Chicago Calm a Day After Release of Video of Police Shooting Teenager

Chicago: The white Chicago policeman charged with murdering a black teenager he shot 16 times spent his first full day in custody on Wednesday in a jail hospital ward, but calm prevailed in the city despite fears of civil unrest over a video of the slaying.

Five people were arrested late on Tuesday in mostly peaceful demonstrations following release of the graphic footage showing 17-year-old Laquan McDonald being gunned down in the middle of a street on October 20, 2014, as he was walking away from police who had confronted him.

A new round of protests on Wednesday at Chicago's criminal courthouse and City Hall were sparsely attended, although members of the City Council's black caucus again demanded the resignation of Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy.

"We want McCarthy gone. We want new leadership," Alderman Roderick Sawyer told a news conference.

Critics of the police department and Cook County prosecutors have questioned why it took investigators 13 months to bring charges in the case and to release police video footage of the McDonald slaying.

The tape, recorded from a dashboard-mounted camera in one of the patrol cars arriving on the scene, was made public on Tuesday under court order hours after the officer who fired the fatal volley of gunshots, Jason Van Dyke, was charged with first-degree murder.

Van Dyke, 37, is the first Chicago police officer charged with murder over an on-duty exercise of lethal force in decades. If convicted, he could face 20 years to life in prison. He was denied bail at a hearing Tuesday.

President Barack Obama, who hails from Chicago and began his political career there, said on Facebook he was "deeply disturbed" by the video but "personally grateful to the people of my hometown for keeping protests peaceful."

Investigation of the case comes amid a national debate on race and police tactics sparked by a series of high-profile killings of unarmed black men at the hands of mainly white law enforcement in several U.S. cities in the past two years, leading to widespread demonstrations and some violent unrest.

PROTECTIVE CUSTODY

Van Dyke began his incarceration under protective custody at a hospital facility segregated from the general population of Cook County Jail, the county sheriff's office said. No information was given about his medical condition.

Van Dyke's lawyer, Daniel Herbert, told CNN that the video 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. Van Dyke, he said, "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 at the time.

The video shows McDonald jogging away from patrol vehicles pursuing him from behind, then veering off diagonally at a walk as two more officers, one of them Van Dyke, pull up in a squad car ahead of him.

The officers are seen emerging from their vehicle and drawing their weapons while advancing toward McDonald, who continues to move away. Within seconds he is shot, spins and crumples to the ground, his body jerking as he is hit by more gunshots.

Prosecutors said 16 rounds fired by Van Dyke struck McDonald as the officer unloaded his weapon at the youth.

MORE RALLIES PLANNED

Authorities in Chicago, a city of 2.7 million people, had girded for the possibility of civil unrest on a scale seen in cities such as Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, but the city remained mostly tranquil by Wednesday night.

A group of between 100 and 200 protesters began a march at the start of the evening rush-hour in Chicago's busy downtown area, and were still on the streets more than five hours later despite the onset of rain.

The racially mixed crowd chanted "16 shots" and "Hands up, don't shoot." There were unconfirmed social media accounts of some arrests but police declined to confirm or deny the reports.

Another protest planned earlier in the evening farther south outside police headquarters fizzled out after only a couple of dozen people turned out.

Additional rallies were planned for Chicago's annual Thanksgiving Day parade on Thursday and another for Friday.

On Wednesday, authorities dismissed a felony charge against Malcolm X. London, 22, a Chicago poet and activist accused of striking a police officer during Tuesday's protests.

The video at the center of the case 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.

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 contents of the video. Brookins said council members were told something was "fuzzy, something grey" about it.