(17 Jan 2019) A judge on Thursday acquitted three Chicago police officers of trying to cover up the 2014 police shooting of black teenager Laquan McDonald to try to protect another officer who pulled the trigger.
After a trial that was watched closely by law enforcement and critics of the department that has long had a reputation for condoning police brutality and misconduct,
Cook County Judge Domenica Stephenson acquitted former Officer Joseph Walsh, former Detective David March and Officer Thomas Gaffney on charges of conspiracy, official misconduct and obstruction of justice.
The judge said there was no evidence that officers tried to hide or bury evidence. "The evidence shows just the opposite," she said.
She singled out how they had preserved the police dashcam video at the heart of the evidence that convicted Officer Jason Van Dyke, who shot McDonald 16 times.
Van Dyke was convicted in October of second-degree murder and aggravated battery and is due to be sentenced Friday.
Both trials hinged on the dashcam video, which shows Van Dyke shoot McDonald within seconds of getting out of his police SUV and then continue shooting the 17-year-old while he was lying on the street and barely moving.
Police were responding to a report of a male who was breaking into trucks and stealing radios on the city's South Side.
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