Van Dyke murder trial starts Wednesday with jury selection

One of the biggest crises faced by Mayor Emanuel during his time in office was the Laquan McDonald shooting.

So it's perhaps no coincidence that the mayor's announcement that he won’t run for re-election comes on the eve of Officer Jason Van Dyke's trial.

“There are certain things that I know that, quite frankly, nobody else knows. I'm not going to share that information,” defense attorney Dan Herbert said three years ago on the day Van Dyke was charged with murder.

On Wednesday, Van dyke's murder trial begins, where Dan Herbert might reveal some of those "things which nobody else knows."

The centerpiece for the prosecution will be the dashcam video seen around the world, which shows 17-year-old Laquan McDonald being shot by Van Dyke. Herbert is likely to argue, as he did in a magazine article, that there's more to the video than meets the eyes.

On Tuesday, Judge Vincent Gaughan ordered that cameras be kept out of the courtroom when a hundred prospective jurors arrive for the case. He also wants reporters to sit with the general public, not in the jury box as we do in many pretrial hearings.

“I just want to reduce that tension that might be there because people that are potential jurors are under a lot of stress,” Judge Gaughan said.

The prospective jurors will simply fill out questionnaires Wednesday, and then they don't have to return until Monday, when they'll be questioned one by one outside the presence of other jurors.

On the way in Wednesday, potential jurors may see protesters, demanding justice for Laquan McDonald. Police hope to keep them behind barricades. The McDonald family has been careful to distance themselves from the protest groups, and made that point again Tuesday.

“We're asking for complete peace. We don't want any violence before, during or after the verdict in this trial,” said Reverend Marvin Hunter, the McDonald family spokesperson.