If you have seen the video of Laquan McDonald being shot 16 times by officer Jason Van Dyke on the street in Chicago, October 2014 (over one year ago), are you surprised that Chicago isn't already embroiled in mass protests?? [Graphic link.]?

Maybe the media didn’t report it back then? Or, didn’t report it the same way? I’d be curious to know what the news reports were back then.

Not at all.

The video wasn’t released until this week, @JLeslie, when a judge ordered it. The case has been sealed for local and federal ‘review’. Essentially there has been nothing but speculation until this week, and the video is certainly…um…inflammatory.

Remember that Michael Brown was killed August 9th, 2014. This occurred 2 months later in a Midwestern city 4 hours away, and was buried.

I wish there was a way to change the culture of policing. If a teacher abuses a student other teachers don’t rally around him or her to try to cover it up, they call it out and demand prosecution. They know that if they want to uphold the reputation of their profession they must call it out! Why can’t police officers do the same thing?
The fact that this was buried so long is a disgrace and other police officers on the scene should have demanded his prosecution from the get go. Had it not been an officer you know they would have.

If Tamir Rice didn’t precipitate mass protests, nothing related will until something else changes.

Wow.. Just watched the video. That is some fucked up shit. Absolutely no threat to anyone.

And WTF CNN.. Some god damn warning when you are going to show murder on the air.

I agree, @johnpowell. “That is some fucked up shit.”

Since I live near Chicago, this has been lighting up the airwaves for weeks prior to the release and now that the vid is out all hell is breaking loose. The serious discussions are centered on both the Mayor and the prosecutor who both were up for re-election this past spring and there is much in the way of accusations that a “blue wall” was put up around this story to make sure no specifics were out that would create the controversy it now has that would jeopardize either or both persons re-election bid.

“That is some fucked up shit.”

The Police like all the rest of us, must be accountable for their actions, and with things like that I really don’t care if I ever set foot in the US ever again.

^^Every time I return, I want escape as soon as possible. If I stay more than a week, I get really depressed.

America >>>> Guns >>>> Cops >>>> Fucking bedlam!!

Will someone sponsor me so I can move to another country?

I’m not surprised. I’m not even sad. I’m bemused and I’m tired of this country.

I haven’t watched, and I don’t plan to. Passed my snuff film phase a long time ago.

Still vainly wishing for a windfall so I can leave this country.

The video is very disturbing. There hasn’t been a huge outcry, because the video was released yesterday, the same day they charged the officer with manslaughter. There will be protests.

I shy away from grim footage, @Seek. I’ve’ never seen the footage of the Trade Center collapse.
But this is beyond the pale. There are no words, nos till pictures that can ever convey what happens in 15 seconds of grainy film.
That and @Cruiser‘s synopsis above are a telling picture of race and corruption in Chicago, if not the nation.

I’m practically always surprised, because I don’t relate to shooting people who don’t seem like an immediate threat. I didn’t see any threat at all in this case, and I did see shooting someone pointlessly, and even shooting someone who was already completely taken out and was lying on the ground.

I saw crazy violence when I was in Chicago, too. Thankfully not quite like this. It seemed a brutal and dehumanizing place on many levels. I got the feeling that there was a widespread pattern of getting pleasure from making other people less happy, all over the place. Even so, I can’t relate to just driving up like that and killing someone. Seems ridiculously horrible to me, even before considering the 16 times part, and the part about shooting him while he was motionless on the ground, and the part about it being ignored for so long, for whatever “reasons”, but that all fits the whole “apathy and irresponsibility and meanness and corruption” I remember permeating my experience in Chicago. Not “my kind of town”.

There are some protests. The reason they released the video was partially due to the fact that the Black Lives Matter movement was so relentless in demanding it.

But in general, no, I’m not suprised that more Americans aren’t speaking out about it. Americans are extremely apathetic about all of the most major injustices. It also wouldn’t surprise me if the millions of Trump supporters, even after seeing the video, think the kid deserved it. America is a screwed up country.