Chicago mom wants city to see video of her son being shot by police
CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) - As anger grows over the Laquan McDonald case, FOX 32 has learned there's another police shooting captured on dash cam video that the city is refusing to release. This one occurred just days before McDonald’s murder in October of 2014.
FOX 32's Dane Placko talked to the mother of the shooting victim, who says she wants the world to see what happened to her son.
FOX 32: What was it like for you to look at the Laquan McDonald video?
"It was hard. It kind of took a lot out of me because it put me in the mind of looking at the video of my son being killed the same way,” said Dorothy Holmes.
Holmes says her son was also a victim of a police shooting that should never have happened.
Ronald Johnson, 25, was killed by police in the 5300 block of King Drive last year, eight days before McDonald was shot.
Police say they were forced to shoot because Johnson pointed a gun at officers. But a wrongful death and excessive force lawsuit filed by Johnson’s family says Johnson was unarmed and did nothing to provoke the shooting.
"And he ran past that police car and that's when you see the doors open on the police car and you just start seeing the shooting," Holmes said.
Holmes says she saw the police dash cam video a month ago when she went to IPRA, the Independent Police Review Authority, which has been investigating the shooting for over a year. The officer who killed Johnson remains on paid leave.
On Wednesday, community activists joined Holmes in calling for the video's release.
"The mayor has an opportunity, not just to show the city but to show the country, that this city will provide transparency. And Dorothy Holmes, the mother of Ronald Johnson, deserves the transparency. So release the tape,” said William Calloway.
"I'm asking that the mayor, McCarthy, Alvarez release the video so everybody could see this officer's lying about what happened that night when he murdered my son,” Holmes added.
The family's lawyers are planning to hold a news conference early next week to turn up the heat on the case, saying they can't understand why the investigation has taken more than a year. A spokesman for IPRA says the investigation is ongoing, and that they're doing their due diligence to make sure all the evidence is collected.
A spokesperson for the city's Department of Law says they cannot comment on the video because it is under litigation.
On Wednesday, Aldertrack broke the story that there is another dashcam video that's been held in limbo of a shooting that happened just eight days before the death of McDonald.
On Monday, Ald. David Moore and Ald. Michael Scott Jr. asked the Mayor Rahm Emanuel if there were any other videos of police involved shootings floating out there and he said he didn’t know.