Officers Involved in the Laquan McDonald Case Were Indicted This Week. The Larger Fight for Police Reform That Will Protect Communities Remains.
For more than a year after 17-year-old Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times in 14 seconds on a Chicago street by Officer Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago Police Department claimed that McDonald had been assaulting officers Van Dyke, Joseph Walsh, and Thomas Gaffney, forcing Van Dyke to step in and kill him. The police report stated that McDonald was lunging toward Van Dyke with a knife when Van Dyke shot him, and that Van Dyke, Walsh, and Gaffney were “victims” of McDonald. Detective David March, who was assigned to investigate the shooting immediately after it occurred, ultimately deemed it justified. I would say it was the ultimate betrayal of the trust between the police and the communities they are supposed to protect, but that betrayal happens every day in this nation when police kill unarmed Black men.
“Do you actually think the police got together and made this up?” This is the rhetorical question people from Black and brown communities are always asked when they claim that police officers lie to protect each other. It is usually asked with at least a hint of sarcasm – we all know the police don’t do that. It is asked by judges, prosecutors, criminal defense lawyers, and community members. And it was asked of the McDonald family.
Then came the video. McDonald veers away from, not toward, the police. He was not slashing his knife at Van Dyke, Walsh, or Gaffney when Van Dyke began firing his weapon. The shooting continued as Mr. McDonald lay crumpled on the street. One might ask why it took prosecutors a year to charge Van Dyke with murder when the video so clearly contradicts the police account. One might ask why the “police as victims” story was the official version of the Chicago police department until the day the video was released more than one year later – especially since they had the video the entire time. (The shooting was on October 20, 2014, and the video was released on November 24, 2015.)
On Tuesday, more than two and a half years after McDonald’s killing, March, Walsh, and Gaffney were indicted on state felony counts of conspiracy, official misconduct, and obstruction of justice. They are accused of providing false reports about how McDonald behaved when they encountered him and for working together to avoid interviewing at least three witnesses whose accounts of events would have conflicted with the official police version. March is also accused of failing “, identify, and preserve physical evidence ... including video and photographic evidence.”
These men were not rogue rookie officers. Detective March is a police veteran of more than 30 years. Officer Walsh, who was Officer Van Dyke’s partner on the night of the shooting, had spent about 20 years as an officer, and Officer Gaffney had approximately two decades of experience on the force. They were steeped in the culture of the Chicago Police Department. It was this knowledge of and confidence in that culture that emboldened them to cover up an execution and believe they could get away with it. This belief can only come from knowing it had been done before.
Despite this indictment, crucial questions remain. As many as four backed up Van Dyke’s account that McDonald had moved menacingly toward him with a knife and swung the weapon. So far, those officers have not been charged with a crime.
Getting answers is critical as both the Department of Justice and Chicago’s Mayor Emanuel try to back away from court oversight of the police department. Yet there is absolute silence on these developments from the White House and the Attorney General. Apparently, a wide-spread conspiracy of as many as eight Chicago police officers trying to cover up a murder is not significant enough to merit comment. Attorney General Sessions has said he does not want to tell police how to do their jobs. If this doesn’t change his mind, what will?
Patricia Brown Holmes, the Special Prosecutor in the McDonald case, said on Wednesday, “These defendants lied about what occurred during a police-involved shooting in order to prevent independent criminal investigators from learning the truth.” She went on to say “The indictment makes clear that these defendants did more than merely obey an unofficial ‘code of silence’… [R]ather that they lied about what occurred to prevent independent criminal investigators from learning the truth.”
The Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma taught us that you can tell a Black man is a “bad dude” from a helicopter, when all you can see is that the man is Black and has his hands up in the air. The Philando Castile in Minnesota taught us that if you are Black and think that the Second Amendment gives you the right to carry a firearm, you’d be wrong. You can be shot and killed if you tell a police officer you have a gun and that you are not pulling it out as you get the license the officer commanded you to produce.
In 1992, Ice Cube released an album called “The Predator” with a song about a traffic stop gone bad. The name of the song is “Who Got the Camera?” It ends like this: “Nowadays police are getting badder – cause if you had a camera, it really wouldn’t matter.” Twenty-five years later, we are proving him more right than wrong.
I hope the indictments in Chicago result in a lesson very different from the recent lessons out of Minnesota and Oklahoma.
