LAQUAN MCDONALD

A Michigan police officer has been charged with second-degree murder for fatally shooting Patrick Lyoya in the back of the head as the Black man was on the ground.

Federal authorities say they will not criminally charge Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago police officer convicted of murder in the 2014 shooting death of Black teenager Laquan McDonald.

Patrick Lyoya’s father says he and his family have a right to know the name of the white officer who fatally shot the 26-year-old Black man.

Jussie Smollett is returning to a Chicago courtroom for sentencing with just two questions hanging over his head: Will he admit that he lied about a racist homophobic attack and will a judge send him to jail.

Nine people arrested inside the federal courthouse in downtown Chicago demanding federal charges against former Chicago cop Jason Van Dyke have ben ordered by a federal judge to stay away from the building for 60 days and pay $200 fines.

The former Chicago police officer who was convicted in the shooting death of Black teenager Laquan McDonald has been released from prison after serving less than half of his sentence.

The imminent release from prison of the former Chicago police officer who shot Laquan McDonald 16 times in 2014, killing the Black teenager, is a reminder for some of what they say is an unfair criminal justice system.

The NAACP is urging Attorney General Merrick Garland to bring federal civil rights charges against the white Chicago police officer who fatally shot Black teenager Laquan McDonald.

A federal trial against three former Minneapolis police officers seeks to hold them responsible for not stopping George Floyd’s murder.

The white Chicago police officer convicted in the 2014 shooting death of Black teenager Laquan McDonald is days away from walking out of prison after just over three years behind bars.

A suburban Minneapolis police officer who said she confused her handgun for a Taser was led away in handcuffs Thursday after a jury found her guilty of manslaughter in the death of Black motorist Daunte Wright.

The fatal police shooting of a Black teen in Chicago seven years ago is looming large over former Mayor Rahm Emanuel as he hopes to win Senate confirmation as ambassador to Japan.

Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel says he did nothing improper but still fell short in his handling of the fatal police shooting of a Black teenage seven years ago in the city.

President Joe Biden is nominating former senior State Department official Nicholas Burns to serve as his ambassador to China and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to serve as his envoy to Japan.

Derek Chauvin may get sentenced to decades behind bars when he returns to a Minneapolis courtroom for sentencing.

President Joe Biden is expected to nominate former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Japan.

Moments after former officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder in George Floyd’s death, copies of the original Minneapolis police statement began recirculating on social media.

The conviction of ex-cop Derek Chauvin for murdering George Floyd nearly a year ago allowed many Black Americans across Minnesota and the nation to exhale pent-up anxiety and inhale a sense of hope.

Calls have grown for federal investigations into police killings across the nation since President Joe Biden took office and said he believes racial disparities in policing must change.

Calls have grown for federal investigations into police killings across the nation since President Joe Biden took office and said he believes racial disparities in policing must change.

Viewers reacted with a mix of outrage and grief to newly released bodycam video that shows a Chicago police officer fatally shoot a 13-year-old less than a second after the boy dropped a handgun, turned toward the officer and began raising his hands.

Disturbing bodycam video shows a 13-year-old boy appearing to drop a handgun and begin raising his hands less than a second before a Chicago police officer shoots and kills him.

The huge task for jurors at the trial of Chauvin showed during jury selection as some would-be jurors said they were unnerved by the very thought of being on the panel. A high fence installed around the courthouse for the trial is a daily reminder for jurors of security concerns. Numerous people expressed unease about serving on the panel for Chauvin's trial during the more than two weeks of jury selection. All the Chauvin jurors were asked before being impaneled if they could set aside outside influences and decide the case only on evidence presented at trial. AdAlan Tuerkheimer, a Chicago-based jury consultant, said he believed the Chauvin jurors would become increasingly calm as the trial proceeds and would be able to block out the hubbub.

