2012 Video Shows Chicago Cops Repeatedly Tasering Man Who Later Died
The protracted fight to secure the release of video showing a Chicago cop killing unarmed teenager Laquan McDonald appears to have inspired the city to purge itself of its sins—or at least the ones that were also caught on video.
On the same day in which the city held a press conference to screen footage of an officer shooting Ronald Johnson—footage captured just a week before was McDonald killed—officials released yet another video depicting grave police misconduct. This one shows officers repeatedly tasering a man named Philip Coleman, who was being held in police lockup on the city’s South Side.
Johnson later died. An autopsy attributed his death to a reaction to an antipsychotic drug, but, as the Chicago Tribune reports, it also “showed that Coleman had experienced severe trauma, including more than 50 bruises and scrapes on his body from the top of his head to his lower legs.”
In a statement, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who has responded for calls for his head with a newfound damning rhetoric, called the treatment of Coleman inexcusable.
“I do not see how the manner in which Mr. Coleman was physically treated could possibly be acceptable,” Emanuel said. “While the Medical Examiner ruled that Mr. Coleman died accidentally as a result of treatment he received in the hospital, it does not excuse the way he was treated when he was in custody. Something is wrong here — either the actions of the officers who dragged Mr. Coleman, or the policies of the department.”
Nonetheless, the Tribune reports, “police oversight officials last year ruled the officers’ actions with Coleman were justified.”
