Testimony of Chicago officer on trial for murder conflicts with video evidence

0 0 Julius Choudhury October 3, 2018 Edit this post

By Ray Downs, UPI

The Chicago police officer on trial for murder after fatally shoot a 17-year-old boy took the stand on Tuesday and gave testimony that contradicted video evidence of the incident.

Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke killed Laquan McDonald on Oct. 20, 2014. That night, Van Dyke said, McDonald waved a knife and angled it toward him as he stared at him with a strange look in his eyes.

"[His] eyes were bugging out. His face was just expressionless," Van Dyke said, according to the Chicago Tribune. "He turned his torso towards me....He waved the knife from his lower right side upwards across his body towards [his] left shoulder."

At that point, Van Dyke shot McDonald, who fell to the ground. But Van Dyke began shooting again and said he had to because McDonald appeared like he was getting back up with the same look on his face.

"I could see him starting to push up with his left hand off the ground," Van Dyke said. "And I see his left shoulder start to come up, and I still see him holding that knife with his right hand not letting go of it. And his eyes are still bugged out. His face has got no expression on it."

Van Dyke unloaded all the bullets in his gun on McDonald and began to reload when a fellow officer stopped him and told him the situation was under control. In total, Van Dyke shot McDonald 16 times. He was one of several police officers on the scene but the only one to open fire.

But Van Dyke's testimony contradicts widely-seen dashcam video evidence of the shooting.

That video shows McDonald walking away from Van Dyke, who had his gun aimed at the teenager as soon as he arrived on the scene. Van Dyke open fires and McDonald falls to the ground. Although the knife is still in his hand, he doesn't appear to be trying to get up and is barely moving before Van Dyke fires several more times.

"The video doesn't show my perspective," Van Dyke told prosecutors when asked about the differences in his memory of events and the video, according to The New York Times.