Oh he would have had the motivation to do so as its coming out during the election may indeed have been politically … difficult. And such has been alleged, including in an OpEd in the NYT. But it does seem that holding off on releasing video evidence until an investigation is closed is the established precedence.
The video is in fact a big deal. It was chilling, not only because it seems to show a cold blooded murder but because of the reaction of the other police present. What reaction? … Exactly. Pretty much there was none. Then they lied. That speaks volumes of how systemic and endemic this sort of activity must be.
A mayor needs to insist on addressing the culture that enables such horrific crimes, and by more than one nice speech or editorial; it needs to be followed up with actions. Those who enable it by keeping to “the code of silence” need to understand they will be held as partly culpable as well. But the mayor did not create the culture and has only so much ability to fix it.
My sense is that few who voted for him believe he tried to cover it up (quite a few who voted against him do). Some past supporters will though judge him in the future by how adequate and sustained and fair his response is.
Emanuel will not resign. Period. The protesters will have to deal with it. Emanuel will stay in Chicago until 2019 and questions will remain whether or not he re-elected to a third term.
Calls for Rahm to resign have intensified after this incident over the weekend. I also heard that Rahm is not cutting his vacation short because of it.
The ‘calls to resign’ are coming from a small number of activists. The ‘Black Christmas’ protest was an abysmal failure. Even if you support their cause, I think they’ve gone to the well too many times recently. Another day, another protest.
An article from the New York Times yesterday that may be of interest to some.
Calls for his resignation (or changing laws to allow for a recall) strike me as opportunistic exploitation of tragedy by his established opponents; it would not serve the actual goal of changing the culture and training of the Chicago PD at all. Deputy Mayor Steven Koch stepping in until the council elects an acting mayor who then serves out the term or until a special election is held … not a great recipe for making progress on major reforms in the police department. If anything it would merely delay any actual progress.
Emanuel has to be held to giving regular progress reports on what is being done to change the training and the culture within the department. He knows that he will lose the next election without follow through on this issue but demanding that plan and a stated schedule of progress reports back to the public identifying this as possibly the most important issue there is for the city government to be attending to, that’s the ask that would actually be most likely to make a difference. Changing the training and the culture will not happen on a dime, we have to realize that, but we need ongoing evidence that the job is in progress and not being ignored once the news cycle moves on.
The protestors showing up with professionally designed “Rahm Resign” signs and clothing indicate to me that his political opponents are exploiting the McDonald case for political gain. Especially now that Rahm’s fiercest political opponent, Karen Lewis, has recovered from the brain tumor that forced her sit out the recent mayoral election.
Lewis would likely be the favorite in a very low turn out special election.
A better example is what crime did Andrew Johnson commit? The Republicans felt that Article XI of the impeachment was the guarantied winner and despite what the history books tell us it had nothing to do with the Tenure of Office Act*. The charge was publicly denying the validity of the 39th Congress because the Southern senators/representatives were not allowed to take their seats.
The charge of violating the ToOA was not going to pass as many Senators honestly felt that the term Stanton was appointed for expired when Johnson took over after Lincoln’s death thus dismissing Stanton did not violate the ToOA.