When Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke shot Laquan McDonald 16 times, it was one more step in the 14-year veteran officer’s history with the Chicago Police Department. Van Dyke was charged with misconduct 20 times, 18 of which were apparently carried through to a disciplinary hearing. In every case, he got off, including the complaint about Laquan’s killing.
Until he was charged with murder.
Chicago has more than 13,000 police officers for its 2.8 million citizens. According to data from the Citizens Police Data Project, a database compiled by the University of Chicago and the journalism nonprofit Invisible Institute, there have been more than 56,000 allegations of misconduct of police in the times reported on the database. Few of those complaints go anywhere, and most of the complaints go against a small group of officers.
“Repeat officers — those with 10 or more complaints — make up about 10 percent of the force but receive 30 percent of all complaints,” a summary of the database shows. “They average 3.7 times as many complaints per officer as the rest of the force.”
Ironically, all of this information was released only a week before Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder in Laquan’s killing and a video of the killing was released to the public.