Mayor Emanuel: 'I'm Sorry' for Laquan McDonald Shooting

CHICAGO, IL -- In an emotion-packed mea culpa, Mayor Rahm Emanuel apologized to the Chicago City Council for the police shooting of Laquan McDonald that “happened on my watch.”

With his approval rating at its lowest since he took office, Emanuel’s rare special address to the city’s aldermen on Wednesday outlined his plans to restore the public’s trust in the Chicago Police Department, especially among young African-Americans.

“Each time when we confronted these issues in the past, Chicago only went far enough to clear our consciences and move on,” Emanuel said. “This time will and must be different. It will be a bumpy road, a painful process, and a long journey, but we will not hesitate in pursuit of what is right.”

• Also on Patch: Rahm Emanuel’s Approval Rating Plummets to 18 Percent: Poll

Since the release of the police dashcam video showing a white Chicago police officer shooting a black teen 16 times in 2014, the mayor fired his police superintendent Garry McCarthy. He has also parted ways with Scott Ando, the former chief administrator of the Independent Police Review Authority that is charged with reviewing cases of police misconduct, appointing former federal prosecutor Sharon Fairley to head up the review authority.

The mayor also discussed the city’s recent agreement to bring in the ACLU to conduct an independent civil rights review of the police department, separate from the Justice Department investigation in possible civil rights violations by the police department -- an investigation that the mayor originally opposed as “misguided.”

Starting in 2016, officers in a third of the city’s police districts will be equipped with police body cameras, where there will be “zero tolerance” for patrol officers who fail to engage the cameras. The Police Board is also engaged in a search to find a new superintendent who is capable of “addressing the deep-rooted problems at the very heart of the policing profession.”

The most emotional moment in the 40-minute speech came when the mayor discussed parents of children killed in street violence or had run afoul of the law. He also described a lunch he had with young men who had gotten into trouble with police.

“So I asked them, tell me the one thing I need to know. And rather than tell me something, one young man asked me a simple question that gets to the core of what we’re talking about,” Emanuel said, his voice rising. “He said, ‘Do you think the police would ever treat you the way they treat me?’ And the answer is no, and that’s wrong. And that has to change in this city. That has to come to an end and end now. No citizen is a second-class citizen in the city of Chicago. If my children are treated one way, every child is treated the same way.”

Read the mayor’s full speech on police accountability.

Watch video of the mayor’s address to the Chicago City Council.