CHICAGO _ Imprisoned Chicago cop Jason Van Dyke formally resigned from the Police Department last week, a police spokesman confirmed Tuesday.
Van Dyke, who is currently serving a nearly 7-year prison sentence for the slaying of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, stepped down ahead of formal termination proceedings before the Chicago Police Board, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.
Van Dyke's jury trial last fall ended in a historic guilty verdict, making him the first Chicago police officer in half a century to be convicted of murder for an on-duty incident.
A Cook County jury found him guilty on one count of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery _ one for each bullet that hit McDonald's body in October 2014.
Graphic police dashboard camera footage of the shooting released more than a year later sparked weeks of chaos and political upheaval, exposing Chicago's long-standing racial fault lines and exacerbating the already-fraught relationship between police and minority communities.
Due to security concerns, Van Dyke, 41, is serving his 6 }-year sentence in a medium-security federal prison in Otisville, N.Y., an hour north of New York City. According to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons site, he's scheduled to be released in February 2022.
The white officer shot the black teen as the 17-year-old walked away from police on a Southwest Side street while holding a knife.
Graphic police dashboard camera video of the shooting _ ordered released by a judge in November 2015 _ sparked weeks of chaos and political upheaval, exacerbating the already fraught relationship between Chicago police and minority communities.
