CHICAGO — Chicago was calm Wednesday, a day after the release of a graphic video showing the fatal shooting of a black teenager by a white police officer who was charged with murder, a sharp contrast to the outbursts of violence in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, after the deaths of black people by police.
Authorities in the city of 2.7 million people had braced for violence, but peaceful demonstrations so far have led to just five arrests with more protests planned for at the Chicago Thanksgiving Day parade on Thursday and another on Friday.
Protests at Chicago City Hall and the criminal courthouse were sparsely attended Wednesday, and a small protest, with fewer than a dozen people, had begun at evening rush hour in downtown Chicago.
Prosecutors announced first-degree murder charges Tuesday against Officer Jason Van Dyke, 37, in the Oct. 20, 2014, shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. Van Dyke shot McDonald 16 times and started shooting just six seconds after emerging from his patrol car, emptying his gun at McDonald and preparing to reload.
Van Dyke’s attorney, Daniel Herbert, said on CNN that a dashboard camera video, released by the city Tuesday, 13 months after the shooting, was not an indicator of his client’s guilt. He said Van Dyke arrived on a street on the southwest side of Chicago 18 minutes after a suspect carrying a knife was reported to have threatened businesses and vandalized police cruisers.
“Video by its nature is two-dimensional. It distorts images. So what appears to be clear on a video sometimes is not always that clear,” Herbert said. He said Van Dyke “truly was in fear for his life as well as the lives of his fellow police officers.”
Authorities said McDonald was carrying a pocket knife and had the hallucinogenic drug PCP in his system.
Van Dyke was being held in protective custody at a hospital facility away from the general population of Cook County Jail, the county sheriff’s office said. It said it could not disclose any medical reasons.
Five people were arrested during protests Tuesday night, police said, but on Wednesday a felony charge was dropped against Malcolm X. London, 22, a Chicago poet and activist accused of striking a police officer.
Two of the best-known candidates in the presidential elections commented on the Chicago shooting charges.
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush said on CNN that while rising violence in big cities makes it hard to be a police officer, “when they do what appears to have happened here, they should be charged, as was the case in this case.”
Democratic Party front-runner Hillary Clinton said in a statement that as criminal charges proceed, “We also have to grapple as a country with broader questions about ensuring that all our citizens and communities are protected and respected.”
She said there were police officers all over the United States “honorably doing their duty, demonstrating how to protect the public without resorting to unnecessary force.”
The release of the video has been controversial because it took so long. It was made public only after an independent journalist filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The police department had argued that releasing the video would taint multiple investigations.
Members of the Chicago City Council’s black caucus demanded the resignation of Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy.
“We want McCarthy gone. We want new leadership,” Alderman Roderick Sawyer said at a news conference.
Alderman Howard Brookins said the council, which signed off on a $5 million city settlement with McDonald’s family even before a lawsuit was filed, was misled about the content of the video. Brookins said council members were told something was “fuzzy, something gray” about it.
Van Dyke is the first Chicago police officer to face a murder charge for an on-duty incident in decades. Among the comments posted on the Chicago Police Department’s Facebook page were some asking people not to judge all officers by the actions of one.
The Fraternal Order of Police Chicago Lodge 7 union is raising money for Van Dyke to be released on bond. At a brief court hearing Tuesday, a judge denied bond for Van Dyke.