CHICAGO (AP) — The white officer who shot a black Chicago teen 16 times has been charged with murder and jailed. The graphic video of the slaying has been made public. And in the hours after the footage was released, protesters seemed to honor pleas for restraint.
The question now is whether those efforts will be enough to address the simmering resentment that authorities took more than a year to share the footage and charge the officer who emptied an entire magazine into the teen even after he had crumpled to the ground.
City officials and community leaders had long braced for the release of the dash-cam video showing the death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. They feared the kind of turmoil that occurred in cities such as Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, after young black men were slain by police or died in police custody.
A judge ordered that the recording be made public by Wednesday. Moments before it was released, the mayor and the police chief urged protesters to stay calm.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel said residents will "have to make an important judgment about our city and ourselves and go forward." He referred to the episode as a potential "moment of understanding and learning."