Chicago Cop Who Fatally Shot Laquan McDonald Pleads Not Guilty
A Chicago police officer had pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the shooting of a black teenager, an incident caught on video that has led to protests and calls for the resignation of Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
In a Chicago courtroom, officer Jason Van Dyke formally pleaded not guilty Tuesday to six charges of murder and one charge of official misconduct in the 2014 death of Laquan McDonald, 17.
Emanuel, the city’s first Jewish mayor, is set to return from Cuba later Tuesday. He was on a family vacation that was to last until Saturday but announced Monday he was cutting it short after the shooting deaths of two more black Chicagoans by his police force.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO