CHICAGO – Jason Van Dyke is out.
The ex-Chicago police officer spent only three years in prison for killing 17-year-old Laquan McDonald with 16 gunshots in October 2014.
As soon as he left the Illinois prison system on February 3, hundreds of activists took to the streets and marched to the downtown federal building to demand the U.S, Justice Department bring a federal civil rights case against Van Dyke. They included William Calloway, Ja’Mal Green, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and McDonald’s grandmother, Tracie Hunter, who put it plainly: “That [prison] time that man did, it wasn’t enough.”
Even though a jury in October 2018 found Van Dyke guilty of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm, the trial judge who sentenced him in January 2019 took the sting out by handing down the lightest possible sentence for the lesser murder conviction and no sentence at all for the 16 shots. The judge gave Van Dyke 81 months and now he is back in Chicago after only 36.
The protests at the federal building created a new group of defendants called The Laquan Nine – five women and four men. Federal marshals arrested them for occupying the federal building lobby.
They are Calloway, Green, Justin Blake of Kenosha (WI), Kina Collins, Amber Leaks, Nataki Rhodes, Cassandra Greer-Ramsey and Catherine Reading.
At a federal court hearing on February 8, a judge fined Reading $250 for using a megaphone in the federal courthouse. The other eight were fined $200 each.
Reading, quoted by the Chicago Tribune, told the judge: “Justice is difficult at this point. Us in the community have been waiting more than eight years to get justice for 17-year-old Laquan McDonald and are asking for the government to intervene.”
Blake’s nephew is Jacob Blake III, who was paralyzed in August 2020 when a Kenosha (WI) police officer shot him in the back.
“We did break the rules,” Blake said. “But sometimes you have to march and re-march with counterparts in order to get things that we believe are just, and that’s historical.”
It was William Calloway and journalist Brandon Smith who filed a motion in court that eventually led to a judge in November 2015 ordering Chicago City Hall to release the police dashcam video of the murder.
Calloway and Blake were on Democracy Now after their arrest and host Amy Goodman asked why federal charges weren’t filed against Van Dyke earlier. Calloway explained that when the scandal broke out in 2015, the Obama Justice Department decided to wait until after Van Dyke was tried and convicted in the Illinois courts in order to avoid the risk of double jeopardy. But as it turned out, Van Dyke’s trial only came in 2018 with Trump in the White House, and his Justice Department had no intention of prosecuting Van Dyke.
Calloway said that now, in 2022, the Biden DOJ should bring federal charges against Van Dyke. Calloway told Goodman it is not too late to do that. “There is no statute of limitations for this federal crime because what Jason Van Dyke did resulted in the death of Laquan McDonald, for which there is no statute of limitations.”
To press that point further, Calloway launched an online petition on Change.org. The Internet link to that petition is at the end of this article.
Van Dyke is under parole for two years. He cannot leave Illinois without permission, nor can he buy or have a gun or re-enter law enforcement.
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx was elected in 2015, replacing the previous prosecutor Anita Álvarez who did not charge Van Dyke until November 2015 when the public finally saw the murder video.
In a press release shortly after Van Dyke got out, Foxx said:
“Laquan McDonald’s life mattered. The fact of the matter is, Jason Van Dyke was convicted for murder and also convicted 16 times for aggravated battery with a firearm. Those 16 counts would warrant a far greater sentence than was meted out to Jason Van Dyke. That three-and-a-half-year sentence that Jason Van Dyke was handed down did not fit the 16 shots to the body as that boy laid on the ground.
On Twitter (@SAKimFoxx), she added: “If there’s an ability to do something about it on the federal level, then, by all means, something should be done.”
To sign William Calloway’s petition go to the Change.org Justice 4 Laquan McDonald page.
