Several months ago, I expressed doubt that Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago police officer who shot an eighteen year-old African-American male sixteen times in the back, would ever see the inside of a prison cell.
Given the numbing regularity that cops are exonerated in such cases, I had little reason to think otherwise. But justice prevailed, and Van Dyke was found guilty yesterday of second-degree murder and sixteen counts of aggravated battery—a count for each bullet.
This isn't a celebration. Perhaps 'relieved' would have been a better word choice for the title of this post. I wonder if Van Dyke had it to do over again, would he have reacted differently? He has to know that as a former cop in prison, his life will be very difficult. I pity him.
Yet it has become a cliche to say cops have tough jobs. We all know that. As officers of the peace, their job is to de-escalate situations, not escalate them.
And the behavior exhibited by the responding officers, from Van Dyke's over-reaction to the conspiracy of the cover up to the stream of lies about what transpired on Pulaski Road that night doesn't speak well of the Chicago Police Department.
Given the numbing regularity that cops are exonerated in such cases, I had little reason to think otherwise. But justice prevailed, and Van Dyke was found guilty yesterday of second-degree murder and sixteen counts of aggravated battery—a count for each bullet.
This isn't a celebration. Perhaps 'relieved' would have been a better word choice for the title of this post. I wonder if Van Dyke had it to do over again, would he have reacted differently? He has to know that as a former cop in prison, his life will be very difficult. I pity him.
Yet it has become a cliche to say cops have tough jobs. We all know that. As officers of the peace, their job is to de-escalate situations, not escalate them.
And the behavior exhibited by the responding officers, from Van Dyke's over-reaction to the conspiracy of the cover up to the stream of lies about what transpired on Pulaski Road that night doesn't speak well of the Chicago Police Department.
To be sure, Laquan McDonald was a troubled young man with only a faint sense of direction and purpose. He is another victim of the most hideous incubator of young lives the United States can offer—the ghetto.
But that is not in and of itself a crime.
As is the nature of things, we don't hear about the school bus that safely delivered two dozen schoolchildren to their homes. Or the construction crew that successfully secured dozens of support beams to the framework of a sixty-story high-rise.
Or of the cops who routinely arrest the bad guys while safeguarding the good ones.
But like surgery, when police work goes wrong it is often fatal.
Consider the cost of this event. A young man dead. A cop's life destroyed. Families left with a giant hole at their center. Police who must routinely confront the worst our society has to offer left with a chip on their shoulder.
Consider the cost of this event. A young man dead. A cop's life destroyed. Families left with a giant hole at their center. Police who must routinely confront the worst our society has to offer left with a chip on their shoulder.
The best we can hope for is that this proves to be a watershed moment. One that shines a light on the ocean of men in our ghettos who have little to live for, and the effectiveness of the police who encounter them every day.
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