CHICAGO — Interim Police Supt. John Escalante is pledging to push to fire two cops who were part of the response team in the Laquan McDonald shooting if they are found to have lied about the details of the incident.
“If something comes back that they lied or purposely misrepresented what happened on reports, the superintendent wants to make it clear that he will seek their termination,” police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Friday.
A police superintendent can recommend the firing of an officer but the Police Board makes the final determination.
The two cops, Detective David Marsh and Officer Joseph Walsh, were placed on desk duty shortly after Escalante received a Dec. 18 memo from city Inspector General Joe Ferguson recommending the move.
Walsh was the partner of Officer Jason Van Dyke, who faces first-degree murder charges for shooting Laquan 16 times in 2014. Walsh backed up Van Dyke’s version of events in official statements that don’t appear to jibe with the shooting caught on the now-viral dashcam video.
Van Dyke had said that Laquan, 17, had swung a knife at him, a claim the video does not support.
Marsh, the lead detective on the case, signed off the reports that the dash cam video “was viewed and found to be consistent with the accounts of all witnesses,” according to police reports.
Marsh was tapped as lead investigator by Sgt. Daniel Gallagher and the reports were also approved by Lt. Antony Wojcki, who supervised the case.
Marsh, Walsh and Wojcik were all called to testify before a grand jury related to the shooting of Laquan.
Guiglielmi said the inspector general’s memo that recommended putting Walsh and Marsh on desk duty did not "reference" any other officers or command staff.
Two days before Ferguson made his desk duty recommendations, DNAinfo.com Chicago reported that officers — including Walsh — who claimed to witness the shooting gave official reports that conflict with action captured on dashcam video and had escaped punishment.
DNAinfo Chicago also reported that Walsh had been accused of misconduct at least 29 times — including brutality claims, and in some cases, lying to cover up — but had never been reprimanded for misconduct during his 17-year police career. Walsh also was a defendant in civil lawsuits related to brutality allegations that lead to settlements that cost taxpayers $52,000.
Two of those 29 misconduct complaints levied against Walsh occurred while he was on patrol after Laquan was killed on Oct. 20, 2014, according to police records obtained by the Invisible Institute watchdog group.
Just six days after Laquan was shot, Walsh was accused of “inadequate/failure to provide service.” That claim was not investigated because the accuser didn’t file the required affidavit, records show.
On June 6, Walsh got hit with another misconduct complaint, but details of that allegation were not immediately available.
At the time, Guglielmi, the police spokesman, said it was “premature for the CPD to speculate on any action against the officers” due to ongoing disciplinary investigations which had been “held pending the outcome” of the criminal investigation that lead to murder charges against Van Dyke.
That position changed shortly after Escalante received and reviewed the city inspector general’s memo — which was a preliminary suggestion rather than a final ruling on whether the accused officers violated Rule 14, a provision in the police code related to making false statements, written or oral.
Two other officers at the scene who claimed to witness VanDyke shooting Laquan — Dora Fontaine and Ricardo Viramontes — each gave official statements of how events transpired that appeared to contradict events caught on dashcam video.
Viramontes and Fontaine each said Laquan ignored verbal direction to drop the knife and instead raised his right arm toward officer Van Dyke “as if attacking Van Dyke.” Fontaine reported that Van Dyke fired in rapid succession “without pause.”
Viramontes added that Laquan “fell to the ground but continued to move attempting to get back up, with the knife still in his hand. ... and Van Dyke fired his weapon at [Laquan] McDonald continuously until McDonald was no longer moving.”
The dashcam video showed Laquan walking away from Van Dyke when the shooting started, and the injured teen didn't appear to try to get back up after he fell to the ground.
Both Viramontes and Fontaine remain on unrestricted full duty.
The inspector general's investigation is ongoing.
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