Cop Who Shot Teen 16 Times Has History Of Citizen Complaints

It’s been sev­en years since Ed Nance was roughed up by a Chicago police offi­cer who hand­cuffed him so vio­lent­ly dur­ing a 2007 traf­fic stop he seri­ous­ly injured both shoul­ders, cost­ing him tens of thou­sands of dol­lars in med­ical bills and lost wages.

Nance, a cable com­pa­ny employ­ee with no con­vic­tions, says he will nev­er for­get the non­cha­lant look on the offi­cer’s face when, two years lat­er, a fed­er­al jury ruled he and his part­ner had used exces­sive force and award­ed Nance $350,000 in damages.

“They looked like, OK, so what, go (back) to work,” Nance told the Tribune in an inter­view. “They was back on the street like noth­ing ever happened.”

When Nance was recent­ly told that Officer Jason Van Dyke, who aggres­sive­ly hand­cuffed him that night, is being inves­ti­gat­ed by the FBI for shoot­ing a teen 16 times, he broke into tears.

“It just makes me so sad because it should­n’t have hap­pened,” Nance said. “He should­n’t have been on the street in the first place after my incident.”

The Tribune has learned that it was Van Dyke who was on patrol in the Chicago Lawn District on Oct. 20 when he was called to the 4100 block of South Pulaski Road, where 17-year-old Laquan McDonald was act­ing errat­i­cal­ly and refus­ing police com­mands to drop a 4‑inch fold­ing knife.

Within moments of arriv­ing, Van Dyke jumped out of his squad car with his gun drawn and opened fire on McDonald, killing him, author­i­ties have said. Lawyers for the McDonald fam­i­ly said the offi­cer emp­tied his semi-auto­mat­ic. None of the five oth­er offi­cers there fired a shot, accord­ing to authorities.

Earlier this month the U.S. attor­ney’s office announced a crim­i­nal probe into the shoot­ing, which was cap­tured on a dash­board cam­era from anoth­er police vehi­cle. The news of the inves­ti­ga­tion broke as the Chicago City Council vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to approve a $5 mil­lion set­tle­ment with McDonald’s fam­i­ly even before a law­suit was filed.

The inves­ti­ga­tion comes amid the pub­lic out­cry nation­wide in recent months over police use of lethal force against minori­ties, includ­ing in Chicago where last week a white Chicago police detec­tive was acquit­ted on a legal tech­ni­cal­i­ty for a fatal off-duty shoot­ing of a 22-year-old black woman in 2012. Van Dyke is white, while McDonald was African-American. Nance also is black.

Van Dyke has been stripped of his police pow­ers and assigned to paid desk duty. Police have main­tained the offi­cer, whose name has not been released by the city, fired in fear of his life because the teen lunged at him and his part­ner with the knife.

The offi­cer did not return calls seek­ing com­ment, and no one answered the door at his Chicago home Friday.

Attorney Daniel Herbert, who con­firmed he is rep­re­sent­ing Van Dyke, called the 14-year vet­er­an a “high­ly dec­o­rat­ed and well-regard­ed offi­cer with zero dis­ci­pline on his record.”

“He believes he act­ed appro­pri­ate­ly and with­in depart­ment guide­lines,” Herbert said.

Department records reviewed by the Tribune show that over the years, Van Dyke, who has been assigned most­ly to high-crime neigh­bor­hoods, has been accused by cit­i­zens of a num­ber of abus­es, from hurl­ing racial epi­thets to man­han­dling sus­pects and, in one com­plaint, point­ing his gun at an arrestee with­out justification.

But he was nev­er dis­ci­plined for any of the 15 com­plaints that have been resolved, includ­ing the one Nance filed after his run-in with Van Dyke, accord­ing to city doc­u­ments obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

‘A safe place for him’

McDonald, by most accounts, was a trou­bled kid. At the time of his death, he was a ward of the state, and although he had no adult crim­i­nal record, author­i­ties said he had racked up numer­ous juve­nile arrests. Autopsy results obtained by the Tribune show McDonald had PCP in his sys­tem at the time of his death.

