RAHM EMANUEL INVOLVED IN COVER-UP OF LAQUAN MCDONALD'S MURDER

WHAT HAS MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL REALLY DONE FOR CHICAGO'S BLACK VOTERS?

In this video I discuss how Pres OBAMA'S close friend Chicago Mayor RAHM EMANUEL, may have played a significant role in the cover up in the Murder of LAQUAN MCDONALD who was shot 16 times in 2014 by a Chicago Police Officer.

When he died LAQUAN was a 17-yr old Foster Care kid.

Long before 17-yr old Laquan McDonald (Black, male Youth) was shot 16 times by Chicago police, he was a walking dead person.

Laquan's Mother, his troubled childhood and the Foster Care system in Ilinois were actually responsible for his premature death.

So although Laquan recently died due to SUICIDE BY COP, the Police should not be solely blamed for his Murder.

~ After Police Shooting in Chiacgo, Calls for Emanuel to Resign.

"A leader has to be held to account for the code of silence... in the Chicago police department," one civil rights lawyer says.

For nearly two years, he was the second-most powerful Democrat in Washington, a famously confrontational, joyously profane White House gatekeeper who traded in his job as the first black president's right-hand man to run for mayor of Chicago, their shared, beloved hometown.

Now, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, President Barack Obama's former chief of staff, is facing calls for his resignation amid disturbing questions on the latest and, arguably, most egregious, incident of police use of deadly force against an African American citizen.

Tuesday's release of a graphic video showing a white Chicago cop pumping 16 bullets into a black teenager will likely cast a pall over Obama's push to ease strained relations between police and the black community in cities nationwide, an issue he personally elevated to the national agenda last year.

Besides adding the Windy City to the ever-expanding list of places that which have become shorthand for deadly confrontations between police and African Americans:

Ferguson Missouri; Staten Island, New York; Cleveland; Baltimore -- the incident isn't a good look for the president.

Despite Emanuel's strained relations with the black community, Obama endorsed him for office during his first campaign in 2011, and Emanuel surged to office -- and to re-election in 2015 -- in part on the black vote.

Yet Obama's former top aide is suspected of helping police cover up the death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, the newest name in an issue that cuts to the heart of the black community.

When Officer Jason Van Dyke shot McDonald on a city street last year as police responded to reports of theft and vandalism in the area, police administrators and city officials "said things that were knowingly, demonstrably false within minutes of the shooting," says Craig Futterman, a Chicago civil rights lawyer who helped break open the case.

"A leader has to be held to account for the code of silence that continues to exist in the Chicago police department. He has to acknowledge it and address it," he says.

In a press conference Tuesday with Chicago Superintendent Garry McCarthy, Emanuel announced the city would release a long-sought video of the shooting, recorded on a dashboard camera in Van Dyke's police cruiser that night.

Both the mayor and the commissioner said they expect protests from an angry black community, but wouldn't tolerate violence; they also stressed that Van Dyke, who was charged with first-degree murder just days earlier, was a lone bad actor.

Demonstrators on the streets of downtown Chicago hours later, however, didn't seem to agree.

"While we know the system has failed, no one can specifically say how," city Alderman Roderick Sawyer told ABC-7, a local TV station. "You cannot change a system by ignoring a system."

The grainy, nighttime video -- which police and city authorities had refused to make public until a judge ordered it released by Thursday -- shows McDonald jogging past Van Dyke and other officers, a small knife in his hand.

Although McDonald doesn't appear to confront the officers, several of them draw weapons on him; Van Dyke opens fire within seconds, gunning McDonald down.

Although the young man lies motionless on the ground, Van Dyke continues to fire, emptying his 16-round clip.

When the gunfire ends, a second officer walks over to McDonald's body and kicks the knife from his hand. Although several officers are on the scene, no one gives first aid to McDonald.

Shortly after the shooting, Futterman says, the Chicago police released a statement declaring that McDonald was the aggressor, was under the influence of PCP and that Van Dyke shot once in self-defense.

Days later, however, a police whistleblower came to Futterman and independent investigative journalist Jamie Kalven with a tip: Authorities are withholding a videotape, trying to sweep an unjustified shooting under the rug.

After a year of legal wrangling with the department amid growing publicity about the shooting, Futterman says, a judge ordered the release of the dash-cam video from Van Dyke's cruiser -- a decision that triggered a series of rapid-fire developments in the case.

Under pressure, prosecutors who said they'd spent months on the investigation quickly charged Van Dyke with murder, Emanuel and McCarthy met with African American community leaders and braced the city for release of a potentially explosive piece of evidence.

"I believe this is a moment that can build bridges of understanding rather than become a barrier of misunderstanding," Emanuel said in Wednesday's press conference. "I understand that the people will be upset and will want to protest when they see this video. We as a city must rise to this moment."

While Van Dyke's attorney insists his client acted in self-defense, Emanuel says the officer will be held accountable for his actions.

But Futterman says the buck ultimately stops at Emanuel's desk: the mayor let linger a false narrative McDonald's death, didn't compel the police to release the video when reporters asked for it and neither he nor McCarthy have taken steps to demolish the department's wall of silence.

After the shooting, Futterman says, officers destroyed videos of the incident recorded at a nearby fast-food restaurant ("Ironically, other security videos show them doing this," he says), rounded up and intimidated a group of eyewitnesses into silence and used news reporters to feed disinformation to the public.

"All the evidence appears to point to it: That a lie was told to the media," Futterman says.

"No official corrected that lie. And there were actions on the part of multiple officers to intimidate witnesses, to destroy evidence and to lie."

On Twitter Wednesday, ‪#‎ResignRahm‬ was trending, and Futterman agrees the mayor himself must answer for "keeping people in the dark and letting lies be told on behalf of Chicago police officers to hang in the air."

While Futterman doesn't hesitate to call it a "coverup," he stops short of accusing Emanuel of direct involvement, although "it's a fair question" to ask what he knew, when he knew it and what he did to ensure justice in the case.

The mayor "has fallen far short in this case, and I think it's up to the voters to decide" whether he should continue to lead Chicago, Futterman says, noting Van Dyke is the only one who's clearly been punished.

"What about all these officers that participated in covering up what happened and intimidating witnesses?

That's criminal," Futterman says. "Heads need to roll because this has become the practice and culture that's established by leaders like Mayor Emanuel and Superintendent McCarthy."
"I'm too cynical to say I'm surprised" no one's been fired, Futterman says.

While the majority of the Chicago police rank-and-file do a fine job, he adds, the culture at the top "protects the minority of officers who are out there abusing people.

That's fundamentally what needs to change."

If that were actually addressed, he added, "there's a good chance [McDonald] would be alive."

Sources: Chicago Suntimes, US News, YouTube