Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke sentenced to 81 months in prison over Laquan McDonald shooting death
In a historic verdict, former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke was sentenced to 81 months in jail over the shooting death of 17-year-old African-American teen Laquan McDonald by a Cook County court.
The 40-year-old was previously found guilty of second-degree murder in the 2014 incident and the verdict made Van Dyke the first Chicago officer to be convicted and sentenced in an on-duty shooting in half a century, and reportedly the first-ever in the shooting of an African-American in the city.
However, the sentencing was considered too lenient by the prosecution, with the victim's family calling it a sentence for a 'second-class citizen,' and activists decrying it as "a slap in the face, to us, and a slap on the wrist to him."
The US has a long history of white law enforcement officers being involved in wrongful death cases involving black men, and the ruling has sparked hope that others similarly charged will be served justice as well. But the case was not without its fair share of controversy and twists.