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Prisoners' Rights
Criminal Law Reform
ACLU Sues Bureau of Prisons for Keeping People in Prison Longer Than the Law AllowsACLU Sues Bureau of Prisons for Keeping People in Prison Longer Than the Law Allows
WASHINGTON – A federal lawsuit brought today by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of D.C., and Jenner & Block LLP challenges the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for unlawfully incarcerating people longer than the law allows under the First Step Act. The lawsuit contends that the BOP’s failure to implement the First Step Act according to its plain language violates the rights of thousands of people who should be returning to their communities and rebuilding their lives but instead remain incarcerated. Signed into law in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump, the bipartisan First Step Act was designed to reduce the population in federal prisons, reform extreme sentencing laws, and provide programming and reentry transition services to people in prison. Central to the First Step Act is a system of earned time credits, which allows people in prison to earn time off their sentences and time out of prison by participating in rehabilitation programs. Through the First Step Act, Congress unambiguously ordered BOP to move people out of prison when they meet certain requirements to use their earned time credits. Instead of faithfully following the mandatory law, BOP adopted a regulation treating the law as optional. As a result, thousands of people, who should already be back in their communities and with their families, remain in prison. “Every extra unlawful day our clients spend in prison is a serious injustice,” said Emma Andersson, deputy director of the Criminal Law Reform Project at the ACLU. “It is egregious that the Bureau of Prisons is imprisoning people for months longer than the law allows. The government must follow through on its legal obligation to get people out of prison on time and back into their communities, where they belong.” Additional comments below from: Vanessa Crowe, plaintiff: “Time is what I owed for my wrongdoing, and I have paid my time. But I should not have to spend more time in prison than the law allows. I often reflect on what I will miss during the months after when I should be out of prison. I will miss work and lose out on wages that would help me get back on my feet. I could be a tax paying citizen instead of a burden on society. But most of all, I will miss more precious time with my family. My family and I are ready to tum the page on this period in our lives — we are all ready to start a new life, a life with purpose, hope, and healing together. I want to start that life when I am legally entitled to start it-not five months later.” Arthur Spitzer, senior counsel at ACLU of D.C.: “There’s no excuse for the Bureau of Prisons to pretend not to understand Congress’s clear command that people who have earned the right to early release must be released. This law has been on the books for six years. The Bureau of Prisons has had plenty of time to understand it. Law enforcers should obey the law.” Betsy Henthorne, partner at Jenner & Block: “It has been six years since the First Step Act was signed, but despite Congress’s clear directives, the Bureau of Prisons continues to hold thousands of people in prison longer than the law allows. We should and do expect better—it’s past time for the BOP to ensure that those who have earned their release are able to return home to their families and communities according to the law Congress passed.” -
Maryland Supreme CourtDec 2024
Criminal Law Reform
Roland Branch v. State of MarylandRoland Branch v. State of Maryland
This petition to the Supreme Court of Maryland asked the court to reconsider its adherence to Whren v. U.S., 517 U.S. 806 (1996), which declared that a traffic stop undertaken for pretextual reasons does not violate the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution so long as the police have probable cause to believe that a traffic violation occurred. The ACLU, alongside the ACLU of Maryland, filed an amicus brief in support of the defendant’s petition, in which the ACLU argued that the court should take up the question of whether pretextual stops violate the Maryland Constitution. In September 2024, the Court denied the petition. -
North Carolina Supreme CourtDec 2024
Criminal Law Reform
State v. WrightState v. Wright
This case in the North Carolina Supreme Court involves the question of whether the police violated the U.S. Constitution when they searched the defendant, Mr. Wright’s, backpack even after he repeatedly said no to the search requests. The ACLU alongside the ACLU of North Carolina filed an amicus brief arguing that the search was unconstitutional because Mr. Wright’s eventual “consent” was the result of police coercion. Our brief urges the court to consider the totality of the circumstances that make one more susceptible to coercion, including race and poverty. -
News & CommentaryDec 2024
Criminal Law Reform
Disability Rights
Incarceration Should Not be a Death Sentence for Individuals Who Use OpioidsIncarceration Should Not be a Death Sentence for Individuals Who Use Opioids
New litigation centered on increasing access to substance-use disorder treatment in jails and prisons is helping to reduce mortality rates among incarcerated individuals.