Three US officers are accused of covering up details of the killing of Laquan McDonald

The men are due to appear in court on July 10th.

Three Chicago police officers have been indicted on charges regarding the killing of teenager Laquan McDonald. The indictment, issued this past week, alleges that the officers banded together to cover up the true events of the incident that occurred on October 20th 2014 when a fourth officer, the Caucasian Jason Van Dyke, shot African-American teenager McDonald 16 times. It transpires that a police dashcam video at the time showed key details of the episode, such as capturing footage of the apparently incapacitated teenager receiving further shots into the body as he lay on the ground, by the officer in question. Van Dyke was convicted of 1st degree murder on the very day the footage was released just over a year after the incident, pleading not guilty.

The three accused officers (David March, Joseph Walsh and Thomas Gaffney) are also alleged to have submitted fallacious reports in the immediate aftermath of the event. “The co-conspirators created police reports in the critical early hours and days following the killing of Laquan McDonald that contained important false information”, as stated in the indictment. As reported by TIME.com, this weeks indictments add to the long list of similar instances of police brutality in the United States against African-Americans. This past January, the Department of Justice published a report outlining the police department’s disregard for the constitutional rights of its people through the excessive force and killing of suspects posing little or no real threat.

Patricia Brown Homes, the special prosecutor for the investigation was quoted discussing the indicted officers; March, Walsh and Gaffney, stating that they “coordinated their activities to protect each other and other members of the Chicago Police Department.” This included the aforementioned filing of false police reports, ignoring evidence and neglecting to interview key witnesses. She continued to say, “The indictment makes clear that these defendants did more than merely obey an unofficial ‘code of silence’. It alleges that they lied about what occurred to prevent independent criminal investigators from learning the truth.” The attorney, who helped to negotiate the $5 million settlement with the McDonald family, welcomed the indictments which backed up the claims of a prior investigation made back in 2015.

Should the three officers be convicted, they themselves face several years in prison (misconduct charges alone equate to up to a five year sentence). They are expected to appear in court on the 10th of July.