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We now know what the city's top cop and Mayor Emanuel had to say about the shooting death of Quintonio Legrier.
The depositions have just been made public and a jury is seated in what could be a blockbuster trial for the city of Chicago.
Opening statements are set for Monday in the case against a Chicago police officer and the city of Chicago. On Thursday, some key pre-trial depositions in the case were released to the media.
Police superintendent Eddie Johnson and Mayor Rahm Emanuel sat for a combined five hours back in march answering questions from attorneys for the estates of Quintonio Legrier and Bettie Jones. Jones' lawsuit was settled for $16-million last week.
But a jury will have to decide whether the city and officer Robert Rialmo should be on the hook for the wrongful death of the 19-year old Legrier in 2015.
Attorneys spent a lot of time in the depositions talking about a "code of silence" within CPD that may have impeded the investigation. The mayor commented that it exists in a 2015 speech.
An attorney for Legrier asked him about it directly and also asked the superintendent to respond.
“There's a lot of good police officers. There's a few bad apples -- in every profession. And there's a -- what I would refer to sometimes a knee jerk reaction to circle the wagons. Like -- and we’re seeing it now in the public domain and a whole set of other issues in other professions and that Chicago's not -- stand out or different. But that there is an attempt sometimes in a profession to protect a colleague versus the highest standards of the police department or any other profession for that matter,” Mayor Emanuel said.
ATTORNEY: Were you surprised to hear the mayor in December of 2015 while you were the chief of the bureau of patrol state that there was a code of silence in the CPD?
“Personally I really had no -- no visceral reaction to it at all,” Supt. Johnson said. “Again, my personal experience, I have not ever heard anyone talking about code of silence, trained on the code of silence, or even saying that they would participate in a code of silence.”
Superintendent Johnson has said that officer Rialmo's actions were justified and that he acted within department policy when he shot and killed Legrier, who came out of a house swinging a bat at Rialmo.
Bettie Jones just happened to be in the building and was also killed.
But COPA -- the civilian agency that investigates police involved shootings -- disagreed with Johnson’s ruling and argued their side in an 8-thousand-page report.
Officer Rialmo's legal team has filed a counter suit against the city. Their argument? Rialmo was not properly trained by the city and that Legrier's actions led to shots being fired.