Compare and contrast.
In 2014, three months after a banned police chokehold led to the death of Eric Garner in Staten Island, 17-year-old Laquan McDonald was shot and killed by cops in Chicago.
No one has yet been disciplined or fired for Garner’s death. On Thursday, Chicago’s Police Board concluded that four officers lied to exaggerate the threat McDonald posed and terminated their employment.
“(Taken) on their face, the officers’ accounts depict a scene in which Mr. McDonald was the aggressor and Officer (Jason) Van Dyke the victim — a depiction squarely contradicted by reality,” wrote the board in its decision.
This isn’t the first flicker of accountability in Chicago for that civilian killing. Last year, Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder and aggravated battery, for which he was later sentenced to six years and nine months in prison.
All that despite the fact that unlike Garner’s death, video of which riveted the city from the outset, the McDonald murder got precious little attention for more than a year, as city officials withheld damning footage until a court order forced its release.
Even as we acknowledge, as we all should, that most cops do their best and risk their lives to protect their community, many police disciplinary systems across America are broken.
Cheer the fact that one big city found a way to hold a number of officers accountable. And lament the fact that New York has so miserably failed. More than five years since Garner lay on the pavement saying he couldn’t breathe, the nation’s best police department keeps Daniel Pantaleo on its payroll.
Mayor Bill de Blasio this week twisted himself into pretzels to apologize without apologizing for having deferred to U.S. Justice Department officials, whose case dragged on for months and years, saying the city won’t make the same mistake again.
The promise is so lame, he should be ashamed.
This editorial appeared in the New York Daily News. It should be considered another point of view and not necessarily the opinion or editorial policy of The Dominion Post.