Still, fac­ul­ty at the Sullivan House alter­na­tive high school he had been attend­ing in the weeks before his shoot­ing remem­bered a gen­tle side to the teen, a joke­ster who gave hugs and liked to make peo­ple laugh.

“He would come up every morn­ing and hug me, and he would do that with a lot of teach­ers,” said Ashley Beverly, one of his teach­ers. “He real­ly liked being here. … (It) was a safe place for him.”

Principal Thomas Gattuso said McDonald, one of about 20 wards of the state in the school of 340 stu­dents, was like­ly on track to grad­u­ate when he turned 19.

At the time of his death, McDonald was in the tem­po­rary cus­tody of his 25-year-old uncle. But the teen’s moth­er had ini­ti­at­ed a peti­tion to regain cus­tody of McDonald in May. Up until the shoot­ing, McDonald’s moth­er had been allowed super­vised vis­its by a Cook County Juvenile Court judge in antic­i­pa­tion of grant­i­ng her cus­tody petition.

Through her lawyers, McDonald’s moth­er declined to be inter­viewed for this sto­ry. His uncle also did not want to be interviewed.

On the night he was killed, McDonald was alleged­ly try­ing to break into vehi­cles in a truck­ing yard at 41^st Street and Kildare Avenue in the city’s Archer Heights neighborhood.

The first two offi­cers to respond tailed McDonald, one on foot and the oth­er in a marked police SUV, as he walked sev­er­al blocks along 40^th Street, refus­ing to drop the knife. Near the inter­sec­tion with Pulaski Road, McDonald punc­tured one of the tires of the SUV with his knife before strik­ing the wind­shield with the weapon and then walk­ing or jog­ging away from the offi­cers through a near­by Burger King park­ing lot, about half a mile from where he was first spot­ted by police.

At that point, the squad car equipped with the dash­board cam­era arrived at the scene, and offi­cers con­tin­ued to fol­low McDonald as he walked down Pulaski.

The dash cam­era video has not been made pub­lic by city offi­cials. Lawyers for McDonald’s moth­er, Michael Robbins and Jeffrey Neslund, also have declined to release the video in part because of the ongo­ing crim­i­nal investigation.

But the attor­neys gave a detailed account of the video, say­ing it first showed McDonald jog­ging south on Pulaski in the mid­dle of the street as Van Dyke’s marked police SUV stopped in front of him.

The teen then veered away from Van Dyke and his part­ner, walk­ing to the mid­dle of the two south­bound lanes. Both offi­cers then got out of their vehi­cle and were stand­ing about 12 to 15 feet away from the teen when Van Dyke opened fire.

The first shots caused McDonald to spin and fall to the ground. A puff of smoke then rose from his body as he was lying in a fetal posi­tion, fol­lowed by anoth­er and anoth­er, Neslund said.

“There’s jerk­ing con­sis­tent with him get­ting shot,” Neslund said.

About 16 sec­onds elapsed from the time McDonald hit the ground to the time the last puff of smoke was vis­i­ble. Another offi­cer then emerged into the view of the cam­era and kicked an object — pos­si­bly the knife — out of McDonald’s hand. At no point on the video was McDonald seen lung­ing at any­one, accord­ing to the attorneys.

Robbins offered a stark sum­ma­ry of the inci­dent: “It starts out as an unjus­ti­fied shoot­ing, and it turns into some kind of sadis­tic execution.”

‘You only live once’

At the scene that night, Fraternal Order of Police spokesman Pat Camden said the offi­cer had fired in fear of his life after McDonald lunged at him with the weapon. All Camden said about the teen’s wounds was that he had been struck in the chest.

“The offi­cers are respond­ing to some­one with a knife in a crazed con­di­tion who stabs out tires on a vehi­cle, on a squad car,” said Camden, who pri­or to work­ing for the union spent two decades as a spokesman for the Police Department. “You obvi­ous­ly aren’t going to sit down and have a cup of cof­fee with him. He is a very seri­ous threat to the offi­cers, and he leaves them no choice at that point but to defend themselves.”

