Homeless in Arizona

I got a gun and a badge and I can murder anybody I want!!!!

Sounds outrageous, but sadly it's true!!!!

This is why we hate the police.

This is why we need our 2nd Amendment right to keep and bare arms.

The government doesn't obey the Constitution and does what it want. And our elected officials refuse to send crooked cops to jail who murder us.

These cops are all liars who are guilty of murder and covering up a murder. They belong in prison, not "protecting and serving" us, which is really terrorizing and murdering us.

Column: Why are cops in Laquan McDonald case still on the beat?

Eric Zorn Eric Zorn Contact Reporter

Several Chicago police officers who were present when Officer Jason Van Dyke shot and killed Laquan McDonald on Oct. 20, 2014, gave information to a police investigator that does not jibe with the images on the now-famous dash-cam video.

The investigating detective then filed a report that maintained that the officers' statements were consistent with the video — an apparent effort to justify Van Dyke's actions.

Although Van Dyke has been indicted for first-degree murder, no disciplinary action has been taken against any of the other officers or the detective. Despite the national furor provoked by the McDonald case and Mayor Rahm Emanuel's earnest declarations that he will enact wholesale changes in law enforcement, neither the mayor nor the interim police superintendent nor Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez has publicly expressed outrage that these cops are still on the beat.

Let's review the misstatements included in the police reports released earlier this month that detail what officers told Detective David March about the fatal encounter between Van Dyke and McDonald:

Officer Joseph Walsh said that he "backed up, attempting to maintain a safe distance between himself and McDonald," during a nighttime encounter in the middle of South Pulaski Road. McDonald "continued to advance on the officers," Walsh, who was Van Dyke's partner, told the investigator. He added that McDonald "swung the knife toward the officers in an aggressive manner" and that McDonald was "attempting to kill them when the shots were fired."

The now widely viewed dash-cam video incontrovertibly shows that Walsh, like Van Dyke, was advancing on McDonald, and that McDonald, who had a knife in the hand farthest from the officers, was walking at an angle away from them at the moment he was shot.

Officer Janet Mondragon said she heard officers "repeatedly ordering McDonald to drop the knife" as he "got closer and closer to the officers, continuing to wave the knife."

The video clearly shows that at no point was McDonald getting "closer and closer" to the officers. And although he was carrying the knife at his side, he was in no way brandishing it.

Officer Daphne Sebastian said that "McDonald turned toward (Walsh and Van Dyke) and continued to wave the knife" and that he "continued to advance on the officers."

The video shows McDonald walking away from Van Dyke before he was spun down by the hail of 16 bullets.

Officer Dora Fontaine told investigators that "McDonald was walking sideways, with his body facing east toward officers Van Dyke and Walsh … (he) raised his right arm toward officer Van Dyke as if attacking."

McDonald was walking south and slightly west, inclined away from the officers when he was gunned down.

Officer Ricardo Viramontes told investigators that McDonald "turned toward Van Dyke and his partner," and that, after he was shot, McDonald "continued to move, attempting to get back up."

But watch the video. Even in his death throes, McDonald was never able to move his legs or lift his shoulders off the ground.

Heat of the moment lapses in memory? No. When the statements so consistently favor Van Dyke's exculpatory narrative, it's fair to start calling them lies.

And it's fair to use that word about the assertion in March's report that "the recovered in-car camera video … was viewed and found to be consistent with the accounts of all of the witnesses."

Local Fraternal Order of Police President Dean Angelo told me, "On the video, you see McDonald's upper torso and shoulders make a left swing toward the officers just before the shooting. Why doesn't anyone want to talk about that?"

Oh, I don't know, maybe because, in my viewing of the video, McDonald swings in the opposite direction, away from the officers.

Call this McDonald II, an auxiliary scandal in which yet another incident of brazen police misconduct gets caught up in cross jurisdictional investigations and is then exacerbated by a lack of urgency and outrage from leaders who ought to have been pounding the table and demanding answers a year ago.

Is Alvarez livid that the officers who covered for Van Dyke haven't even been assigned to desk duty as public confidence in the honesty of police dwindles?

"The state's attorney's office is aware of the reports and the language in the reports, and there are clearly serious questions that need to be addressed moving forward," said a statement her office released Thursday morning. "The investigation into this matter continues."

Indeed it does. Just this week the files on this case landed on the desk of Chicago Inspector General Joseph Ferguson. He can't act fast enough to start setting this right.

Twitter @ericzorn