By KAYLA MACK, age 11
PHOTO: niXerKG/Flickr
On October 20, 2014, Laquan McDonald, an African-American teenager, was shot 16 times by Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke. At first, the officers claimed that McDonald had lunged at Van Dyke with a knife. More than a year later, police dash-cam video footage from this incident was finally released to the media, showing Van Dyke shooting McDonald even though the teenager posed no threat and was actually walking away from the officers when he was shot. The video led to widespread protests, a civil rights investigation by the U.S. Justice Department and a formal first-degree murder charge against Van Dyke.
