Officer gets 7 years in boy's killing; white Chicago policeman shot black teen 16 times in 2014

Jason Van Dyke, a former Chicago police officer, is escorted into a Chicago courtroom for his sentencing Friday in the 2014 killing of a teenager.
Jason Van Dyke, a former Chicago police officer, is escorted into a Chicago courtroom for his sentencing Friday in the 2014 killing of a teenager.

CHICAGO -- The white Chicago police officer who gunned down a black teenager in 2014 was sentenced Friday to nearly seven years in prison, bringing an end to a case that centered on a dashboard camera video and fueled the national debate over race and law enforcement.

Jason Van Dyke was convicted last year of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery -- one for each bullet he fired. Attorneys on both sides agreed that if he behaves in prison, the 40-year-old could be released in less than three and a half years.

Laquan McDonald's family lamented that the penalty was too light. His great uncle said the sentence reduced McDonald's life to that of "a second-class citizen" and "suggests to us that there are no laws on the books for a black man that a white man is bound to honor."

Moments before learning the sentence, Van Dyke acknowledged the black teenager's death, telling the judge that "as a God-fearing man and father, I will have to live with this the rest of my life."

Earlier, several black motorists testified that he used a racial slur and excessive force during traffic stops in the years before the 2014 shooting.

One of those witnesses, Vidale Joy, said Van Dyke used a racial slur after pulling him over in 2005 and at one point put a gun to Joy's head. He said Van Dyke "looked infuriated" and seemed "out of his mind." Under cross-examination, Joy acknowledged that he did not allege Van Dyke used a slur in his first accounts of the stop.

Another witness, Ed Nance, struggled to maintain his composure as he looked across the room to identify Van Dyke. Testifying about a 2007 traffic stop, he said the officer cursed and slammed him on the car's hood, grabbed him by the arms and pulled him to the squad car.

Hours later, Van Dyke's relatives tried to defend and humanize him, saying he's a good father and husband who goes out of his way to help and who is not racist.

The issue of race has loomed over the case for more than four years, although it was rarely raised at trial. One of the only instances was during opening statements, when special prosecutor Joseph McMahon told jurors that Van Dyke saw "a black boy walking down the street" who had "the audacity to ignore the police."

Friday's testimony came a day after a different judge acquitted three officers accused of trying to conceal what happened to protect Van Dyke, who was the first Chicago officer found guilty in an on-duty shooting in a half-century.

At the sentencing, McDonald's uncle read a letter written from the slain teen's perspective, telling the court that Van Dyke killed him without provocation.

"I am a 17-year-old boy, and I am a victim of murder," Marvin Hunter said. "I am unable to speak in my own voice" because an officer "thought he would become judge, jury and executioner."

In asking for a long sentence, Hunter added: "Why should this person who ended my life forever ... who has never asked for forgiveness ... be free when I am dead for forever?"

Van Dyke's wife said her biggest fear was that somebody would kill her husband in prison "for something he did as a police officer, something he was trained to do."

On Thursday, Cook County Judge Domenica Stephenson cleared former officer Joseph Walsh, former detective David March and officer Thomas Gaffney on charges of obstruction of justice, official misconduct and conspiracy.

Stephenson accepted the argument that jurors in the Van Dyke case rejected: that the video that sparked protests and a federal investigation of the police force was just one perspective of the events that unfolded on the South Side.

The judge said the video showed only one viewpoint of the confrontation between Van Dyke and the teen armed with a small knife. She found no indication the officers tried to hide evidence or made little effort to talk to witnesses.

"The evidence shows just the opposite," she said. She singled out how they preserved the graphic video at the heart of the case.

The judge in her ruling rejected prosecution arguments that the video demonstrated officers were lying when they described McDonald as moving even after he was shot.

The video appeared to show the teen collapsing after the first few shots and moving in large part because bullets kept striking his body for 10 more seconds.

City Hall released the video to the public in November 2015 -- 13 months after the shooting -- and acted only because a judge ordered it to do so. The charges against Van Dyke were not announced until the day of the video's release.

Information for this article was contributed by Noreen Nasir and Teresa Crawford of The Associated Press.

A Section on 01/19/2019

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