This is a link to the article Officer in Chicago Shooting Released from Jail. In this article a white police officer charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of a black teenager last year was released from jail on Monday after his lawyer pledged that he was not a flight risk and that he intended to mount a vigorous defense at trial.
JUDGE DONALD D. PANARESE JR., OF COOK COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT, SET BAIL AT $1.5 MILLION FOR THE OFFICER, JASON VAN DYKE, AFTER WATCHING A VIDEO FROM A POLICE DASHBOARD CAMERA OF THE SHOOTING. HOURS LATER, OFFICER VAN DYKE, THE FIRST CHICAGO POLICE OFFICER IN DECADES TO BE CHARGED WITH MURDER IN AN ON-DUTY SHOOTING, POSTED 10 PERCENT OF THAT, OR $150,000, AND WAS FREED.
(I dont know why that ^^^ all copied over in caps...weird...)
First of all, itś so incredibly wrong that an incident happened like this in the first place. It was flat out murder and brings so much shame to the police department. Regarding the specific of Van Dyke getting out jail in this article, I dont think thatś okay. His bail was set so high for a reason: so he couldnt get out of jail. For him to only pay a percentage and get off easy until is trial? Not cool.
What SHOULD HAVE happened is he stayed in jail until trial. Flight risk or not, it is not acceptable for a man who has committed such a devastation to be free in the world while awaiting his trial which will expectantly also take a very long time, just giving him more free time.
When reading this article I relate the police officer, Van Dyke, to Bob Ewell. In TKAM Bob Ewell is doing a terrible thing to an underprivileged, black man just as Van Dyke did to McDonald. Thereś nothing Tom Robinson could do about his conviction by a white man and McDonald had no way to stop himself from being shot in cold blood, seventeen times. I honestly dont believe that the case in Chicago has as much to do with racism as the trial in TKAM. This is because I believe our media blows up racism like CRAZY, yes the shooting had aspects of racism, but I believe it was more of a mixture of that and corruption. But, I dont know the whole story. In TKAM there was a crime that needed to be blamed on someone so it was given to a black man because no one would doubt the word of a white man at the time.
Both these events tie together in the end, in that they are terrible events that should have never happened.
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