My first intersection with anything related to Laquan McDonald was reading a couple of paragraphs about the shooting in the local papers. This was a story you’d see on a weekly basis because, at that time, Chicago police were shooting, on average, [close to] one Black person a week. The story was like, “Police see a young Black man armed with a knife, he comes at them, an officer shoots him in self-defense. End of story. Nothing to see.” And then three words that shut down all further inquiry: “It’s under investigation.” That meant you wouldn’t have access to anything about it. I could put air quotes around these “investigations,” because they were very much a part of the machinery designed to ensure police officers wouldn’t be held accountable.

Then I got a call from someone in law enforcement in Chicago. They felt they could trust me because of my long history at the U. of C. clinic. They’d seen the video and knew that the incident was being covered up. They told me it was an execution and that the police shot that boy like he was nothing but a dog in the street. They walked me through it frame by frame. It was the complete antithesis of what the police department had told the news media. Laquan was not threatening anyone and was moving away from the police when they first shot. Then, while the boy was on the ground, they shot him repeatedly while he writhed in pain. The source was tired of this mess and asked if I could help stop it. So I reached out to Jamie Kalven, who I’d been working with closely for 14 years at this point, and began to put in place plans to investigate this with my law students as well.

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