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" Hundreds of people poured onto the streets of Chicago last night following the release of a video showing a white police officer shoot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald\u00A016 times. The city braced had\u00A0for violent demonstrations, but protests were relatively peaceful, resulting in few arrests.\u00A0More protests are planned for the days ahead, however, with demonstrations slated to occur\u00A0outside Chicago City Hall on Wednesday and along Chicago&amp;#039;s busy shopping thoroughfare, Michigan Avenue, on Friday, the day when thousands of people turn out to shop.\u00A0 City officials released the video on\u00A0Tuesday night\u2014a day ahead of schedule\u2014after a version of it was leaked to the local ABC affiliate in Chicago.\u00A0The video is available below. The incident begins near the 5:20 mark.\u00A0Please note that the content is graphic.        Veteran\u00A0Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke\u00A0was charged with first degree murder on Tuesday\u00A0in the\u00A0shooting death of McDonald,\u00A0becoming\u00A0the first Chicago cop to face first-degree murder charges for an on-duty fatality in 35 years, according to the Chicago Tribune.\u00A0If convicted,\u00A0Van Dyke\u00A0faces a minimum of 20 years in prison.  The charges preempted the release of the\u00A0dash-cam video allegedly showing Van Dyke unload his gun&amp;#039;s magazine into McDonald\u00A0on October 20, 2014. Last week, a judge ordered the city to release the video following a lawsuit from freelance journalist Brandon Smith. The city promised to release the video no later than Wednesday. Smith said he was blocked from attending an official press conference with the city&amp;#039;s mayor and police superintendent because he was not a credentialed member of the press, according to The New York Times.      So I wasn&amp;#039;t allowed into the press conference that I more or less inspired. But the story isn&amp;#039;t about me. Seriously. https://t.co/lvw2J4y8Rf \u2014 Brandon Smith (@muckrakery) November 25, 2015    Chicago is among several cities in the\u00A0Midwest\u00A0convulsing with racial tension.\u00A0On Monday night, three white men allegedly\u00A0shot and injured five people at a Black Lives Matter rally in Minneapolis, where protests over the police shooting of an unarmed black man have gripped the city. In Columbia, Missouri, University of Missouri officials are still reeling from demonstrations over racist\u00A0incidents that led to the resignation of the school&amp;#039;s president and chancellor. It&amp;#039;s almost impossible to overstate the brutality of the Laquan McDonald\u00A0video, according to people who have seen it. &amp;quot;The video is said to show the rounds hitting McDonald in the back, the legs, arms, neck and head, the bullets making the body jump again and again,&amp;quot; Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass wrote on Nov. 10.\u00A0Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner called it &amp;quot;very troubling&amp;quot; and expected\u00A0a strong reaction from the public, according to The Associated Press.\u00A0  Reverend\u00A0Corey Brooks, a Chicago pastor, expressed concern over the reaction to the video, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.\u00A0&amp;quot;If the mayor can say that it&amp;#039;s a &amp;#039;hideous&amp;#039; video, and he hasn&amp;#039;t seen it yet, I can only imagine what some young black guy on the South Side and on the West Side of Chicago\u2014whose been frustrated about his economic situation, frustrated and angry about his educational situation, frustrated and angry about his living conditions\u2014I can only imagine how he&amp;#039;s going to feel when he sees another young man who looks like him get shot down and basically murdered,&amp;quot; he said. The tragedy is partly remarkable in how unremarkable it began: Police responded to a call of someone slashing car tires. They discovered McDonald with a three-inch blade, followed him in their cars and asked for backup to bring a taser. McDonald apparently slashed one of the police&amp;#039;s car&amp;#039;s tires. Then Van Dyke got out of his car and within seconds\u00A0pumped 16 bullets into the teenager.  