THE IMAGES, released by Chicago police on November 24th, are appalling. A young man, 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, jogs along the middle of a road at night and slows to a brisk walk as he sees two police cars that have stopped ahead of him. He swerves away from the two policemen who emerge from one of them, then briefly turns to them; whereupon one fires, and the young man staggers and falls to the ground.
Spasmodic clouds of dust rise as more bullets—making 16 in all—are pumped into his writhing body. Having emptied his entire magazine, Officer Jason Van Dyke, it has since transpired, made to reload. His partner suggested he stop firing. Mr McDonald, who was black and had been spotted earlier that evening trying to break into parked cars, and was carrying a small knife, died in an ambulance soon after.
Mr McDonald was killed on October 20th, 2014, barely two months after the explosion of protest that followed the killing of another black teenager, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri. His death was less widely publicised, partly because investigators in Chicago had sought to delay release of the video, which was filmed from...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/1Tg3ZTy
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