Futterman: Looking at Data, Officer Who Shot McDonald "Stands Out Like a Sore Thumb"

Office in Lacquan McDonald killing 'not the monster' people think, wife says

Van Dyke has at least 20 formal complaints over his career, including McDonald's fatal shooting, according to department records. Eleven involved allegations of excessive force. Many of those who complained were minorities. In some cases, a full record of the complaint was not available. But in two separate incidents, he was accused of making a racial slur.

"There can be innocent explanations for lots of these things," Futterman said of Van Dyke. "But, by any metric, he stands out like a sore thumb, and that would tell me I need to investigate and use that information to see if there is something going on."

Futterman and the nonprofit journalistic organization the Invisible Institute have compiled the most extensive database of Chicago police misconduct complaints, tens of thousands in all. The researchers found that more than half of the department's officers from 2011 to 2015 didn't have a single complaint, and more than 80 percent had four or fewer.

Read more at Chicago Tribune