A “pre­lim­i­nary state­ment” from the police News Affairs divi­sion, sent to the media ear­ly the next morn­ing, said that after he had refused orders to drop the knife, McDonald “con­tin­ued to approach the offi­cers” and that as a result “the offi­cer dis­charged his weapon, strik­ing the offender.”

The state­ment did­n’t say how many shots were fired or where or how many times McDonald was struck. Further ques­tions were referred to the Independent Police Review Authority, which inves­ti­gates police shoot­ings as well as mis­con­duct alle­ga­tions, and no updat­ed state­ment was ever released.

The autop­sy on McDonald’s body was con­duct­ed the morn­ing after the shoot­ing at the Cook County med­ical exam­in­er’s office. The autop­sy report released to the Tribune showed that McDonald was shot once on each side of his chest. He also had sin­gle bul­let wounds to the scalp and neck, two to his back, sev­en in his arms, one to his right hand and two shots in his right leg. According to the report, 9 of the 16 entrance wounds had a down­ward or slight­ly down­ward trajectory.

Altogether, the bul­lets left about two dozen entrance and exit wounds over the teen’s body. All were fired by the same weapon — Van Dyke’s Smith & Wesson 9 mm duty hand­gun, accord­ing to the report.

The report not­ed McDonald had a tat­too on each hand. One fea­tured a pair of dice and the let­ters “YOLO,” short for ‘you only live once.’

Patroling most vio­lent areas

According to police and court records, Van Dyke, 37, joined the depart­ment in 2001 and spent more than four years with a spe­cial­ized unit since dis­band­ed by police Superintendent Garry McCarthy — that aggres­sive­ly went into neigh­bor­hoods expe­ri­enc­ing spikes in vio­lent crimes.

After serv­ing as a patrol offi­cer in the Englewood police dis­trict, one of the most vio­lent neigh­bor­hoods in the city, he trans­ferred in 2013 to the Chicago Lawn District, where the McDonald shoot­ing occurred, records show.

According to Independent Police Review Authority records, Van Dyke has received 17 cit­i­zen com­plaints since 2006. At least three com­plaints in the last four years were for exces­sive force-relat­ed alle­ga­tions, and anoth­er accused him of mak­ing racial or eth­ni­cal­ly biased remarks, accord­ing to the records.

In one inci­dent from April 2008, Van Dyke and his part­ner came upon what they thought was a rob­bery in progress of a con­ve­nience store at 71^st Street and Ashland Avenue, accord­ing to the IPRA reports. They chased a male black sus­pect into an alley who alleged­ly made sus­pi­cious move­ments toward his waist­band, prompt­ing Van Dyke’s part­ner to take him down to the ground.

The man claimed in his com­plaint that the part­ner kicked him in the face and that Van Dyke drew his gun and point­ed it at him with­out jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. The man was not charged with a crime and was treat­ed at Holy Cross Hospital for injuries and swelling to his left eye. Van Dyke said in an inter­view with inves­ti­ga­tors he could not recall if he’d removed his gun from its hol­ster that night. His part­ner denied kick­ing the suspect.

A year lat­er, IPRA exon­er­at­ed Van Dyke of the alle­ga­tions, con­clud­ing his actions were jus­ti­fied and fell with­in depart­ment pol­i­cy. The alle­ga­tions against his part­ner, how­ev­er, were not sus­tained because they could­n’t be proven or refuted.

More recent­ly, in December 2013, Van Dyke was part of a team of 11 offi­cers exe­cut­ing a search war­rant at a home in the Englewood District, records show. An African-American woman who was at the scene lat­er filed a report claim­ing the offi­cers were phys­i­cal­ly and ver­bal­ly abu­sive and used the “n” word toward those in the home.