African Americans bring “an institutional memory of the police” to jury rooms that whites and even other people of color don’t share, he said. AdDerek Chauvin is charged with murder and manslaughter in Floyd's death May 25. When they do, recent history suggests a more diverse jury increases the odds for conviction, although the record is mixed. During questioning for Chauvin's jury, some people in the pool were strikingly direct about how the color of their skin affected their view of Floyd's death. A Black man in his 30s who immigrated to America more than 14 years ago said he talked with his wife about the case.

President-elect Joe Biden is expected to pick former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg to head the transportation department, according to three people familiar with the plans. Biden has compared the 38-year-old Buttigieg to his late son, Beau, saying there's no higher compliment he could pay anyone. The Transportation Department helps oversee the nation’s highway system, planes, trains and mass transit and is poised to play a key role early in the incoming administration. He also wants to immediately mandate mask-wearing on airplanes and public transportation systems to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The once most frequently mentioned early pick to head the Transportation Department, President Barack Obama's former chief of staff and ex-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, sparked strong pushback from top progressive activists.

President-elect Joe Biden is nominating former President Barack Obama's White House chief of staff Denis McDonough as secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Increasingly deep into the process of selecting Cabinet members and other senior staff, the incoming Biden administration has a distinctly Obama feel. There's Denis McDonough, former President Barack Obama's chief of staff who Biden announced on Thursday would be nominated as the secretary of veterans affairs. Susan Rice, Obama's former U.N. ambassador and national security adviser, was named the director of Biden's White House Domestic Policy Council. Jeff Zients, who did stints as acting Office of Management and Budget director and a top economic adviser in the Obama White House, will return as Biden’s coronavirus response coordinator.

WASHINGTON – Rahm Emanuel’s chances of landing a top Cabinet post in Joe Biden's administration appear increasingly unlikely after the former Chicago mayor emerged as a source of controversy for the president-elect, who had been considering Emanuel for transportation secretary, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. Al Sharpton raised similar concerns during a meeting with Biden and other civil rights leaders, the person said. The person was not authorized to publicly discuss private deliberations and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity. An announcement on transportation secretary is not believed to be imminent. Two other high profile Obama-era alumni were announced Thursday as joining the Biden administration — Denis McDonough as veterans' affairs secretary and Susan Rice to head the Domestic Policy Council.

(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)WASHINGTON – President-elect Joe Biden is set to nominate Katherine Tai to be the top U.S. trade envoy, according to two people familiar with his plans. Biden's selection of Tai, who is Asian American, reflects his promise to choose a diverse Cabinet that reflects the makeup of the country. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Tai earlier oversaw China trade enforcement for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, setting U.S. strategy in trade disputes with China. Biden’s trade representative will inherit a trade war with China, put on pause by an interim trade pact in January that left many of the hardest issues unresolved and U.S. taxes remaining on $360 billion in Chinese imports. As the top trade staffer at Ways and Means, Tai handled negotiations last year with the Trump administration over a revamped North American trade deal.

CHICAGO – President-elect Joe Biden is considering former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a substantial and somewhat divisive figure in Democratic Party politics, to serve as his transportation secretary. Progressive leaders, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, have been especially vocal in criticizing the prospect of Emanuel joining the Cabinet. “The administration needs people like Rahm who know how to get things done.”Some of the city’s Black elected officials are also vouching for him. Emanuel said he did not see the grisly video until it was set to be made public in November 2015. During his time as mayor, Chicago saw $11 billion in airfield, terminal and infrastructure investments at the city's airports.

Authorities have been reluctant to release even the most basic information about the incident or details about the white officer who shot Blake seven times in the back. They shot my son seven times seven times, like he didnt matter, Blakes father, Jacob Blake Sr., said. In 2014, for example, a union spokesman rushed to the scene where a white Chicago officer fatally shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. As for the shooting itself, authorities, citing the need to protect the integrity of the investigation, have raised far more questions than they've answered. Instead, he said a knife was found after the shooting on the drivers side floorboard of the SUV.

