County judge on Thursday cleared three Chicago Police officers of charges they covered up for fellow officer Jason Van Dyke after he shot and killed Laquan McDonald.
Cook County Judge Domenica Stephenson found Detective David March and officers Joseph Walsh and Thomas Gaffney not guilty of official misconduct, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. The ruling comes a day before Van Dyke is set to be sentenced on murder and aggravated battery charges in a separate case.
Stephenson took about an hour to announce her findings to a packed courtroom, reading from a 28-page order as she took apart the prosecution’s case piece by piece, finding nothing that convinced her that the officers were guilty of anything.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/t...y-jason-van-dyke-laquan-mcdonald/?jwsource=cl
The judge took issue with the prosecutor’s contention that dashboard camera footage of the 2014 shooting objectively contradicted officers’ accounts that McDonald was moving aggressively at Van Dyke when Van Dyke opened fire.
“It is not as simple as looking at the reports in comparison to what is depicted on the video,” the judge said. “It has been established that the recovered videos do not show the vantage point of Van Dyke, Walsh, or others who were either facing or to the side of McDonald.”
When the judge finished reading off her ruling, a burst of applause came from the courtroom gallery, a crowd that was at least half comprised of fellow officers and supporters of the three cops on trial, including Fraternal Order of Police President Kevin Graham.
Gaffney’s reinstatement to the police department was “imminent,” police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Thursday evening. Gaffney had been suspended after the indictment was announced in July 2017, but will be reassigned to “operational duties”— meaning he will not be on desk duty.Walsh and March retired from the department in 2016 after the city Inspector General said the pair should be fired for their roles in the investigation.
The Rev. Marvin Hunter, a great uncle of McDonald, frowned as he listened to the judge’s decision.
“To say these men are not guilty is to say Jason Van Dyke is not guilty,” Hunter said in the courthouse lobby. “This is not justice.”
The Rev. Marvin Hunter, the great uncle of Laquan McDonald, stands before a bank of reporters’ microphones and blasts a judge’s decision to acquit three Chicago police officers charged with covering up for Jason Van Dyke in McDonald’s murder. | Nader Issa/Sun-Times
One of the officers, Walsh, standing beside his lawyer, Todd Pugh, in the courthouse lobby, said the 18 months that have passed since his indictment have been “heart-wrenching, heartbreaking for my family.”
Walsh and March left the courthouse without answering questions.
Pugh praised Stephenson for her “courage and integrity” in acquitting the three officers despite intense media scrutiny on the case, which he said was slanted against the three police defendants.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/t...y-jason-van-dyke-laquan-mcdonald/?jwsource=cl
Graham warned that the prosecutions of police officers have a “chilling effect” on officers, and urged the Chicago Police Board to consider Stephenson’s finding of not-guilty in the conspiracy case as it weighs proceedings against four other officers who face discipline over statements they made about the shooting.
The not-guilty finding “says there are judges out there who are going to follow the law and are going to listen to the facts, and not the wrong media accounts and what goes out in the community,” Graham said.
Assistant Special Prosecutor Ron Safer said simply prosecuting the officers was a knock to the so-called code of silence.
“This case was a case where the code of silence was on trial,” Safer said. “I think the next police officer who thinks about writing a false police report is going to think twice now that this Special Prosecutor Patricia Brown Holmes has set the precedent that you can be prosecuted for that.”
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/t...y-jason-van-dyke-laquan-mcdonald/?jwsource=cl
Community activist and 5th ward aldermanic candidate William Calloway said he was “devastated” to hear the ruling but was done repeating his same call to action.
“We’re not gonna protest and take to the streets” Calloway said. “We’re gonna go to the polls.”
Stephenson began Thursday by quoting the indictment against the three officers at length and then going through what the prosecutors had to legally show to prove each charge.
As she delivered her findings, it became more and more clear that Stephenson found nothing persuasive in the prosecution’s case.
Stephenson called into question the credibility of a key prosecution witness, Officer Dora Fontaine, noting she “tried to minimize” McDonald’s behavior before he was shot in 2014 but later admitted she told the FBI, the state’s attorney and the inspector general that McDonald was moving closer to police, waving or “swaying” the knife, and making “attacking movements.”
A critical dispute between the prosecution and defense was whether McDonald was a dangerous teen who presented a real threat to police or in the end, a victim.
Stephenson made it clear where she landed, saying it was “undisputed and undeniable” that McDonald was an armed offender who continued to walk toward more populous areas the night he was shot.
Prosecutors repeatedly compared what was in police reports to what the police dashcam video showed. But Stephenson said the case wasn’t as simple as that. The judge noted that two people can view the same event and describe it differently, but that doesn’t mean either is lying. Errors in reports are not crimes, the judge said.
