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Home > Democracy Now! Video > Court Upholds Chicago Officer's 7-Year Sentence for Killing Unarmed Black Teenager Laquan McDonald
Podcast: Democracy Now! Video
Episode:

Court Upholds Chicago Officer's 7-Year Sentence for Killing Unarmed Black Teenager Laquan McDonald
Category: News & Politics
Duration: 00:59:00
Publish Date: 2019-03-20 07:00:00
Description: The Illinois Supreme Court has let stand a less than 7-year prison sentence for former police officer Jason Van Dyke, who was found guilty last year of second-degree murder for killing African-American teenager Laquan McDonald in 2014. The court denied a request by the state’s attorney general to resentence Van Dyke on Tuesday. Van Dyke, who is white, was found guilty on 16 counts of aggravated battery—one count for each of the 16 bullets he fired at McDonald. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul petitioned the state Supreme Court to vacate Van Dyke’s second-degree murder sentence and instead impose a sentence on each of the 16 counts. If the petition had been granted, Van Dyke could have faced up to 96 years in prison. The news that Van Dyke will not be resentenced has sparked criticism in Chicago. We speak with Flint Taylor, an attorney with People’s Law Office and author of “The Torture Machine: Racism and Police Violence in Chicago,” and Lilia Fernández, a professor of history and Latino studies at Rutgers University. She is the author of “Brown in the Windy City: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Postwar Chicago.”
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