Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel cuts Cuba trip short amid police crisis

Mayor cuts trip short amid calls that he step down from office

Mayor Rahm Emanuel (GETTY)

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said on Monday that he would cut short his holiday to Cuba amid calls that he step down over a recent spate of high-profile police shootings of black Americans.

Mayor Emanuel will arrive back in Chicago on Tuesday afternoon “so that he can continue the ongoing work of restoring accountability and trust in the Chicago Police Department,” spokeswoman Kelley Quinn told local newspaper the Chicago Sun-Times.

Ms Quinn did not immediately respond to a request for further comment from The Independent.

Chicago saw tensions over its police department's use of force and alleged discrimination against communities of colour renewed Monday, two days after police shot dead Quintonio LeGrier, 19, and Bettie Jones, 55.

Ms Jones “was accidentally struck and tragically killed” amid a standoff between other parties and the police, a Chicago Police Department spokesman told the Evening Standard.

Reverend Al Sharpton, a renowned civil liberties advocate, on Monday reiterated calls by police brutality opponents for Mayor Emanuel to step down over what they call his mishandling of police reform, The Washington Times reported.

US Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced on December 7 that the US Justice Department would investigate the “patterns and practices” of the Chicago Police Department. The announcement came weeks after the release of video of a white police officer’s killing of a black teenager added fuel to ongoing protests against the policing of American communities of colour.

“Specifically, we will examine a number of issues related to the Chicago Police Department’s use of force, including its use of deadly force, racial, ethnic and other disparities in its use of force,” US Attorney General Loretta Lynch told the press.

A judge on November 24 charged Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, 37, with first-degree murder after video — captured by a police car dashboard camera — was released showing Van Dyke shooting 17-year-old LaQuan McDonald 16 times on October 20, 2014. Police have said that Mr McDonald refused to comply with orders to drop a knife he had been wielding.

President Barack Obama told the press that he was “deeply disturbed” by the footage. McDonald’s and other high-profile police killings drove hundreds of protesters to block Chicago’s retail district on Black Friday, the U.S.’s post-Thanksgiving sales event.