Authorities have said they found a gun at the scene, but they acknowledge that the officers who shot him were not wearing cameras. After Allen was shot on Sunday, activists immediately seized on the news that the officers were not wearing body cameras. These details are uncorroborated, partially because CPD also claims there is no body camera footage available for this interaction, the group said. Questions about the lack of body cameras extend beyond activist groups. Chicago police have also used body camera footage to show that officers acted properly, possibly heading off the kind of rampage that unfolded this week.

A police officer engages with a protester Wednesday, July 1, 2020, in Seattle, where streets had been blocked off in an area demonstrators had occupied for weeks. Seattle police showed up in force earlier in the day at the "occupied" protest zone, tore down demonstrators' tents and used bicycles to herd the protesters after the mayor ordered the area cleared following two fatal shootings in less than two weeks. The "Capitol Hill Occupied Protest" zone was set up near downtown following the death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Collective bargaining agreements for officers provide protections that stand in the way of accountability, even when the federal government is overseeing an agency through a consent decree, experts said. Contracts designed to ensure officers receive fair wages and benefits have spilled over into public policy. These examples bolster the hypothesis that some union contract provisions may impede effective investigations of police misconduct and shield problematic officers from discipline, Rushin said. The city entered into a settlement agreement, or consent decree, the following year and passed an accountability measure for additional oversight. One Seattle officer who benefited from the union contract in recent years was Cynthia Whitlach.

Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren, right, speaks during a news conference Monday, June 15, 2020, in Tampa, Fla. Warren announced his decision not to prosecute dozens of protesters arrested on charges of unlawful assembly during a Black Lives Matter march on June 2. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)TOP OF THE HOUR: Florida state attorney won't prosecute peaceful protesters. State Attorney Andrew Warren in Tampa said that his office wont be filing charges against 67 protesters who were arrested two weeks ago in downtown Tampa. The prosecutors office will also work to expunge the arrest records of the protesters who were taken into custody, he said. In these unlawful assembly cases, there is no value in filing charges, Warren said at a news conference.

Cellphone video showed him pleading for air as other officers stood by and bystanders urged the police to help him. The department realized the statement was inaccurate hours later when the bystander video surfaced, and immediately requested an FBI investigation, he said. But more than a year later, video was released showing that McDonald was veering away when he was shot by officer Jason Van Dyke, who was later convicted of second-degree murder. False public statements made by police departments and their leaders are more of a political issue" than a legal one, he said. The availability of video and a fast-moving news cycle accelerated by social media have put extra pressure on police department public information officers.

In Tulsa, Oklahoma, people gathered in a spot where white mobs killed hundreds of blacks a century ago and chanted the name of Terence Crutcher. Terence Crutcher was fatally shot in 2016 by a white police officer, Betty Shelby, who was later acquitted of manslaughter. The shooting remains under investigation, and Ramos' mom, Brenda Ramos, questioned why the officer who shot him hasn't been arrested or at least suspended. Now I am in this terrible heartbreaking club," Ramos' mom, Brenda Ramos, told reporters over the weekend. Andrew Cuomo posted a slide with the names of many black men killed or abused by police in cities around the nation.

Van Dyke was sentenced to six years and nine months in prison in January following his conviction of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm. Van Dyke fired seconds after arriving on scene and took 15 seconds to fire 16 shots. Van Dyke continued to fire, unloading every round from his 9-mm Smith & Wesson handgun. They included police claims that McDonald pointed his knife at Van Dyke, who was forced to backpedal and fired to stop an imminent threat. The deputy chief also falsely said in Van Dyke's tactical response report that McDonald "continued to approach" the officer.

Four Chicago police officers have been fired for covering up the 2014 fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald, a black teenager, the Chicago Police Board said Thursday. Stephen Franko, Officer Janet Mondragon, Officer Daphne Sebastian and Officer Ricardo Viramontes to be "discharged from the Chicago Police Department." "Indeed, taken on their face, the officers' accounts depict a scene in which Mr. McDonald was the aggressor and Officer Van Dyke the victima depiction squarely contradicted by reality. Police initially said McDonald lunged toward officers with a knife, prompting Van Dyke to open fire six seconds after getting out of his squad car. Last year, Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery.