{"id":31717,"date":"2015-12-08T09:01:15","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T17:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/no-charges-for-chicago-officer-in-other-2014-shooting\/"},"modified":"2015-12-08T09:01:15","modified_gmt":"2015-12-08T17:01:15","slug":"no-charges-for-chicago-officer-in-other-2014-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/no-charges-for-chicago-officer-in-other-2014-shooting\/","title":{"rendered":"No charges for Chicago officer in other 2014 shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO<\/strong> \u2014 A dashcam video of another 2014 fatal shooting of a black man by a Chicago police officer became public Monday, with Cook County\u2019s top prosecutor explaining in unusual detail her reasons for not charging the officer. Here are the key parts of the case:<\/p>\n\n

THE ANNOUNCEMENT<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anita Alvarez, the county state\u2019s attorney, cited \u201cthe totality of the evidence\u201d when announcing she would not charge Officer George Hernandez in the death of 25-year-old Ronald Johnson III, who Hernandez shot in the back as he fled from officers.<\/p>\n

The shooting occurred just eight days before Officer Jason Van Dyke, who is white, shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was black, 16 times. Alvarez charged Van Dyke with first-degree murder last month, hours before the release of dashcam video of McDonald\u2019s death, which led to days of protests and the ouster of the city\u2019s police chief.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Alvarez\u2019s news conference came about two hours after the U.S. Justice Department announced it would investigate the Chicago Police Department for patterns of racial disparity in the use of force in the aftermath of McDonald\u2019s shooting.<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s family and its attorney rejected Alvarez\u2019s decision, calling it a \u201cjoke\u201d and dismissing authorities\u2019 assertions that Johnson was armed. They have sued the city over the death.<\/p>\n\n

THE EVIDENCE<\/strong><\/p>\n

Alvarez said officers encountered Johnson after responding to reports of shots fired in a city neighborhood. She played 911 calls and radio traffic among officers as a way of explaining what Hernandez knew about the scene when he arrived: Shots had been fired and men with guns could be seen running into a building.<\/p>\n

Alvarez said Hernandez would have been able to see a man struggle with a plainclothes officer before breaking away and fleeing on foot and could hear officers shouting for the man \u2014 Johnson \u2014 to stop and drop his weapon. He was running in the direction of other officers. Hernandez fired five times, Alvarez said, hitting Johnson twice.<\/p>\n

Digital images of Johnson\u2019s hand show he was holding something, though it is unclear what, Alvarez said. She also added that DNA recovered from a gun found next to Johnson\u2019s body matched Johnson\u2019s DNA, and a matching bullet was found in a car where Johnson was sitting earlier that night.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

THE PRESENTATION<\/p>\n

It\u2019s rare for Alvarez to go to such lengths to explain why charges were not warranted, but she has come under heavy criticism in recent weeks for waiting more than a year to charge Van Dyke.<\/p>\n

Before showing the dashcam video in the Johnson case, she and Assistant State\u2019s Attorney Lynn McCarthy showed a long PowerPoint presentation that included radio communications and maps of the part of the city where the shooting happened. There were photographs of the gun she said was recovered near Johnson\u2019s body in a grassy area of a park, and digitally magnified images of Johnson\u2019s hand while he was running to show he was holding an object.<\/p>\n

She also, unusually, showed a video of an unrelated shooting incident to illustrate her point that an officer could be in fear for his life from a man running away; it showed an assailant shooting an officer over his shoulder.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

THE REACTION<\/p>\n

The attorney representing Johnson\u2019s family countered Alvarez\u2019s video presentation with one of his own later Monday \u2014 including parts of video and audio of a deposition that he took from Hernandez a month ago.<\/p>\n

Attorney Michael Oppenheimer, who represents Johnson\u2019s mother, Dorothy Holmes, dismissed Alvarez\u2019s presentation as an \u201cinfomercial,\u201d said a witness was coerced into false testimony and said the investigation Alvarez relied on was incomplete and didn\u2019t include comments from key witnesses \u2014 including Hernandez himself.<\/p>\n

The audio Oppenheimer presented of what he said was Hernandez\u2019s deposition had the officer saying that he wasn\u2019t concerned about charges being filed against him. Oppenheimer also suggested that police could have planted the gun found next to Johnson\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

Alvarez spokeswoman Sally Daly said in an emailed statement Monday evening that the Cook County state\u2019s attorney\u2019s office reviewed \u201call statements\u201d made by Hernandez, including in his deposition. She said the witness Oppenheimer claimed was coerced gave a videotaped statement to the office and a taped audio statement under oath to the Independent Police Review Authority.<\/p>\n

Daly said Oppenheimer is suing the city for monetary damages and \u201cthat must be considered in the context of these allegations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO \u2014 A dashcam video of another 2014 fatal shooting of a black man by a Chicago police officer became public Monday, with Cook County\u2019s top prosecutor explaining in unusual detail her reasons for not charging the officer. Here are the key parts of the case: THE ANNOUNCEMENT Anita Alvarez, the county state\u2019s attorney, cited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-31717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31717"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=31717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}