Will Van Dyke be bold enough to ‘take the stand’ to defend his conduct?

It’s a standard question going into a criminal trial – will the defendant testify in his own case.

Van Dyke is one of many thousands of criminal defendants to pass through this nearly-century-old building

There are those who think Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke desperately needs to give his perspective of the happenings of Oct. 20, 2014 – the night he killed 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.

I STATE THAT as a fact beyond dispute; McDonald is dead and buried and not going to have the life his parents would have dreamed for him because of Van Dyke’s actions.

Which is why this entire trial is not about what Van Dyke did – but why!

Because we do give our police significant authority to use force, including deadly force, in the performance of their jobs. Which is why defense attorneys have tried to present the image of a McDonald who was strung out on drugs to the point where he was out of control.

Which made that knife he was waving about a very deadly weapon to anybody who happened to be near him.

IT’S CLEAR FROM the four days of testimony that prosecutors presented that they want us to think of this as an open-and-shut case. Van Dyke fired multiple gunshots into McDonald’s body and he died. So now, Van Dyke must go to prison.

But life is never that clear-cut, even though all of us want to believe life’s questions can all be answered with “yes” or “no.”

So when the Van Dyke defense begins its work come Monday at the Criminal Courts building, the big issue will be whether Van Dyke himself will take the stand and submit to questions about what he did that night in ’14.

VAN DYKE: Will he be able to clear his name?

Van Dyke has the legal right to refuse to say anything. He can’t be forced to take the stand and submit to questions. We require prosecutors to prove their own cases – and do not permit them to intimidate people into testifying against themselves.

IN FACT, MANY criminal cases do not result in a defendant taking the stand. I have seen countless trials in which a defendant does not put up any defense – with attorneys arguing that prosecutors so clearly failed to prove their case they don’t feel the need to say or do anything for the record.

And yes, it has worked, because the burden of proof is on prosecutors to show their case is legitimate. I’m sure Van Dyke would like to think he falls into that category.

But there are people who want to hear Van Dyke’s own words about that night. It’s almost as though they’re a group of “Ricky Ricardos,” telling Van Dyke’s “Lucy” to “splain” himself and what he was thinking when his reaction four years ago to encountering McDonald was to pull out his pistol and fire 16 shots into Laquan’s body.

But if he does that, he also opens himself up to questioning from prosecutors, who with their “yes” or “no” mentality will be more than willing to put pointed questions to him meant to make Van Dyke appear to be mean and vindictive.

IN FACT, I have seen criminal trials where prosecutors are so demanding of a “yes” or “no”-type answer that they refuse to allow the elaboration of detail usually required to get at the whole truth of a situation.

Despite the claims of legal officials that our judicial system is meant to elicit truth, my own experiences in covering courts throughout the years have led me to believe the reality is that prosecutors and defense attorneys are given the chance to present their own versions of what they want us to believe happened – then we leave it up to that mythical “jury of our peers” to decide which version we believe.

Will police reputation escape taint?

So does Van Dyke have enough faith in his memory of what happened that night that he’ll be willing to submit to prosecutorial questions meant to trip him up? Will his take on the events sway anyone who has spent the past four years developing their own impression of what they believe happened that night?

Or will it become more fodder for the cynics of our society that this trial – which is progressing much more quickly than I would have expected – was “rigged” from the beginning?

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Police shootings always a complex matter; just like the rest of life

I have to admit to sighing when I first learned of the incident this week in the Mount Greenwood neighborhood where Chicago Police officers shot an off-duty firefighter.

Because on the surface, the officers shot at an unarmed man when they mistook his wallet for a firearm of some sorts.

BUT LIFE IS never that simple, and I suspect that when this investigation is complete, these officers are going to be found to have conducted themselves professionally – although I’m sure in firehouses across the city, jokes about donut-stuffed cops who can’t tell the difference between a wallet and a Tech 9 are being told.

The incident in question, which is one of the most unusual police shootings I ever have heard of, occurred in one of those “cop enclave” neighborhoods at the far southwestern edge of the city – one of those places populated by police and firefighters and other city workers who have to live within the municipal boundaries even though they’d probably prefer to live just a few blocks further south in a suburban community.

Which is also one of those places where shootings just don’t happen – which also adds to the “bizarre” factor of this whole incident. As if “cop shooting firefighter” wasn’t weird enough.

For it seems the wife of the firefighter had called 9-1-1 after he called her and told her he “couldn’t take it anymore.” She took that as evidence he was suicidal – hence, her call to emergency services to inform the police.

SO WHEN POLICE encountered him in the area around 103^rd Street and Pulaski Road and they saw him with a black object in his hands while in a crouching position, they presumed the worst.

They defended themselves, according to the Fraternal Order of Police. Although I’m sure certain others will not want to believe that.

None of this particular commentary ought to be interpreted as trying to shift blame on the firefighter – who according to news reports has been with the Chicago Fire Department for about two full decades and was also trained as a paramedic. It is more one of those tragic incidents in which there probably is no “good guy” and trying to come up with blame is pointless.

Because everybody manages to share some form of blame for what happened. At this point, what we all ought to be focusing on is the physical well-being of the firefighter – who on Friday remained in critical condition at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.

WE SHOULD BE hoping that he manages to recover from his wounds; both the physical ones he received Thursday and the emotional ones his wife thinks he has been suffering from for some time.

And as for the police involvement in this? If my attitude toward law enforcement opening gunfire on an unarmed man (it seems the pistol he owns was at home, and not on him) comes across as nonchalant, perhaps it is because of being a reporter-type person for some 26 years.

I have always thought of police officers as being people no better or smarter than the rest of us – but who take on a risky job in which people can get killed when they screw up. In short, their “bad days” are worse than those of you or me. There’s also the fact that we give police deadly weapons because we anticipate times when they will have to use them.

So while I fully sympathize with an injured firefighter whose wounds have an element of stupidity behind them, I’m also not going to be surprised if some sort of official investigation ultimately determines this particular incident to be “justified” use of force.

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