A wide coalition of activists have collected over 250,000 signatures on a petition that calls for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez to step down immediately, according to Fox 32.
ColorOfChange.org, MoveOn.org, Democracy for America and Credo collected the signatures after the elected officials failed to hold the Chicago Police Department accountable for the killing of Laquan McDonald.
McDonald, 17, was shot 16 times while limp on the ground in October 2014. But details about the shooting only came to light after a judge ordered the release of video that captured the incident. The video sparked a vociferous outcry against police brutality in the city and across the nation over the length of time it took the investigation and for the officer involved in the shooting to be charged. Amid ongoing protests across the city, the officer, Jason Van Dyke, appeared briefly in court on Friday on first-degree-murder charges in connection with McDonald's shooting.
CNN reported Saturday that newly released documents in the shooting "show how elaborately police appear to have fabricated their version of that moment and how officers stood by each other in verifying the details."
Activists hold Emanuel and Alvarez accountable for what they call a police cover-up of the shooting and a failure to address crime in the city.
"Anita Alvarez and Rahm Emanuel have had years to clean up the well-known abuses of the Chicago Police Department and have both failed to take action," ColorOfChange.org Senior Campaign Director Scott Roberts told Fox 32. "Despite killing more black people than any department in the country, Chicago police officers are almost never disciplined or charged for use of excessive force."