Summary: On January 19th, 2019, Chicago officer Jason Van Dyke was sentenced for the murder of Laquan McDonald back in 2014, where he shot McDonald 16 times after he refused to drop a knife he was carrying while walking down the street. This is the first time that an officer is facing charges for an on-duty shooting in the city of Chicago, and mixed reactions have stemmed from it. Van Dyke's wife and daughters are defending him, stating that officers do not care about race, but they care about your safety. Others believe he was brought to justice, and see the former policeman as a racist cop, for claims that this wasn't the first time mistreatment had been scattered across Van Dyke's name seemed to fit into the puzzle piece. Van Dyke's brother-in-law, who is black, stated that he could've never guessed that Van Dyke was a "racist cop". The former policeman has been sentenced to six years and nine months in prison for the shooting.
Analysis: This is a very morally gray situation, and one of many ongoing controversies within America. Ever since the 1990s the term 'police brutality' has popped up time and time again, and personally I believe the shooting of Laquan McDonald definitely qualifies as police brutality. I mean y'all he shot him 16 times, and yes he was high and holding a knife, but 16 times is cruel and unusual. And he was only 17! I had never heard about this before reading this, and I'm glad I now know that this man was brought to justice. This article was written by the writing team at BBC (the names weren't listed), and this article was written as a way to highlight the crueler, morally gray side of the US police force once again. This can be related to the 2014 shooting of Micheal Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. He was only 18 and it sparked protests all over the country.
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