CHICAGO _ Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke knew almost nothing about 17-year-old Laquan McDonald the night he shot and killed him _ except for his race, according to prosecutors.
"What (Van Dyke) saw was a black boy walking down the street, having the audacity to ignore the police," special prosecutor Joseph McMahon told jurors as Van Dyke's murder trial got underway Monday with opening statements.
When Van Dyke arrived on the scene that night, he began shooting within six seconds, firing all 16 bullets and even attempting to reload while McDonald lay motionless on the ground, McMahon said.
McMahon counted each shot for the jury, pounding the lectern for emphasis each time.
"The defendant tries to shoot Laquan McDonald, not once, but twice, three, four, five, six, seven, eight _ and we're only halfway done _ nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 times," he said.
Van Dyke is the first Chicago police officer in decades to be charged with murder in an on-duty fatality. Police dashboard camera video of him shooting McDonald 16 times as the teen appeared to walk away from police while holding a small knife roiled the city on its court-ordered release more than a year after the October 2014 incident.
The case has long been racially fraught because Van Dyke is white and McDonald was black. But McMahon's statement about McDonald being a "black boy" marked the first time prosecutors have alleged in court that race was a motivating factor in the shooting.
In his opening remarks, Van Dyke's lead defense attorney, Daniel Herbert, bristled at the suggestion, telling the jury the fact that McDonald was black had "absolutely nothing" to do with Van Dyke's decision to open fire.
Instead, Herbert painted a picture of McDonald as a violent, out-of-control teen who had attacked others when confronted. The threat level was rising as Van Dyke and his partner headed to the scene, particularly after McDonald stabbed the tire of a squad car and scraped its windshield and then took off running toward a busy Burger King, he said.
Herbert also cautioned jurors that the now-infamous police dashboard camera video does not tell the full story, in part because it didn't capture how the incident unfolded from Van Dyke's perspective.
"What happened to Laquan McDonald was a tragedy," he said. "It's a tragedy. It's not a murder.
"The story in this case is a story written, directed and orchestrated by one person: Laquan McDonald," Herbert said. " ... The 24 hours preceding this, Laquan McDonald was on a wild rampage through the city. ... (Prosecutors) want you to look at the final chapter without reading the rest of the book."
The long-awaited trial kicked off in Cook County Judge Vincent's Gaughan's packed courtroom after months of wrangling and three days of jury selection.
Among the first witnesses called by the prosecution was Chicago police Officer Joseph McElligott, who first encountered McDonald after responding with his partner to a 911 call of a person breaking into trucks in a lot near 41st Street and Kildare Avenue.
McElligott, testifying in uniform and appearing nervous on the stand, said he got out of the squad car and drew his gun after McDonald displayed a knife. The officer said he was about 10 feet away from McDonald at that point but backed up to keep more of a distance from him. He stayed about 15 feet away as he continued to follow McDonald on foot for blocks while his partner drove their squad car beside him.
They were waiting for other officers to show up with a Taser, he said.
McDonald occasionally turned around to display the knife at his side, the officer said, but he never felt he or his partner was threatened.
When his partner twice tried to cut off McDonald from going farther, the teen stabbed the tire and scraped the windshield, McElligott said.
McDonald then began to run, and other responding squad cars cut off McElligott from McDonald.
Shortly afterward, McElligott heard at least 10 gunshots in succession. As he got closer, he saw McDonald lying in the street and Van Dyke nearby with his gun still in his hand.
"He was looking like in shock," McElligott said.
McElligott confirmed that at no point during the pursuit did he fire his weapon at McDonald.
"We were trying to buy time to have a Taser. He didn't make any direct movement at me, and I felt like my partner was protected for the most part inside the vehicle," McElligott testified. "It was kind of like organized chaos. ... We were just trying to be patient."
McElligott's testimony began to fill in a timeline of events that was the focus of the prosecution's opening statement.
In his brief, workmanlike speech to the jury, McMahon said police officers have the authority to fire their weapons in very specific situations, but this was not one of them. Holding up the 3-inch blade that McDonald carried that night, McMahon suggested the teen could have _ and should have _ been subdued with a Taser.
"Not a single shot was necessary or justified," he said.
By the time McDonald ran onto Pulaski Road, he was corralled on all sides by five police squad cars and 10 armed police officers on the scene, McMahon said.
"There is a Chicago police Taser unit on its way," McMahon said. "And not a single pedestrian in sight."
When Van Dyke arrived on the scene, he began shooting within six seconds, McMahon said. McDonald was knocked to the street within 1.6 seconds of the shooting, but Van Dyke fired for an additional 12.5 seconds until his gun was emptied.
McMahon also told the jury that Van Dyke began to reload his weapon after shooting McDonald _ a short time earlier the defense had unsuccessfully tried to block the jury from hearing that evidence. Van Dyke did not stop reloading until his partner told him to stop.
Herbert, meanwhile, maintained that an average officer can fire five or six times in just a single second. Van Dyke fired many of the shots before even realizing McDonald had fallen to the street, he told jurors.
Herbert said Van Dyke paused to reassess after firing 14 of the 16 shots.
"He didn't know if they were lethal gunshots. He didn't know if Laquan McDonald had the ability to get back up and attack him," he said. "McDonald holds on to his knife the whole time he's on the ground. Despite being shot 14 times, he starts making movements."
Herbert told jurors that the video does not show Van Dyke's perspective on the shooting but that the defense has re-created a video to show that.
With a close-up of a Chicago police squad car on the screen, zoomed in on the words "we serve and protect," Herbert said that Illinois law governing police use-of-force justified Van Dyke's actions that night.
"Police officers have a duty to protect the public, to protect people from potential harm, and that's what we have here, ladies and gentlemen," he said.
Herbert also painted Van Dyke as an upstanding citizen who made breakfast for his family, kissed his wife goodbye and completed a "honey-do" list before reporting for duty on the night of the shooting.
"What he didn't know at that time was that his life was going to change forever," Herbert said.
