Chicago Mayor Emanuel says he's sorry about police shooting

Aamer Madhani | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Feds to investigate Chicago Police over shooting Attorney General Loretta Lynch says the Justice Department will investigate the patterns and practices of the Chicago Police Department and its use of deadly force. (Dec. 7)

CHICAGO — Embattled Mayor Rahm Emanuel offered a plaintive apology Wednesday for his responsibility in the city’s handling of the shooting death of a black teenager by a Chicago police officer.

Emanuel said the city is at a “defining moment” and that Chicago needs to go through a “painful but honest reckoning” not just in the case of last year’s shooting death of Laquan McDonald, 17, but “over decades” of mounting public distrust of the city's police department. He vowed "complete and total reform" of the police department.

“The first step in that journey is my step, and I’m sorry,” Emanuel said in an emotional address to Chicago's City Council. "What happened on Oct. 20, 2014 should have never happened. Supervision and leadership in the police department and oversight agencies that were in place failed. And that has to change."

The mayor, a former three-term U.S. congressman and chief of staff to President Obama, has been under fire since the city was forced by court order more than two weeks ago to release police dashboard video of the shooting death ofMcDonald. The teenager was shot 16 times by officer Jason Van Dyke.

Protesters who have taken to the streets of Chicago have called for both the mayor and Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez to step down in the wake of the video's release. The Justice Department also announced Monday that it was launching a patterns and practices investigation of the police department.

Police and police union officials said after the shooting thatMcDonald, who was holding a knife and had PCP in his system when he was killed, lunged at Van Dyke. But the police video showed that McDonald was veering away from Van Dyke when the officer fired. Van Dyke continued to fire for about 13 seconds after McDonald was on the ground, the video shows.

At least five police officers who were at the scene backed up much of Van Dyke's account in statements to investigators after the shooting.

Prosecutors announced they were charging Van Dyke on the same day that the video was released by the city, more than 13 months after McDonald was gunned down on a city street.

Emanuel long resisted releasing the dashcam video, citing ongoing federal and state criminal probes. He even remained unwilling to release the video after the city council approved a $5 million payout to McDonald's family. He was finally forced to make the video public last month after an independent journalist successfully sued the city for the video under the state's Freedom of Information law.

Following the video's release, Emanuel fired Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy after initially resisting calls to do just that. He also ousted the head of the Independent Police Review Authority, which is tasked with investigating serious allegations of police misconduct. Since 2007, the agency has found only two police shootings unjustified among more than 400 cases it has investigated.

"These facts defy credibility," Emanuel said.

Emanuel's standing in the city has taken a beating since the release of the video.

The city has no statute for recalling a mayor. A state representative, La Shawn Ford, on Wednesday introduced legislation in Illinois General Assembly to create a mechanism that could lead to the ouster of his fell Democrat Emanuel.

A poll published Tuesday shows that more than half of Chicagoans believe Emanuel should resign as a result of his handling of the Laquan McDonald video.

More than 51% of likely voters said Emanuel should resign, while 29% said he should not step down, according to the poll commissioned by The Insider, a newsletter published by the Illinois Observer.

"I know that I personally have a lot of work to do to win back the public's trust and that words are not enough," Emanuel said.

In the nearly 40-minute speech, Emanuel vowed the city would not “shrink from the challenge” of making reforms needed to bolster public trust in a department that has been beset for years by allegations of torturing and beating suspects and targeting the city's black and Latino residents.

He also said the city's police leadership must address the police culture's "code of silence" that has led to an entire department's reputation being tarnished by a few bad actors.

"No officer should be allowed to behave as if they are above the law just because they are responsible for upholding the law," Emanuel said. "Permitting and protecting even the smallest acts of abuse by a tiny fraction of our officers leads to a culture where extreme acts of abuse are more likely, just like what happened to Laquan McDonald."

The city has spent more than $500 million over the last decade on payouts and legal fees to mostly African-American men who have alleged abuse by Chicago police officers.

The Emanuel administration also established a reparations program earlier this year to benefit victims of torture under former Chicago police commander Jon Burge. The officers used electrical shock, burning and mock executions to elicit confessions from suspects, mostly African-American, from the early 1970s through the early 1990s.

The city also came to an agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union earlier this year on fixing its use of controversial “stop and frisk” searches in which police targeted African Americans for 72% of searches.

"Laquan McDonald's death was totally avoidable," Emanuel said. "Our only choice is to do everything in our power to right that wrong."

Chicago is the latest American city that has been forced to deal with long-simmering distrust of police departments in the African-American community following the release of video that shows police using deadly force. Over the last 18 months, Cleveland, New York and North Charleston, S.C., are among cities that have faced outrage from the public following the release of disturbing videos showing fatal use of force by police officers.

"When African-American mothers, fathers and grandparents feel it is necessary to train their sons and daughters to behave with extreme caution when they are pulled over by police and have both hands visible on the wheel, what does that say?" Emanuel said.