Is this the calm before the storm?

VAN DYKE: Protector of the public?

The idea of August as being the summer doldrums gets reinforced all the more this year – what with the trial of the Chicago cop who faces criminal charges for the shooting death of a teenager back in 2014 finally scheduled to take place.

Come Sept. 5, the Cook County courts will finally get around to holding the trial that will decide the fate of officer Jason Van Dyke – the man who got captured on crude video firing 16 shots into the body of a 17-year-old who may, or may not, have been acting irrationally.

McDONALD: Could he have been a scholar?

THERE’S NO DOUBT that Van Dyke fired the shots that killed Laquan McDonald. The issue in this trial is going to be whether his actions were justified as part of his duties “to serve and protect” the people of Chicago.

Which is going to be a judgment call. It’s clear that no matter what, the public perspective will be such that Chicago will be seriously split. This verdict is going to leave the populace of Chicago seriously p-o’ed.

For every single person determined to believe this is an instance of a police officer committing cold-blooded murder, there’s going to be another individual wanting to believe that McDonald got what he deserved – and that perhaps we ought to be thinking of giving him a medal.

A concept that will seriously offend those who have been outspoken in their rhetoric that Van Dyke belongs in prison. They probably won’t be happy until they hear word that “inmate” Van Dyke was assaulted by fellow inmates while in prison.

THESE FACTIONS OF people are going to be going at each other once the trial gets underway. Which means we ought to regard the next few weeks of August as being the calm before the storm.

How will their reputation be altered?

Before the sides start going at each other with full force. Before the rhetoric gets ultra-ugly, and before things get said and done that manage to bring embarrassment to the public perception of Chicago.

I say full force because we got a little taste of what will be forthcoming this very weekend.

It was the Bud Billiken Parade, and the parade’s co-grand marshal, rap singer Vic Mensa, managed to ruffle the sensibilities of police. Mensa on Saturday carried a “Convict Jason Van Dyke” banner. Police officers on duty to maintain order during the parade gathered around him.

WORDS WERE SPOKEN between the two sides, and Mensa at one point taunted the police to arrest him. Daring them to make a national story out of the event by taking him into custody!

Police maintained enough professional restraint to avoid escalating the incident. But it is likely once the trial gets underway and we begin getting the daily dribble of testimony, we’re likely to learn something that offends the public sensibility to the point the outbursts will get out of control.

I’m not making a judgment, as the outburst could easily come from either side of those in our society who are going to take offense.

It could easily come from those people who are offended by the testimony that will be presented in the form of animation.

FOR IT SEEMS that the Van Dyke legal defense team wants to give us a very technical version of what happened – depicting some 5 of the 16 shots, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Even if relocated, Cook will get tainted by trial

Perhaps they think that an overly technical visual version of what happened will somehow make the incident seem less offensive and brutal.

Which is a concept that will offend those inclined to believe the worst about police and their brutality towards the people, particularly the segment that could never be described as Anglo in complexion.

I don’t know if it will become (I hope it doesn’t turn out to be) a race riot. But I suspect the next few months will provide anecdotes that will embarrass our city’s public perception – and we’ll all be very grateful come the arrival of 2019.

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Rauner reaches out to deprive Quinn of black voter bloc in upcoming election

Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bruce Rauner made a point earlier this year of touting the number of African-American ministers willing to publicly endorse him.

 

It’s not that large a number in terms of the totality of clergy ministering to black neighborhoods on the South and West sides. But it could impact the number of votes that turn out for Gov. Pat Quinn just enough that the hard-core GOPers of Illinois could be enough supporters to actually win a statewide election.

 

RAUNER IS CONTINUING to emphasize that theme of reaching out to black voters. On Friday, his campaign operation opened up a new office on 79^th Street in the Grand Crossing neighborhood.

 

It will be out of that South Side office that his operations to try to appeal to black voters (or at least discourage them from getting all worked up over Quinn come Nov. 4) will take place.

 

Which is unique because most Republican campaigns for higher office generally tend to ignore African-American oriented communities – they’d prefer to pretend that they don’t exist. Which is the real reason black voters can go 90 percent in favor of Democratic Party candidates for public office.

 

Rauner even went so far as to show up for the Saturday take on the Bud Billiken Day parade – the Chicago Defender-sponsored parade that is meant to mark the end of summer and get children excited about the start of a new school year.

 

POLITICIANS OFTEN SHOW up at the parade through the Bronzeville neighborhood, but they usually are of the Democratic persuasion. Most Republicans act as though they have never heard of the parade. Then again, these are the same types of people who in Naperville have a Labor Day weekend parade that they prefer to call an “end of summer” parade.

 

Celebrate labor and workers? Harumph! You might as well start waving about the hammer and sickle to those people.

 

Rauner’s presence actually created a side angle to the campaign story. For it seems on Saturday there was a shooting incident near the parade route (two men were wounded – one in the derriere) that caused parade-watchers to scatter for safety not far from where the candidate from suburban Winnetka was greeting voters.

 

For the record, Rauner aides say they don’t think the candidate was aware of what was going on, and that they didn’t hear gunshots.

 

BUT I’M SURE on a certain level, Rauner is going to try to claim some credit for showing up in “da hood” – although if this evolves into a story of him having his life and limbs on the line while campaigning for governor, THAT is something we ought to call him out on!

 

Some of you may be saying I’m exaggerating what could happen. Maybe so, but let’s also be honest and admit that “truthfulness” is not something that campaigns of any candidacy or political persuasion let get in the way of a storyline – particularly if it makes the opposition look bad.

 

So what should we think of Rauner’s recent efforts to get black voters to not think of him as the enemy? I noticed the statement he put out when he opened that new campaign field office included a raft of statistics (17 percent African-American unemployment rate, worse than for Latinos, Asians or white people) that were due to “Pat Quinn’s failed leadership.”

 

Yet no mention of what Rauner himself might do to try to bolster employment among African-American people; which some might say is enhanced by the desires of so many GOPers to ignore outright the concerns of that community.

 

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