Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke did not set out to kill anyone when he began his shift that October night in 2014. On that, most of us can agree.
It also is possible, as police have said, that 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, while high on PCP, had been stealing from trucks parked in a Southwest Side lot. And that when police ordered him to stop and turn around, he took his hands out of his pocket and wielded a knife.
And that during the police pursuit, McDonald may have swung his knife and punctured the tire of a police vehicle. Then he may have used the knife to swipe the windshield.
But this is what we also know, because we have seen the dashboard camera videotape: Van Dyke started firing his weapon as the suspect walked away from the officers. McDonald quickly fell to the ground and Van Dyke walked toward him, continuing to fire.
The officer fired again and again, even as puffs of smoke rose from the pavement where the teenager lay dying.
Sixteen shots in 13 seconds.
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One shot or two, maybe even three might be easier to understand. But 16 are hard to explain.
Those shots likely are the greatest hurdle Van Dyke will face as he tries to prove that he killed McDonald in self-defense.
Van Dyke’s first-degree murder trial begins Monday in the midst of a social awakening over the deadly fate that too many African-Americans, men in particular, have faced at the hands of police officers.
There have been such an alarming number of police killings in recent years that some people barely blink at the news of yet another one. In some cases, it is easy to blame the victim, to accuse the dead man of having done something in the exchange with police to warrant his own death. We are used to that as well.
Amadou Diallo and Sean Bell in New York; Philando Castile in suburban St. Paul, Minn.; Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.; Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La.; Tamir Rice in Cleveland; and Rekia Boyd in Chicago are just a few of the African-Americans who have died at the hands of police in recent years.
But McDonald’s shooting is different, not because it was recorded on police camera videotape. The 16 shots are what set this killing apart from the others.
The question that so many people have is: Why so many bullets? Even if an officer feared that his life and those of fellow officers on the scene were at risk, why did it require 16 shots? How could a suspect whose body lay on the ground jerking at the strike of each bullet have done them harm?
Why did a young man whose crime had been slashing tires have to die so brutally?
That is a question the eight women and four men on the jury most certainly will ponder. In a case that is rife with racial undertones — a black victim and a white police officer — it is the one question that extends beyond the cultural barriers that often bar us from understanding one another.
No African-American men are on the jury. There is, however, one African-American woman on the panel that also includes seven whites, three Hispanics and one Asian-American.
The lack of an African-American man means that no one deciding Van Dyke’s fate will know exactly how a black man feels when he encounters police. No one can vouch for the fear and apprehension black men experience whenever they are stopped for even a minor violation. No one knows what it’s like to stand in a black man’s shoes when he is face to face with a police officer.
But in this case, it might not make a difference. That’s because of the 16 shots.
At least three jurors have indicated as much. Under questioning by lawyers last week, one juror said that “a lot of shots were fired.” Another said he “thought the officer went too far.” And another said, “I had an opinion about how many times the shots went off. I can’t lie about that. … That’s a lot of shots.”
No one in the courtroom can speak for McDonald. No one can describe how he must have felt that night as he lay dying in the middle of the street.
But those 16 shots speak volumes. They are Van Dyke’s most damning witness.
dglanton@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @dahleeng
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