The video, shot from a surveillance camera on the corner, doesn't offer the same immediacy as the dashcam footage of McDonald’s killing. Around 5:30 in the clip below, Chatman can be seen running, with Toth in pursuit. Then Fry fires. As a firetruck arrives (around 6:30), Toth can be seen standing over Chatman’s body, which lies in the street near the curb. Lawyers for Chatman’s family said Toth had his foot on the boy’s neck.

The Chatman case provides just the latest example of a police department where officers seem to shoot unarmed civilians of color with no repercussions. And as the Tribune story shows, questions about the McDonald case will continue to haunt the mayor's office.

Emanuel’s critics charge that he tried to bury the video of that shooting—which showed Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting McDonald repeatedly in the back and on the ground—for political reasons. Emanuel, a Democrat, faced a challenging reelection campaign in 2015, having alienated many progressives by closing schools and failing to prevent a crime spike. The city painstakingly fought to keep the video private. On February 24, Emanuel failed to win enough votes to keep his seat outright, and he was forced into a runoff election. Three days later, lawyers for the McDonald family began talking to city lawyers about a settlement.

On April 7, Emanuel triumphed in the runoff, winning a second term, and eight days later the city council quickly approved a settlement with the McDonald family. A judge finally ordered the video’s release on November 19. The footage created a national uproar and instigated marches in the streets of the Windy City. Van Dyke has been charged with first-degree murder. Several days later, Emanuel removed his police chief, Garry McCarthy, in a move that critics both welcomed and derided as scapegoating.

Emanuel says he only saw the video when it was made public, and only came to understand the details of the case at the end of March—thus exculpating him for any political motive. The Tribune casts doubt on that claim:

But interviews, official city calendars and emails show in both cases the mayor's closest aides and City Hall attorneys knew much earlier than that. Emanuel's top staffers became keenly aware the McDonald shooting could become a legal and political quagmire in December 2014—more than three months before the mayor has said he was fully briefed on the issue. And lawyers for McDonald's family informed Emanuel's Law Department in March that police officers' version of what happened differed dramatically from the infamous shooting video—more than eight months before the mayor said he found out about the discrepancy and well after he agreed to settle the case for $5 million.

In a statement to the Tribune, Emanuel’s spokesman argued these meetings were routine, and wouldn’t have involved the McDonald case: “What you’re talking about are routine meetings between the mayor and police superintendent on crime reduction strategies, and the mayor and the corporation counsel on a wide range of legal matters.”