Emanuel To Discuss Police Misconduct In Speech To City Council
CHICAGO (CBS) -- In a rare speech before the City Council on Wednesday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel was expected to go into more detail about his plans to rebuild public trust in a Police Department under intense scrutiny for its use of force and other alleged misconduct.
The mayor will speak to aldermen about police conduct in a special address at City Hall, and lay out a plan to change how the Police Department operates.
The mayor has taken responsibility for the public uproar and distrust in government and police in the wake of the release of video showing a Chicago police officer shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times last year. Officer Jason Van Dyke has been charged with first-degree murder.
Since then, Emanuel has forced Police Supt. Garry McCarthy to resign, fired the head of the Independent Police Review Authority, announced plans to expand use of officer body cameras, and formed a task force to review the department's system of training, accountability, and oversight.
After initially resisting calls for a Justice Department civil rights investigation of the department's policies and practices regarding the use of force, Emanuel later welcomed the probe.
Those steps have done little to quell public outrage over the department's use of force. As the mayor addresses aldermen Wednesday morning, protesters will gather at City Hall in the wake of the release of another controversial police video, this one showing officers wrestling 38-year-old Philip Coleman to the ground as he was in a cell, repeatedly using a Taser on him, striking him with a baton, and dragging him out of the cell in handcuffs.
Coleman later died due to a reaction to an antipsychotic drug, but his autopsy showed he suffered dozens of bruises and scrapes all over his body.
The officers in that case were initially cleared by the Independent Police Review authority, but IPRA has reopened the case.
Ahead of his speech to the City Council, the mayor was a guest on WTTW's "Chicago Tonight," and said it's time to end the police code of silence, an apparent reference to several officers who witnessed the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald, and reported he swung a knife at Officer Van Dyke, even though video of the shooting shows McDonald walking away from police when he was shot. Critics have said police tried to sweep McDonald's death under the rug.
"The culture that we refer to as the thin blue line, etc.; you are asked to uphold the law, not act like you're above the law," Emanuel said. "If you see something, and say nothing, you're actually adding to a culture; and it was about a colleague, I understand that, but there's professional standards."
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The mayor also said he should have done more to make sure details of the McDonald investigation were made public.
"Not giving the information and making it public built distrust and suspicion; and, in my view, while this practice has existed, I should have challenged that practice," he said. "It wouldn't surprise me that people would be upset. They've elected me to be responsible, and to be held accountable."
Emanuel's office has provided an advance excerpt from the mayor's address to the City Council:
"Each time when we confronted these issues in the past, Chicago only went far enough to clear our consciences and move on. This time will and must be different. It will be a bumpy road, a painful process, and a long journey, but we will not hesitate in pursuit of what is right."
In addition to the protest at City Hall on Wednesday, another demonstration will be held at Daley Plaza, where activists will call on the mayor and Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez to resign for their handling of the McDonald case.
Both have made it clear they have no plans to step down.
