Ex-Police Chief Garry McCarthy Is Notably Missing From The DOJ Report

By Rachel Cromidas in News on Jan 13, 2017 9:39PM

Ex-Chicago Police Chief Garry McCarthy, who was fired from his post as part of a department overall in the wake of the Laquan McDonald police shooting scandal, has had a lot to say from afar about how CPD is run. So it comes as a surprise to many that he is absent from the Department of Justice's just-released report on abuse of power within CPD.

“Attempts were made to reach former Superintendent McCarthy but he was not available,” U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch told reporters at a Friday morning press conference on the report.

But McCarthy disputes this claim.

“With all the investigative resources of the federal government, they can’t find me here in River North?” McCarthy said in an interview with NBC5.

McCarthy has criticized the Chicago Police Department from afar in multiple interviews and public appearances since he was let go from his post last year, amid accusations from police accountability activists that his department participated in a high-profile cover up of the nature of the shooting of Laquan McDonald. McDonald, a black teenager, was shot 16 times in the back by a now-disgraced Chicago cop, but the cops involved were not charged with crimes or dismissed from their jobs until after the city was compelled to release video of the shooting. The officials police narrative initially released after the shooting was misleading.

Recently, McCarthy said that the Black Lives Matter movement should be at least partially blamed for the uptick in crime in Chicago and some other cities, reasoning that anti-police sentiments weaken the department's ability to do its job.