Chicago Police Union Stands With Cop Who Killed Laquan McDonald
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There is no question that Laquan McDonald is dead and no question about who killed him. We know he was down after the first shot and 15 more were fired. But the main Chicago police union is standing by Van Dyke.
On its website, the Chicago lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), has posted a bail fund appeal for the officer, Jason Van Dyke, who is accused of shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times just six seconds after emerging from his patrol car on a street in Chicago on Oct. 20, 2014. An earlier link on the FOP’s front page to a GoFundMe campaign was removed after the fundraising site said it violated a policy against its use by criminal defendants.
The FOP also is paying the lawyer representing Van Dyke, Daniel Herbert, himself a former FOP member the union pays to represent Chicago cops in misconduct cases. Funding such a defense is a common practice among U.S. police unions.
The FOP’s support for Van Dyke appears to have support within the union, according to email and phone interviews Reuters conducted with a number of white and black active-duty and retired cops, as well as union and black police association officials.
They stopped short of defending Van Dyke’s actions – which were caught in a graphic video made public this week – but did say it was important to place them in the context of a racially divided city beset by violence.
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