Chicago's Top Cop Fired After Protests and Officer Charged with Murder

This story is developing and will be updated.

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed and the Chicago Tribune reported that McCarthy was asked for his resignation overnight before Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced the creation of task force to investigate police accountability in the wake of the Laquan McDonald shooting.

According to Sneed, McCarthy still had his job on Monday, but during the overnight hours, the mayor changed his mind and fired the police superintendent.

McCarthy is said to be “shellshocked.” The police superintendent also reportedly stood up the WGN morning news show.

As recently as last Friday, when McCarthy held a press conference to announce the arrest of a suspect in the gang execution of 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee, the then-police superintendent said the mayor told him, “I have your back.”

McCarthy said at that time that “I’ve never quit anything in my life” and had no intention of resigning.

Black leaders, as well as newspaper editorial boards called for McCarthy’s firing after the release of a police dash cam video showed a white Chicago police officer, Jason Van Dyke, shooting an African-American teen, Laquan McDonald, to death on a lonely stretch of Pulaski Road in October 2014. The video showed the 17-year-old appearing to walk away when he was shot 16 times.

Emanuel said during Tuesday’s press conference where he was set to announce the creation of a task force to study police accountability, oversight and training in the wake of the Laquan McDonald shooting, that McCarthy had become a “distraction.”

“I have a loyalty to Garry McCarthy but I have an even bigger loyalty to Chicago and it’s future,” the mayor said.

He then praised McCarthy for lowering Chicago’s crime rate since taking the helm in 2011, shortly after the mayor’s first inauguration.

McCarthy is the former operations chief for the New York Police Department and later, went on to run the police department for Newark, NJ.

Emanuel said his request for McCarthy’s resignation was the offshoot of a conversation that the two had on Sunday regarding the future of the city’s police department.

It became clear to the mayor that McCarthy had lost the public’s trust and confidence.

“Superintendent Garry McCarthy has been an excellent leader of our police department over the past four-and-a-half years ... but Superintendent McCarthy also knows that a police officer is only as effective when he has the trust of those he serves,” Emanual said.

Emanuel did not let McCarthy stand alone in the public backlash, saying that he, too, was responsible for the erosion of public trust, especially among Chicago’s “communities of color.”

“Now is the time for fresh eyes and new leadership to confront the challenges the department and our community and our city are facing,” Emanuel said. First Deputy John Escalante will serve as commissioner while CPD searches for a replacement.

The mayor took pointed questions from reporters, about the release of the video showing McDonald getting shot to death.

“How can you build trust and transparency when the tape has been tampered with,” a reporter asked.

The mayor also announced a new police accountability task force, drawing upon legal experts with experience as prosecutors, a former public defender, and a former Chicago police deputy superintendent. Former Massachusetts governor and Chicago native Deval Patrick will serve as a senior adviser to the task force. Patrick was a U.S. Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division under President Bill Clinton.

Emanuel appeared to abruptly end the press conference when he was asked why McCarthy wasn’t fired sooner after the mayor viewed the police dash cam video.

The mayor said he did see the video early on because it was part of an ongoing investigation, then left the room at city hall.

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• Jason Van Dyke Free on Bond
• Federal Grand Jury Heard Evidence of ‘Deleted’ Video
• FBI Arrests UIC Student in Laquan McDonald Revenge Threat
• Judge Asks: Why No Protests for Children Shot Down in Chicago’s Streets?
• Magnificent Mile Fills With Laquan McDonald Protesters on Black Friday
• City’s Black Leaders Demand Firing of Chicago’s Top Cop
• Video Shows Jason Van Dyke Shoot Laquan McDonald
• Police Union Stands by Officer Charged in Murder of Teen
• Angry Protesters Flood Chicago Streets
• Poet, Four Others, Arrested After Night of Unrest
• 5 Perspectives on ‘16 Shots: The Death of Laquan McDonald’
• Chicago Cop Charged in ‘Graphic, Violent, Chilling’ Murder
• Teen Shot 16 Times by Chicago Police a ‘Modern-Day Emmett Till’