The horrifying behavior of Anita Alvarez, Chicago’s head prosecutor
She’s been a tyrant in office, breaking laws, over prosecuting, and doing whatever she can to secure a conviction. There are many examples of misconduct coming out of Anita Alvarez’s office.
Tell Anita Alvarez to resign SIGN THE PETITION
When you ask yourself how innocent people can spend decades in prison then you need not look further than someone like Anita Alvarez.
Alvarez is the Cook County state’s attorney, which is just another way of saying that she’s the DA of Chicago. She has been working in the state’s attorney’s office as a prosecutor for nearly 30 years and has been the head of the office since 2008.
Alvarez is known as one of the worst prosecutors in the country. Here are just a few of the dozens of stories of misconduct and bad behavior in Alvarez’s office. READ THE FULL STORY
Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez has come under fire for taking more than a year to file charges against Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke, who is seen on a dash-cam video shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.
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Recently, officials released graphic video of Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times last October. Now, State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez has charged Officer Van Dyke with 1st degree murder, the first time in 30 years that a Chicago police officer is facing criminal charges for an on-duty shooting.
Officials, including State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, have known about Laquan’s murder for over a year now, and there is evidence that they were trying to cover it up. It’s unacceptable, and part of a much larger crisis of anti-Black police violence and police impunity in Chicago. Officer Van Dyke is the first police officer in 30 years to face criminal charges for on-duty shooting.
Chicago deserves better. Join us in demanding that State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez resign and request a special prosecutor to take over the police killing of Laquan McDonald.
Why Did It Take More Than a Year to Charge the Officer Who Shot Laquan McDonald?
Ask yourself why police officers seem to escape accountability so often, and how public opinion about how prosecutors should do their jobs has shifted in recent years?
Laquan McDonald was killed more than a year ago. Why did it take so long for charges to be filed against the officer who shot him?
It did not need to take 13 months for this case to come to a resolution. I worked as a prosecutor here in Cook County for 12 years, and had the benefit of reviewing cases in our felony review unit, and I can tell you this was what we would consider to be a slam dunk. It’s not a matter of whodunit. You know who did it. You had a videotape and a vantage point that clearly shows where Laquan was in relation to the officer. You had eyewitnesses, both civilian and police. You had the autopsy report, which was available within days. So this wasn’t difficult. This was a case that really just sits in your lap. It is a false narrative to suggest that this case was so highly complex that it takes 13 months. That is a false narrative. It is a lie. There are special things you have to do when you’re looking at a police shooting. There is an extra layer of due diligence that you have to do. But that doesn’t take months.
So what I would say is it took 13 months because they were waiting for the heat of Ferguson to die down. Laquan McDonald was killed in October of ’14, which was two months after Ferguson. This was a case that was eerily similar to that one, and the state’s attorney’s office didn’t want the heat. FULL STORY
Video of Police Officer shooting teenager in the back
Finally Anita Alvarez charges a killer cop