Stephenson’s decision, which the judge had twice delayed, comes the day before Van Dyke is set to be sentenced for second-degree murder and aggravated battery charges in the shooting of McDonald.
Like Van Dyke’s murder trial, the conspiracy case against his three fellow officers relied heavily on the now infamous video of the 2014 shooting.
But the case that Special Prosecutor Patricia Brown Holmes brought against March, Walsh and Gaffney outlined a coverup that began in the hours and months after the shooting and continued even after the final report that ruled Van Dyke’s use of deadly force was justified.
March was the lead detective on the McDonald case, and his final report cleared Van Dyke in the shooting — a report which the special prosecution team said was filled with statements from Walsh, Gaffney and other officers that were contradicted by video from a police dashboard camera that recorded the shooting. Walsh, Van Dyke’s partner, had been standing next to Van Dyke when he opened fire. Gaffney was one of the first officers to encounter McDonald the night of the shooting.
The charges against the three officers, for upholding what the special prosecutor has called a “code of silence,” has attracted less attention than the murder charges against Van Dyke. The charges are unprecedented, said civil rights attorney G. Flint Taylor, who was part of a group of activists who petitioned the chief judge to appoint a special prosecutor to conduct an independent probe into how the CPD handled the investigation into the 2014 shooting.
“I think there were some interesting issues in this case for those like myself, who know how the department has operated since the Burge era and long before,” Taylor said. “This was a case that, for the first time I’ve heard of, has gone after police officers who cover for one of their own.”
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/t...y-jason-van-dyke-laquan-mcdonald/?jwsource=cl
Holmes, a former federal prosecutor and Cook County judge, took a year to investigate the shooting before announcing charges against March, Gaffney and Walsh in July 2017.
In her closing argument, Holmes had framed the evidence as a simple contrast of the narratives in the reports March and other officers filed — casting McDonald as an aggressive, knife-wielding subject who was coming at Walsh and Van Dyke when he was gunned down — and the images on dashboard camera footage from a police SUV that showed the teen moving away from the officers when the first shots were fired.
But the judge, in the end, wasn’t buying it.
As Stephenson stepped away after announcing her finding, Walsh’s lawyer, veteran defense attorney Thomas Breen’s baritone voice could be heard over the chatter from the courtroom gallery.
“Good day, your honor,” he said.
In a stunning blow to the prosecution, a Cook County judge on Thursday cleared three Chicago Police officers of charges they covered up for fellow officer Jason Van Dyke after he shot and killed Laquan McDonald.
Cook County Judge Domenica Stephenson found Detective David March and officers Joseph Walsh and Thomas Gaffney not guilty of official misconduct, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. The ruling comes a day before Van Dyke is set to be sentenced on murder and aggravated battery charges in a separate case.
Stephenson took about an hour to announce her findings to a packed courtroom, reading from a 28-page order as she took apart the prosecution’s case piece by piece, finding nothing that convinced her that the officers were guilty of anything.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/t...y-jason-van-dyke-laquan-mcdonald/?jwsource=cl
The judge took issue with the prosecutor’s contention that dashboard camera footage of the 2014 shooting objectively contradicted officers’ accounts that McDonald was moving aggressively at Van Dyke when Van Dyke opened fire.
“It is not as simple as looking at the reports in comparison to what is depicted on the video,” the judge said. “It has been established that the recovered videos do not show the vantage point of Van Dyke, Walsh, or others who were either facing or to the side of McDonald.”
When the judge finished reading off her ruling, a burst of applause came from the courtroom gallery, a crowd that was at least half comprised of fellow officers and supporters of the three cops on trial, including Fraternal Order of Police President Kevin Graham.
Gaffney’s reinstatement to the police department was “imminent,” police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Thursday evening. Gaffney had been suspended after the indictment was announced in July 2017, but will be reassigned to “operational duties”— meaning he will not be on desk duty.Walsh and March retired from the department in 2016 after the city Inspector General said the pair should be fired for their roles in the investigation.
The Rev. Marvin Hunter, a great uncle of McDonald, frowned as he listened to the judge’s decision.
“To say these men are not guilty is to say Jason Van Dyke is not guilty,” Hunter said in the courthouse lobby. “This is not justice.”
The Rev. Marvin Hunter, the great uncle of Laquan McDonald, stands before a bank of reporters’ microphones and blasts a judge’s decision to acquit three Chicago police officers charged with covering up for Jason Van Dyke in McDonald’s murder. | Nader Issa/Sun-Times
One of the officers, Walsh, standing beside his lawyer, Todd Pugh, in the courthouse lobby, said the 18 months that have passed since his indictment have been “heart-wrenching, heartbreaking for my family.”