In find­ing the com­plaint unfound­ed, an IPRA inves­ti­ga­tor not­ed the offi­cers had claimed in reports that the com­plainant had been loud and dis­rup­tive at the scene and had to be arrest­ed. “The offi­cers at the scene act­ed with appar­ent restraint,” the report said.

‘It could have been me’

In July 2007, Ed Nance was dri­ving on East 87^th Street with his cousin one night when Van Dyke and his then-part­ner pulled him over, pur­port­ed­ly because the front license plate was miss­ing on his moth­er’s Chevrolet — a claim dis­put­ed by Nance.

Nance alleged in his law­suit as well as in his com­plaint to inter­nal affairs that the part­ner ordered him out of the car and then slammed him over the hood of the squad car, caus­ing injuries to Nance’s neck and face. Van Dyke then forcibly hand­cuffed him, pulling his arms back vio­lent­ly and caus­ing injuries to the ten­dons in his shoul­ders as well as one rota­tor cuff, accord­ing to the suit.

In a depo­si­tion tak­en before the case went to tri­al, Nance said when he asked the offi­cers why they were rough­ing him up, they swore at him repeat­ed­ly and threat­ened him with arrest. Van Dyke then threw Nance into the back of the squad car while they ques­tioned his cousin, who was arrest­ed for pos­sess­ing a small amount of marijuana.

Asked if he was con­cerned for his safe­ty, Nance was quot­ed in a tran­script as tes­ti­fy­ing, “Basically yes, because every sto­ry I hear about the police get­ting pulled over in my neigh­bor­hood, they beat­ing them up, they pulling them out of the car. Some peo­ple die.”

After about 20 min­utes, Van Dyke returned to the squad car and yanked Nance out painful­ly by the arms, accord­ing to the suit. He was issued a tick­et for the miss­ing license plate and told his moth­er’s car would be towed because of his cous­in’s pot pos­ses­sion charge. Records show the mis­de­meanor was dis­missed at the first court date.

In his sworn depo­si­tion, Van Dyke tes­ti­fied he was con­cerned Nance could be dan­ger­ous because he had­n’t pulled over imme­di­ate­ly when his part­ner acti­vat­ed the emer­gency lights.

“Just did­n’t feel right,” Van Dyke said, accord­ing to a transcript.

Van Dyke tes­ti­fied that once Nance was out of the car, he was loud and bel­liger­ent, caus­ing Van Dyke to fur­ther fear for his safe­ty because he might be vio­lent or armed with a weapon.

When Nance’s attor­ney, Michael McCready, asked specif­i­cal­ly why he was con­cerned about Nance, Van Dyke said, “His actions … his voice esca­lat­ing, for one.”

Van Dyke denied using exces­sive force in hand­cuff­ing Nance and said he could­n’t recall see­ing his part­ner slam him over the hood of the car.

In the months after the inci­dent, Nance went through two shoul­der surg­eries and was tak­ing med­ica­tion for pain and anx­i­ety that was mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to sleep, accord­ing to his tes­ti­mo­ny. In October 2009, a fed­er­al jury found the offi­cers had used exces­sive force, award­ing Nance $350,000 in dam­ages. The judge lat­er ordered the city to also pay $180,000 in legal fees of Nance’s attor­neys, records show.

By March 2011 IPRA cleared both Van Dyke and his part­ner of all the alle­ga­tions due to a lack of evi­dence, records show.

“Although (Nance) sus­tained injuries to his shoul­ders, there is no way to deter­mine the exact cause of his injuries,” IPRA con­clud­ed. “There were no inde­pen­dent wit­ness­es present dur­ing the incident.”

In the five years since, Nance has tried to put the inci­dent behind him. Surgeries have repaired his dam­aged shoul­ders, and he’s gone back to his sec­ond job ref­er­ee­ing high school bas­ket­ball games. But hear­ing that Van Dyke was under inves­ti­ga­tion for killing some­one brought it all back, he said.

“It makes me feel like it could have been me,” Nance said.
Cop who shot teen 16 times has his­to­ry of cit­i­zen complaints