Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke was convicted last Friday of second degree murder for shooting and killing Laquan McDonald in 2014. Reports of the incident were filed by McDonald and three other officers, all of whom claimed that McDonald had made threatening gestures with a knife just before the shooting. A year later, however, a dashcam video was released showing that Van Dyke had started shooting only six seconds after arriving on the scene, and that McDonald had actually been backing away at the time.
At trial, Van Dyke testified that he shot McDonald because he felt his life was in danger. The jury evidently believed that Van Dyke was in fear, but found that it was unreasonable,which accounts for the conviction of second degree murder, as well as sixteen counts of aggravated battery with a firearm (one for each shot).
The other three police officers were indicted for filing false reports, but they have not yet come to trial. One of them was given use immunity and compelled to testify at Van Dyke's trial.
Both the video and the outcome of the Van Dyke trial provide powerful evidence of the common phenomenon -- to put it as plainly as possible -- of police lying.
And of course, this is not the only time that video evidence has disproved police claims. Officer Michael Slager, of North Charleston, South Carolina, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for shooting Walter Scott in the back, after a video revealed Slager dropping an object next to Scott's body:
So the question arises: Can police reports ever be trusted for anything?
As I have written in earlier posts (here and here) some ethnographers take the position that police reports should simply be rejected. In an email, TCU's Jeff Ferrell told me that "their usefulness in fact-checking what ethnographers find or hear on the street [is] minimal at best." He later elaborated, in response to my post on the police killing of Botham Shem Jean, saying that police reports are "records that inevitably reflect bureaucratic imperatives, power arrangements, etc., as much as they do the external facts of the matter."
Perhaps needless to say, I think this goes much too far. Police reports must be used cautiously, and regarded with some healthy skepticism, but they are often valuable sources of information. As I explained several years ago, they are most reliable under three circumstances: when they have been corroborated; when they are describing regular procedures; and when the police have no reason to lie.
Even in the McDonald case, we can see all three circumstances in some aspects of the reports, which accurately included, among other details, the time and place of the shooting, the names of all officers present, the nature of the original call to the scene, the size of McDonald's knife, and the number of shots fired by Van Dyke. This information is reliable because much of it was corroborated by videos and witnesses (including the medical examiner), it reflects routine procedures, and the officers, even after falsely reporting McDonald's aggressive actions, had nothing to gain by lying about the other facts.
It is admittedly a careful balance. I cross examined enough cops in my early career to know that their reports cannot be taken at face value, but that does not make them useless. In fact, police reports are frequently helpful in reversing wrongful convictions.
Even so, Prof. Ferrell (who has graciously corresponded with me on this subject) says that "the value of official records for addressing potential police misconduct" is different from "the value of official records for ethnographic fact-checking." Here I think he is just wrong. Fact checking is fact checking and sources are sources. If reports can be sufficiently reliable for establishing misconduct, they can certainly be used to validate or falsify "what ethnographers find or hear on the street."
Yes, for impeachables. "Now, Officer, you put this in your report?" Is it fair to say that this fact matters? With that being said, Van Dyke was his own worst enemy on the stand. He testified like he was the arresting officer being cross examined at a Prelim at Grand and Central by a PD or Bar Attorney. Snarky, arrogant and trying to trip up the lawyers. He corrected them a number of times...exactly the way coppers testify on a routine PCS/WI or controlled buy Except he wasn't the credible arresting officer. I really don't believe the defense had control over their client...dare I say poor client advocacy. May have tried a decent case, but didn't humble their guy and read him the riot act....ie, sit down and shut up....you are not a copper anymore, but mope defendant on trial. Be humble.
Posted by: The Law Offcies of Kavanaugh Thomas, LLC, PC, LTD, Chartered, AV Rated | October 09, 2018 at 10:32 PM