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.