It took Chicago Police over a year to release the video of Laquan McDonald. If a video is recorded and nobody sees it, then does the recording matter?
What if there wasn’t a whistleblower, a reporter and a lawyer who combined to sue on behalf of the public interest and gain release of the video depicting an officer shooting the teenager McDonald as he walked away from cops.
Our political leaders ultimately make the choice of what videos are released or not. Many have claimed that Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emmanuel personally intervened to suppress the recording of Laquan McDonald’s last moments.
Officers knew that Laquan McDonald was walking away from the shooter.
Those police are complicit.
This is not just one bad apple, but an apple that fell from a rotten tree.
Why did authorities say Laquan McDonald lunged at police officers?
Copaganda is the only narrative presented to the public.
The perversion of the english language, infused with public relations, infused with the spilled blood of the innocent on our city streets and a black, leather boot covering the pool with cold comfort to the families of the deceased.
“Officer involved shooting” is the inaccurate term peddled by police spokespeople, often union representatives – like Pat Camden, the Chicago FOP’s public relations face, a former PIO for the Chicago PD – and the very passive tone of it, makes one imagine that the gun did all of the work, the officer was merely there…
The words a “weapon was recovered at the scene” are dutifully invoked, and There It Is!
He must’ve had it coming.
With videos existing, it’s taking a while, but finally the public is learning that police narratives are not about truth telling, but about truth concealing.
Just like the Catholic Church who denied rumors of child abuse and pedophilia for decades until incontrovertible evidence emerged, admissions and eventually a general public knowledge of the terrible affairs of Priests who were also seeking to “serve the public” but rather served their own anti-social desires.
Now, Copaganda wears thin, the oft repeated phrases of our boys in blue no longer give the public solace.
Nine Inch Nails said it best in their 90’s hit song March of the Pigs, “now doesn’t that make you feel better? the pigs have won tonight, now they can all sleep soundly, and everything is all right”
Chicago teen killed by Cop Monday; Community activists urge action against police brutality from Medill Reports on Vimeo.
Opinion by Grant Stern, Podcast by James MacArthur the Baltimore Spectator