McDonald\u00A0reportedly had PCP in his system and exhibited what authorities described as\u00A0a vacant stare. The story of his short life, however, was marked with unspeakable tragedy even before his fatal run-in with Chicago police. According to Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell, McDonald was twice removed from his mother&amp;#039;s care\u2014when he was 2 and again at 5\u2014because his mother&amp;#039;s boyfriend allegedly abused him. In foster care, McDonald was allegedly sexually \u00A0molested in two separate homes, Mitchell wrote.  Despite these dire\u00A0circumstances, McDonald appeared to be turning his life around.\u00A0&amp;quot;We were making great strides with this kid,&amp;quot; a social worker told Mitchell. &amp;quot;We had started to turn this kid around. He had just worked a summer job and went to school every day. After the summer job ended, he went out and found another job.&amp;quot;      Chicago cop charged with murder in killing of black teen #LaquanMcDonald. https://t.co/vtTJvrcdSD pic.twitter.com/quyUgRDJoN \u2014 AJC (@ajc) November 24, 2015    But the Chicago Police Department portrayed\u00A0him as a menace who put the life of a\u00A0police officer\u00A0in danger. But police have been lying since the incident began.\u00A0Authorities said at the time that police were acting in self defense and shot McDonald once in the chest. The local media more or less\u00A0went along for the ride. But another freelance journalist, Jamie Kalven, followed up. He got the autopsy report and wrote a story for Slate in February exposing the Chicago Police Department&amp;#039;s deception.  Ahead of the video&amp;#039;s release,\u00A0Chicago prepared\u00A0for its Ferguson moment.\u00A0City Hall, led by former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, tried to get in front of the release, denouncing the cop and saying he &amp;quot;took the law into his own hands.&amp;quot; Until recently, however,\u00A0Van Dyke was working for the Chicago Police Department at\u00A0a salaried desk job.\u00A0 Emanuel also encouraged protesters to exercise their First Amendment rights, but in a peaceful manner.\u00A0&amp;quot;Do it in a focused way, a responsible way so your voices and ideas are heard,&amp;quot; he told reporters. &amp;quot;I want all stakeholders\u2014whether you&amp;#039;re the mayor, a religious leader, community leader, an educator or a small business owner\u2014to exercise both your residency and your citizenship in Chicago.&amp;quot; Due to the relatively peaceful demonstrations on Wednesday night, it appears protesters heeded the calls for calm.\u00A0  What the video&amp;#039;s release threatens is decades of racial tension and segregation boiling over into violent\u00A0protests, \u00A0clashes with police, and\u00A0perhaps even riots.\u00A0Chicago is a black and white town. It&amp;#039;s white residents live mostly\u00A0on the north side, ringing Michigan Avenue, known as the Magnificent Mile, spreading into hipster neighborhood&amp;#039;s\u00A0west of downtown and along the leafy enclaves lining Lake Michigan. The city&amp;#039;s black residents live mainly on the city&amp;#039;s south and west sides, where the bulk of the city&amp;#039;s shootings occur. \u00A0 Writing in the Chicago Reader in 2011, Chicago-based journalist Steve Bogira described the city&amp;#039;s persisent black and white divide:  This pronounced, persistent separation of the races would be worrisome, or at least curious, even if separate were equal\u2014which of course it isn&amp;#039;t. The hypersegregated black neighborhoods continue to lead the city in the same wretched problems as in the 60s. In some ways, things are worse. There&amp;#039;s not just a lack of legitimate jobs in these areas today, but also a surplus of people without skills\u2014and more of them have criminal records now as well, from the war on drugs. Predatory lending has multiplied the number of abandoned buildings in these neighborhoods. At the time, Bogira was calling for the city&amp;#039;s mayoral candidates\u2014Emanuel among them\u2014to address this problem. It is, after all, not unreasonable for a white resident of Chicago&amp;#039;s north side to never set foot in these areas of the city. The release of this video, and the protests it will likely spark, will almost certainly expose this rift to the nation and perhaps finally get people in Chicago talking seriously about its racial divide and with a solution in mind.\u00A0Let&amp;#039;s just hope it doesn&amp;#039;t also\u00A0plunge the city into even more violence. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a39981/laquan-mcdonald-chicago-police-shooting/>