Walsh and March left the courthouse without answering questions.
Pugh praised Stephenson for her “courage and integrity” in acquitting the three officers despite intense media scrutiny on the case, which he said was slanted against the three police defendants.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/t...y-jason-van-dyke-laquan-mcdonald/?jwsource=cl
Graham warned that the prosecutions of police officers have a “chilling effect” on officers, and urged the Chicago Police Board to consider Stephenson’s finding of not-guilty in the conspiracy case as it weighs proceedings against four other officers who face discipline over statements they made about the shooting.
The not-guilty finding “says there are judges out there who are going to follow the law and are going to listen to the facts, and not the wrong media accounts and what goes out in the community,” Graham said.
Assistant Special Prosecutor Ron Safer said simply prosecuting the officers was a knock to the so-called code of silence.
“This case was a case where the code of silence was on trial,” Safer said. “I think the next police officer who thinks about writing a false police report is going to think twice now that this Special Prosecutor Patricia Brown Holmes has set the precedent that you can be prosecuted for that.”
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/t...y-jason-van-dyke-laquan-mcdonald/?jwsource=cl
Community activist and 5th ward aldermanic candidate William Calloway said he was “devastated” to hear the ruling but was done repeating his same call to action.
“We’re not gonna protest and take to the streets” Calloway said. “We’re gonna go to the polls.”
Stephenson began Thursday by quoting the indictment against the three officers at length and then going through what the prosecutors had to legally show to prove each charge.
As she delivered her findings, it became more and more clear that Stephenson found nothing persuasive in the prosecution’s case.
Stephenson called into question the credibility of a key prosecution witness, Officer Dora Fontaine, noting she “tried to minimize” McDonald’s behavior before he was shot in 2014 but later admitted she told the FBI, the state’s attorney and the inspector general that McDonald was moving closer to police, waving or “swaying” the knife, and making “attacking movements.”
A critical dispute between the prosecution and defense was whether McDonald was a dangerous teen who presented a real threat to police or in the end, a victim.
Stephenson made it clear where she landed, saying it was “undisputed and undeniable” that McDonald was an armed offender who continued to walk toward more populous areas the night he was shot.
Prosecutors repeatedly compared what was in police reports to what the police dashcam video showed. But Stephenson said the case wasn’t as simple as that. The judge noted that two people can view the same event and describe it differently, but that doesn’t mean either is lying. Errors in reports are not crimes, the judge said.
Stephenson’s decision, which the judge had twice delayed, comes the day before Van Dyke is set to be sentenced for second-degree murder and aggravated battery charges in the shooting of McDonald.
Like Van Dyke’s murder trial, the conspiracy case against his three fellow officers relied heavily on the now infamous video of the 2014 shooting.
But the case that Special Prosecutor Patricia Brown Holmes brought against March, Walsh and Gaffney outlined a coverup that began in the hours and months after the shooting and continued even after the final report that ruled Van Dyke’s use of deadly force was justified.
March was the lead detective on the McDonald case, and his final report cleared Van Dyke in the shooting — a report which the special prosecution team said was filled with statements from Walsh, Gaffney and other officers that were contradicted by video from a police dashboard camera that recorded the shooting. Walsh, Van Dyke’s partner, had been standing next to Van Dyke when he opened fire. Gaffney was one of the first officers to encounter McDonald the night of the shooting.
The charges against the three officers, for upholding what the special prosecutor has called a “code of silence,” has attracted less attention than the murder charges against Van Dyke. The charges are unprecedented, said civil rights attorney G. Flint Taylor, who was part of a group of activists who petitioned the chief judge to appoint a special prosecutor to conduct an independent probe into how the CPD handled the investigation into the 2014 shooting.
“I think there were some interesting issues in this case for those like myself, who know how the department has operated since the Burge era and long before,” Taylor said. “This was a case that, for the first time I’ve heard of, has gone after police officers who cover for one of their own.”
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/t...y-jason-van-dyke-laquan-mcdonald/?jwsource=cl
Holmes, a former federal prosecutor and Cook County judge, took a year to investigate the shooting before announcing charges against March, Gaffney and Walsh in July 2017.
In her closing argument, Holmes had framed the evidence as a simple contrast of the narratives in the reports March and other officers filed — casting McDonald as an aggressive, knife-wielding subject who was coming at Walsh and Van Dyke when he was gunned down — and the images on dashboard camera footage from a police SUV that showed the teen moving away from the officers when the first shots were fired.
But the judge, in the end, wasn’t buying it.
As Stephenson stepped away after announcing her finding, Walsh’s lawyer, veteran defense attorney Thomas Breen’s baritone voice could be heard over the chatter from the courtroom gallery.
“Good day, your honor,” he said.
