More Evidence Shows Top Rahm Aides Knew About Laquan Video In 2014

By Rachel Cromidas in News on Jan 14, 2016 4:43PM

Troubling signs that Mayor Rahm Emanuel knew about the brutal shooting of Laquan McDonald, now a symbol of police misconduct in Chicago, much sooner than he claims—or that his top aides withheld key information from him for months—are continuing to grow.

A new Tribune report details the layers of government aides and officials who repeatedly met with Emanuel following the shooting, and repeatedly discussed the shooting at length with each other over email, as early as December 2014. Emanuel has long maintained that he did not know about the full gravity of the shooting until last spring—just before his re-election—when the city reached a settlement with McDonald's family.

Emails and other documents also show that mayoral aides knew about the possibility that police officers at the scene of the shooting falsified their reports of it, which contradicted with the video from the scene, in March—eight months before Emanuel said he found out himself.

Though it seems increasingly unlikely that Emanuel didn't realize the full extent of the controversial shooting until late in the game, the mayor's office said in a statement that it isn't necessarily the case, and that the meetings between Emanuel and top officials such as the police chief and the mayor's corporation counsel were "routine."

The Tribune also found that Emanuel's top lawyer, Corporation Counsel Stephen Patton, was in communication with U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon, whose office was and is conducting a criminal probe of police conduct in the case. Top police brass who sat in meetings with Emanuel followed developments in the shooting, and Emanuel's then-chief of staff Lisa Schrader reviewed emails and began sitting in on the mayor's police updates as media reports began to surface.

Emanuel and Patton declined to be interviewed for this story. Asked whether the mayor knew or should have known sooner about the circumstances of the shooting and the contradictions between police reports and the video, the Emanuel administration did not directly respond.

"What you're talking about are routine meetings between the mayor and police superintendent on crime reduction strategies, and the mayor and the corporation counsel on a wide range of legal matters," Emanuel spokesman Adam Collins said in an email.

The Tribune has the details, including an analysis of excerpts of public agendas and letters.