CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago police said Wednesday that the head of the department has ordered the investigation of an incident in which a white officer tells a man shooting a video that Michael Brown “deserved” to be shot last year in Ferguson, Missouri.
The killing of the unarmed, black 18-year-old by a white officer in the St. Louis suburb sparked protests, the “Black Lives Matter” movement and a national debate over police treatment of minorities. Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy ordered the probe last week as soon as he saw the video, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.
In the video, during an apparent argument, the unidentified man shooting the video mentions Brown’s name and says he doesn’t trust police because they “might shoot us.” The plainclothes officer, after responding that he doesn’t care if the incident is being recorded, says that Brown “got what he had coming.”
“CPD prides itself on fostering productive relationships with communities to help make Chicago safer,” Guglielmi said in a statement. “The comments in this video are troubling and do not represent the views of this department.”
Guglielmi wouldn’t identify the officer and said it was unclear when the incident took place. He also declined to say where it happened to “protect the integrity of the internal affairs case.”
The race of the man shooting the video is unclear, but the officer’s comment that “it’s all black people that live here” indicates the incident occurred in a black neighborhood. The video is less than a minute long.
A grand jury last November declined to indict Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Brown in August of last year. Wilson, who later resigned, was also cleared by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Since the shooting, Chicago and other cities have moved quickly to improve the relationships between their police departments and minority residents. In recent months, the Chicago City Council agreed to pay more than $5 million to black men who were tortured several years ago by police. The council also approved a $5 million settlement to the family of a black teenager who died after being shot by a police officer 16 times last year instead of waiting for the results of the investigation that is still being conducted.
