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He points to Cincinnati, where last summer a university officer was indicted for murder and video from his body camera was released within days following the shooting of an unarmed African-American man in a traffic stop.
“The policy in Cincinnati is that you should release within 24 hours unless there are compelling investigatory reasons to hold on longer,” said Kalven. “The policy should be that the presumption is that this is public information and it is released as quickly as can reasonably be done, except in cases where there is a genuine and very specific investigatory need to withhold it.”
That’s not the same as waiting until an investigation is concluded. Friday’s ruling that the McDonald video must be released—and the absence of any affidavit from investigators about the need to withhold it—showed that “there was absolutely no legal or investigatory impediment to releasing this” long ago.
“This was an incredible test of leadership, a major challenge to [Emanuel’s] leadership,” Kalven said. “Think how different the situation would be right now if the city had acknowledged the reality of what happened in the days or weeks after it happened. That would have built confidence.”
And instead of vague and politically self-serving calls for “healing,” it could have begun a real process of accountability of the kind necessary to start addressing the extreme alienation between police and wide segments of our communities.
Instead, with only Van Dyke indicted, it looks like he’s being sacrificed in order to protect the system that created him.
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