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Police chaplain calls Van Dyke a “hero”

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When Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich called together religious leaders last week to pray for justice in Chicago, one of his priests made a conscious choice not to attend. Doing so, he believed, would betray the flock he serves and protects.

Chicago Police Chaplain Dan Brandt says the furor that has erupted over the video of the shooting of Laquan McDonald and the clergy-led protests calling for the resignation of Mayor Rahm Emanuel are “anything but Judeo-Christian in nature.” The skeptical eye that Chicago police now face is unwarranted and unjust, he says. […]

“You’re trained to shoot until the threat is gone,” Brandt, an archdiocesan priest, said in an interview. “I propose that Van Dyke was a hero. How many lives were saved by him stopping that armed offender from getting any farther, from doing more damage than he already had done?”

While Brandt concedes that he’s expressing “a pretty unpopular opinion,” he and other police chaplains insist that Chicagoans shouldn’t lose sight of what officers face every day. The clergy who counsel, comfort and console Chicago’s law enforcement want the public to pause a moment and consider those who keep their city safe.

Most of us have thought lately about how the police do their best to keep us safe. But absurd comments like this badly hurt law enforcement’s reputation. This insane, counter-productive solidarity with outlaw cops has to end.

* From the New Yorker…

In early November, 2014, Craig Futterman, a law professor at the University of Chicago, got a call from someone who worked in law enforcement in that city. The caller told Futterman about a squad-car dashboard-camera video from a few weeks earlier, which showed a police officer shooting to death a seventeen-year-old boy named Laquan McDonald. According to the source, the video was at striking odds with the version of the incident that the Chicago Police Department had presented. In that account, the officer, Jason Van Dyke, acted in self-defense: McDonald was out of control and menacing him with a knife, so he shot him once, in the chest. But the source, describing the video frame by frame, evoked what sounded to Futterman like “an execution.” […]

This is not the first time that Futterman has received an inside tip about police abuse. He believes that the whistle-blowers represent “the majority of Chicago cops,” who are doing their jobs “just as you would want them to.” Those officers “hate this stuff” as much as anyone, because “it creates hostility to the police, and steals the honor of those who are doing things right.” Yet even the best-intentioned officers have to cope with a code of silence—the mirror image of the criminals’ code against snitching.

In the McDonald case, the first officers on the scene, responding to a call about a young man acting erratically and breaking into trucks, were doing things right. McDonald apparently did have a knife, and, according to the autopsy, he had PCP in his system. Futterman said that those officers were careful. They “needed to arrest him, take him to the hospital,” and “they called for backup, for someone with a taser.” Then Van Dyke arrived and instantly fired sixteen shots. In reports to internal investigators, the other officers either corroborated his story or said that they hadn’t seen what happened. One said that she had been looking down and missed the whole thing.

The code of silence has protected some particularly reprehensible behavior in the C.P.D., much of it directed at the city’s black population. Perhaps the most egregious was that of Jon Burge, a commander who, in the nineteen-seventies and eighties, headed a group of officers that he called the Midnight Crew. To extract confessions, the crew tortured dozens of men, most of them African-American, using electric shock, suffocation, and Russian roulette. Last May, the city agreed to a reparations agreement that included $5.5 million for the victims and an obligation to teach the episode in the public-school curriculum. According to the Better Government Association, between 2010 and 2014 there were seventy fatal shootings by the Chicago police, a higher number than in any other large city. (Phoenix, Philadelphia, and Dallas had a higher number per capita.) Between 2004 and 2014, the city spent $521 million defending the department and settling lawsuits claiming excessive force.

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 2:06 pm

Comments

That story also includes statements from the Greek Orthodox priest, who I know well.

He struck the right tone of stating he feels terrible both for the police officer and the person who was shot.

Comment by Gooner Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 2:13 pm
That priest is disgusting. And I say that as a Roman Catholic.

Comment by Pawn Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 2:19 pm
==How many lives were saved by him stopping that armed offender from getting any farther, from doing more damage than he already had done==

Zero, because none were in danger.

Comment by Precinct Captain Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 2:22 pm
“How many lives were saved by him stopping that armed offender from getting any farther, from doing more damage than he already had done?”

Negative one.

Comment by Carhartt Representative Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 2:25 pm
Reminds me of the 1940’s song, “Praise the Lord and Pass Me the Ammunition.”

Sad remark from a man of the cloth!

Comment by Norseman Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 2:28 pm
Since I am interested in understanding this mess, I am very open to seeing Futterman’s video of this horror.

Comment by Belle Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 2:31 pm
Precinct Captain

Amen

Comment by OneMan Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 2:34 pm
Laquan McDonald’s biggest mistakes were not responding to officer’s request and bringing a knife to a gun fight. Neither warranted being shot 16 times.

Comment by WETHEPEOPLE Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 2:35 pm
Priests aren’t experts on this issue, so I prefer to ignore it.

