US President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he was “deeply disturbed” by graphic video footage showing a white Chicago police officer repeatedly shooting a black teenager as the teen walked away.
“Like many Americans, I was deeply disturbed by the footage of the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald,” Obama wrote on his official Facebook page.
Chicago police initially said that McDonald was high on the hallucinogen PCP, acting erratically, and that he lunged at officers with a knife when he was shot 16 times in 15 seconds in October 2014.
But a police dashcam video showed the teenager walking away when officer Jason Van Dyke – who was charged on Tuesday with first-degree murder over the death – opened fire and McDonald made no threatening gestures to justify the use of deadly force.
Prosecutors and city officials have come under intense criticism for trying to block the release of the video and taking so long to press charges against Van Dyke.
Demonstrators, who staged peaceful protests on Tuesday, liken McDonald’s killing to that of Michael Brown, the black teenager shot dead by a white policeman in Ferguson, Missouri last year, triggering 15 months of demonstrations in major US cities over perceived police brutality against black men.
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