3 Officers Acquitted of Covering Up for Colleague in Laquan McDonald Killing
As soon as I saw the acquittal, I knew the verdict was probably rendered by a judge as opposed to a jury. The blue wall is also propped up by judges and prosecutors, unfortunately.
Three Chicago police officers were acquitted on Thursday of charges that they had conspired and lied to protect a white police officer who fired 16 deadly shots into a black teenager, a contentious verdict in a case over what many viewed as a “code of silence” in the Police Department.
The judgment, rendered in a tense, cramped courtroom overflowing with spectators, was delivered by a judge and not a jury. Speaking from the bench for close to an hour, Associate Judge Domenica Stephenson rejected the prosecutors’ arguments that the officers had shooed away witnesses and then created a narrative to justify the 2014 shooting, which prompted citywide protests, the firing of the police chief and a wide-ranging federal investigation into the police force.
As soon as I saw the acquittal, I knew the verdict was probably rendered by a judge as opposed to a jury. The blue wall is also propped up by judges and prosecutors, unfortunately.