Comment by VanillaMan Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 2:38 pm
I admire this guys courage. He said what a lot of people may be thinking. I think he is way off base and the comments are idiotic, but he said them and did not hide behind an internet Name/Nickname/Anon!

Comment by Wumpus Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 2:39 pm
And the police unions are making the problem worse, which by the way is eventually going to strengthen Rauner’s hand.

Comment by Ahoy! Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 2:47 pm
$521 million.

Would’ve paid for a lot of pension obligation.

Comment by Sir Reel Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 2:48 pm
The Archbishop should reassign this priest. He is not serving the Church or CPD if he honors bad cops.

Comment by Wensicia Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 2:54 pm
Brandt was the Pastor at Daley’s home parish in Bridgeport. Rationalization seems to be part of who he is.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2006-08-24/news/0608240192_1_mayor-richard-daley-robert-sorich-jesus

Comment by IrishPirate Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 3:14 pm
You’re trained to shoot until the threat is gone,” Brandt, an archdiocesan priest, said in an interview. “I propose that Van Dyke was a hero. How many lives were saved by him stopping that armed offender from getting any farther, from doing more damage than he already had done?”

He sounds like an FOP mouthpiece, not a chaplain. IF there was a threat, it was gone w one shot. None of the other officers saw reason to fire. He should resign.

Comment by Langhorne Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 3:17 pm
==from doing more damage than he already had done?”==

Wow! He might have slashed a second tire!

Comment by walker Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 3:26 pm
==- Wumpus - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 2:39 pm:==

I think most of the Second City Cop racist crowd is out their proudly spouting their filth daily not behind an Internet card–it’s in their interactions on the streets everyday.

Comment by Precinct Captain Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 3:29 pm
remind me never to stand in between Pat Camden and Dan Brandt. ridiculous.

Comment by Amalia Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 3:34 pm
“he said them and did not hide behind an internet Name/Nickname/Anon!”

Nope, he said it from behind a badge. And a gun. And a clerical collar.

Très gutsy.

– MrJM

Comment by @MisterJayEm Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 3:36 pm
Hero.
Really, Father? I am a practicing Catholic, and I can assure you this “priest” must be following some bizarro Jesus Christ, not the one in the Catholic bible.

Comment by Orzo Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 3:48 pm
As a Roman Catholic myself, I have to ask: How in heck does the priest who made those comments promote the Church’s pro-life agenda? How can in, other words, stand up against the taking of a human life in abortion and also call the man accused of executing Laquan McDonald (shooting sixteen bullets into the young man, who had been moving away from police) a “hero”? His comments are scandalous. If I were a Chicago cop, I would not want that priest as my chaplain. He is doing a disservice to the police — essentially, he’s arguing that this is exactly how one should expect cops to behave — and he is embracing the culture of death, rather than the culture of respect for life that John Paul 2 and other popes have worked hard to promote. Outrageous. And sad.

Comment by Anonymous 88 Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 3:52 pm
==”How many lives were saved by him stopping that armed offender from getting any farther, from doing more damage than he already had done?”==

Damage? Since when is deadly force an appropriate response to vandalism?

The video does not show McDonald as a threat to police; other officers had appraised the situation before Van Dyke arrived and had not fired.

Will Chaplain Brandt be recommending this “hero” for a medal as well?

Comment by Streator Curmudgeon Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 4:33 pm
@Belle -

Don’t know what you mean by “Futterman’s video”. It’s the police squad cam that he’s talking about, the one that was released with much fanfare not very long ago.

Comment by JoanP Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 4:53 pm
- @MisterJayEm - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 3:36 pm: But he put let it be known who was saying it. This is not the time where he can hide behind either of those things. Maybe courage was too strong of a word, but he didn’t hide behind a keyboard and say it.

Comment by Wumpus Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 5:08 pm
“he didn’t hide behind a keyboard and say it.”

When I was a kid, I’d hear people say, “Maybe I’m racist, but I’m honest.” I didn’t throw a parade for them either.

– MrJM

Comment by @MisterJayEm Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 5:34 pm
I believe the priest was misquoted. he probably meant to say how many tires were saved by stopping the arm defender.

Comment by Bobio Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 6:57 pm
$52mill/yr for the last ten years, and we expect the rest of the state to bail us out? The chaplain should be praying that the tax payers don’t revolt?

Comment by Blue dog dem Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 7:33 pm
I’ve never been prouder to be (a lapsed) Protestant.

Comment by Dome Gnome Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 9:59 pm
“…the clergy-led protests calling for the resignation of Mayor Rahm Emanuel are ‘anything but Judeo-Christian in nature.’

I think many of us practicing, active Catholics, well trained from childhood in the Gospel and the Cathecism of the church, might have a different opinion or definition of what it means to be Judeo-Christian in nature…

Comment by low level Tuesday, Dec 15, 15 @ 5:36 am