What happened in the 13 months between McDonald’s killing and the video’s release?
As the Chicago Reporter summarized Tuesday, a great deal. It took a still-secret city whistleblower, an autopsy report, and a $5-million city settlement with the McDonald family for the public to have any sense that what happened on October 20 did not match what the police originally reported. Then, it took multiple lawsuits—filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, The Wall Street Journal, and a freelance journalist named Brandon Smith—for the video of the killing to finally be made public under Illinois’s Freedom of Information Act.
In other words, it took a highly non-standard series of events—a whistleblower and many lawsuits—for Chicagoans to learn of, and then get to see, the incident. (As recently as November 13, Rahm Emanuel, the city’s mayor, refused to put a hard date on the video’s release.) If a similar incident were to happen, and it was captured on a body cam, what would it take to make it public—another whistleblower?
The media is making this into a white cop shooting a black teen without a gun, which is an issue no doubt. But in my opinion they are trying to stymie to real facts, that this city has been infected from the top for a long time, and that poo poo just rolls down hill to the guys on the front lines.
I get that everybody wants to flame Rat. But our politicians makes stuff up all the time, it is basically expected. Why do we expect some of public servants to be 100% honest, while others are expected to not be?
As the Chicago Reporter summarized Tuesday, a great deal. It took a still-secret city whistleblower, an autopsy report, and a $5-million city settlement with the McDonald family for the public to have any sense that what happened on October 20 did not match what the police originally reported. Then, it took multiple lawsuits—filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, The Wall Street Journal, and a freelance journalist named Brandon Smith—for the video of the killing to finally be made public under Illinois’s Freedom of Information Act.
In other words, it took a highly non-standard series of events—a whistleblower and many lawsuits—for Chicagoans to learn of, and then get to see, the incident. (As recently as November 13, Rahm Emanuel, the city’s mayor, refused to put a hard date on the video’s release.) If a similar incident were to happen, and it was captured on a body cam, what would it take to make it public—another whistleblower?
The media is making this into a white cop shooting a black teen without a gun, which is an issue no doubt. But in my opinion they are trying to stymie to real facts, that this city has been infected from the top for a long time, and that poo poo just rolls down hill to the guys on the front lines.
I get that everybody wants to flame Rat. But our politicians makes stuff up all the time, it is basically expected. Why do we expect some of public servants to be 100% honest, while others are expected to not be?
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