Van Dyke

Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke was the officer who shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2014. He's been condemned by his department and is awaiting trial for first degree murder, but the police union still has his back.

Officer Van Dyke has been charged with first-degree murder and has been suspended without pay while awaiting trial. In the meantime, Van Dyke has been hired by the Fraternal Order of Police union as a janitor, and many people aren’t happy about it. The head of the FOP, Dean Angelo, confirmed to the Chicago Sun-Times that Van Dyke was working a $12-an-hour job with the union because he couldn’t find work. [...] “We’ve probably had 100 people in no-pay status who we got jobs or hired at the hall. This is nothing new.”

Well, at least they're not giving him a gun. I presume, anyway. Still, the news that the police union still refuses to cut Van Dyke lose—even after the horrific dashcam video of the incident was made public, last November, showing McDonald posing no immediate threat to Van Dyke before being shot 16 times and killed—has been taken by some activists to be yet another insult in a long string of them.

"Not only is it insulting and outrageous, but it is a slap in the face. It is the reason we have this continued breakdown between law enforcement and community," the Rev. Michael L. Pfleger, a community activist in Chicago, told ABC News.

What can we say: a police union making sure that even a suspended officer charged with murder still gets a steady paycheck looks a wee bit crass to some people. Yeah, go figure.