CHICAGO —The wife of a Chicago police officer awaiting trial on a first-degree murder charge for a 2014 shooting that triggered racial tension in the city says her husband is not a “monster,” but acknowledged he became emotionally closed off before the incident.
In the first comments made by the family of officer Jason Van Dyke since he was charged nearly six months ago in the shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, Tiffany Van Dyke told the Chicago Tribune that her husband is misunderstood.
"He is not the monster the world now sees him as," Tiffany Van Dyke said. "He prays for Laquan and his family. (The shooting) is not something he ever wanted to do."
Van Dyke, who is white, was charged on the same day a court order forced the city to release police dashcam video of the shooting that showed him firing 16 shots at the black teen. Thirteen of the shots were fired after McDonald, who was holding a small knife, was already on the ground. Police were called to the area on reports that McDonald, who had a history of mental illness, had been breaking into vehicles in a truck yard.
The release of the video spurred weeks of protests in the city and calls for the resignations of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez and police superintendent Garry McCarthy. McCarthy was fired by Emanuel days after the video’s release, and Alvarez was defeated in a March primary.
Emanuel says he won’t resign and is committed to reforming the troubled police department, which is in the midst of a Justice Department civil rights investigation launched after the release of the McDonald video.
Tiffany Van Dyke told the Tribune that the difficulty of police work in some of Chicago’s most dangerous neighborhoods took a toll on her husband and made him closed off emotionally. The couple had been in marriage counseling just prior to the October 2014 shooting.
She said that she has not watched the video of the shooting but will before the trial.
"When you start out and you're so optimistic about helping others ... but unfortunately, people don't want the help any longer or they don't trust you to be able to help them, it does change you," she told the paper. "It doesn't make him a bad person ... but it does take a toll and does make a person different.”
The officer’s father and brother-in-law also defended Van Dyke. His brother-in-law, Keith Thompson, said it was unfair to suggest that race played a role in the shooting.
"It wasn't premeditated murder, and it's not motivated by racism," Thompson told the Tribune. "He didn't go out trying to kill someone that day. That's not who he is, and I know it kills him. He has to carry that around the rest of his life."
Van Dyke is due back in court June 2, when Judge Vincent Gaughan is expected to rule on a request to appoint a special prosecutor to try the case.
Alvarez, who initially rejected calls from activists and several high-profile politicians for a special prosecutor, last week asked Gaughan to recuse her and her assistants from the case ..