UPDATE: Dec. 29, 2015, 12:27 PM ET
CHICAGO (AP) — A white Chicago police officer charged with murder in the 2014 fatal shooting of black teenager Laquan McDonald pleaded not guilty Tuesday.
Jason Van Dyke faces six counts of first-degree murder and one of official misconduct in the 17-year-old’s death. The officer appeared in front of Judge Vincent Gaughan in Cook County Criminal Court wearing a dark suit and blue striped tie. The next hearing is set for Jan. 29.
Van Dyke’s defense attorney, Dan Herbert, said his client is “hanging in there” and wants to tell his side of the story so that he’s not seen “as this cold-blooded killer.” Herbert also said that they haven’t ruled out asking for a change of venue.
Cook County attorneys were not available for comment after the arraignment.
Public outcry has been furious since a dashcam video was released last month showing the veteran officer shooting McDonald 16 times. The teenager, armed with a knife, was veering away from officers when Van Dyke opened fire.
The footage sparked days of street demonstrations, the forced resignation of Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy and a broad federal civil rights investigation of the Police Department’s practices and how allegations of officer misconduct are handled.
Over the weekend, Chicago police shot and killed two other people, a 55-year-old woman who was shot accidentally and a 19-year-old man who police have said was “combative” before he was shot. The department will not say how many officers fired their weapons or what the two people were doing before they were shot.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who has been the target of heavy criticism and calls for his resignation since the McDonald video was released, is due to return Tuesday afternoon from a family vacation in Cuba.
Herbert, the lawyer for Van Dyke, said policy changes in the Chicago Police Department, which Emanuel’s office has hinted at and may include more education, would be beneficial.
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His defense in court will be that he “feared for his life.”
The rebuttal should be that a reasonable person (watching the video, dammit!) cannot think he reasonably should have feared enough for his life that he fired at all when so many others on the scene did not. And 16 times, at that!
Equally damning will be the fact that the surveillance video from the Burger King was erased. The takeaway from that act alone is that everybody knew he had just murdered the kid. Then add in the ensuing cover-up …
If there is any justice the guy is toast.
Van Dyke’s lawyer has said the officer “absolutely” can defend himself in court.
They’re gonna let him pack heat in the courtroom?
People-who-should-know-better could do much better on stories like this. The headline or lead really needs to be about him putting the state to its burden to prove the crime. That’s really all that we can know, for certain, about his plea of “not guilty.” To set up that he shot the teen 16 times AND his plea of not guilty, though, as connected or related to one another seems to be intended to inflame emotions.
The Black voters of Chicago might have foreseen this when they re-elected him. Because NO ONE could have seen this happening…