Posted on 03/08/2018 3:39:27 PM PST by BackRoads775
Lawyers for a Chicago police officer accused of murdering a Chicago teen in a shooting captured on dashcam video that ignited protests in the city and around the country are arguing their client will not be able to get a fair trial in Chicago.
Chicago cop Jason Van Dyke was back in court Thursday as his lawyers argued extensive media coverage of the October 2014 incident in which Van Dyke shot and killed 17-year old Laquan McDonald means Van Dyke will not be able to get a fair trial in Cook County where Chicago is the county seat.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
The “victim” was a loser thug. Armed with a knife, iirc.
The corrupt courts will not let him escape to the suburbs.
He fired his weapon 16 times?
Sounds pretty gruesome to me.
The dead guy,it seems,was up to no good at the time and he *was* armed with a knife.But firing 16 times (if that is,in fact,the case) sounds pretty hard core to me.
The *FIRST* time a ‘change of venue’ was suggested the idiot suggesting it should have been hung.
Get rid of the entire concept.
Nobody has to go to the suburbs. Every single person who is on any jury will call this murder. The cop plugs 16 bullets into this guy. 14 after he hits the ground and stops moving. The guy has a slim jim. There are at least ten officers there with guns drawn. While the attorney thinks that only black people will call this murder. I am sure white people will as well.
I won’t call this murder by a long shot. Just watched the video, known thug was behaving as though he was high and then spun around quickly with one hand out of sight reaching near his waist; I would have assumed he was drawing on me. SOP is shoot the threat until it is fully neutralized, which generally means until you are out of rounds, so number of shots fired is of no consequence.
And that is why you should never be a cop.
Every single person who is on any jury will call this murder.
The person shot was acting violently and erratically.
He refused to follow police commands.
He had a knife in his hand.
The number of rounds is almost irrelevant - they were fired very rapidly.
This is the first I have heard the “slim jim” reference. Can you post a source?
It might be manslaughter or negligent homicide. Murder is highly unlikely.
You just don’t get it. Here is the law and the expectations of society. Not reacting to a police officer is not grounds for him to kill you. Having a knife 15 feet away from an officer is not grounds for him to kill you. Acting violently and erratically is not grounds for him to kill you. But him shooting this man is grounds for murder.
You are a very confused person. If this person was a threat to someone else the officer could shoot to protect someone even himself. That was not the case. This person was in an empty street. There were about ten cops there with guns. The cop was in no danger. nobody else was in any danger. If the guy was a total loon and did not answer anything the cop said he is still not allowed to shoot.
So lets say this guy did lunge at the cop with a knife. The cop could shoot. But when the guy is down after two shots. He is again, in no danger to anyone. Now the next 14 shots are also murder, not manslaughter, but murder.
The reality is that this cop is a thug. He is not doing police work. He shot the first, using lethal force when not required for the safety of anyone, even with a knife.
Then the cops, everyone at the scene, lied and covered it up. THEY KNEW IT WAS WRONG. They hid the video. They paid off the family. There is nobody acting like this is the right thing to do. Nobody in Chicago is standing behind this cop except his family and lawyer.
Have you studied the law on self defense?
Have you read the statutes on what constitutes murder, manslaughter, and negligent homicide?
It does not sound like it.
Not reacting to a police officer, acting violently and erratically while armed with a knife make a person a deadly threat. Being within 15 feet means he satisfies police training about how close a person with a contact weapon needs to be, to be legally considered a deadly threat.
The number of shots would make a difference, depending on the timing. Fired very rapidly, it doesn’t make much difference, because the question is, were the first shots justified?
I agree that the video looks bad. That is why I said it might be manslaughter or negligent homicide. But first degree murder?
Acting violently with a weapon and failing to follow police commands makes a person a deadly threat, and very likely to get shot and killed.
This case is marginal, but only because the movement toward officers is marginal, and the timing of the shots is marginal. That makes a case for the officer overreacting and for manslaughter or negligent homicide.
You see the same sort of problems with non-police shootings.
Much depends on what the officer knew and how he had been trained about deadly force and deadly threats.
The change in venue makes sense because, as you have noted, everybody in Chicago has already tried and convicted the former officer.
You are very wrong. And this evil beast masquerading as a cop is going to hell but stopping in jail before he gets there.
If he is following his training, that may stop him from losing his pension, but it will not stop him from going to jail. Bad training is an excuse for unions, but not for juries.
I think it is very likely the shooter will end up in jail.
I never said anything different.
I disagree with your characterization of the event as murder.
The officer, from what I saw, made a bad, split second decision, in a very high stress situation. Then they did not have the control to stop shooting.
Bad training is something juries consider all the time, because they are supposed to use the “reasonable man” doctrine, which is:
What would a reasonable man do in the circumstances the individual found themselves, knowing what they knew at the time?
Acting reasonably is a defense.
What they knew at the time includes how they were trained. It is exactly the stuff that juries take into consideration.
The person shot was not acting as a reasonable man. He made many very bad decisions over a number of minutes.
He lost his life as a result of those decisions, which made him highly vulnerable to a spit second mistake by a police officer.
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