Dec. 10--Mayor Rahm Emanuel stood before the Chicago City Council on Wednesday and said two little words many Chicagoans have been demanding to hear.
No, not I resign.
I'm sorry.
The words came early in a 40-minute speech meant to "lay out a path to restoring trust" in the Police Department amid the fallout over the fatal shooting of a black teenager by a white Chicago cop in October 2014.
The city has been in an uproar since the release of a police dash-cam video that shows Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting Laquan McDonald in the back and continuing to fire -- 16 shots in all -- after McDonald falls to the ground.
Chicagoans are livid about those graphic images, about the city's long fight to keep the video secret, about the 13 months that elapsed before the officer was charged with first-degree murder.
Unmoved by the firings of the police chief and the head of a police disciplinary board, protesters outside the council chambers shouted Wednesday for Emanuel to step down even as he stood inside and tried to pitch forward.
"I take responsibility for what happened because it happened on my watch," Emanuel said. "But if we're also going to begin the healing process, the first step in that journey is my step, and I'm sorry."
Emanuel didn't say he was sorry his efforts to contain the political damage had left Chicagoans with the perfectly understandable impression that he'd placed his interests ahead of theirs. We wish he had.
He didn't chide the aldermen for their failures, either, even though some of them have been pointing fingers at him. They've been agitating for hearings into a possible City Hall cover-up and complaining that they were suckered into approving a $5 million settlement with McDonald's family.
The truth is that the City Council has been signing off on multimillion-dollar legal settlements over police brutality for far longer than Emanuel has been mayor. Aldermen have never insisted on changes in the department's policies on the use of deadly force, or in the byzantine disciplinary process that rarely holds officers accountable for misconduct.
Time and again, Chicago's leaders have faced a crisis, promised reforms, then dropped the ball.
Emanuel vowed, this time, to follow through. He must.
He'll have the U.S. Department of Justice looking over his shoulder, likely for many years. In the short term, he's assigned a task force to figure out how to overhaul the police oversight system, to limit the use of lethal force, to improve transparency and community engagement. The group has already recommended naming a "senior officer for civil rights" within the Police Department.
Two emotional moments stood out in Emanuel's speech.
First, he lamented that African-American parents must instruct their children to behave with caution during a traffic stop, or to avoid congregating in public for fear of drawing the attention of police. "That's not something I'd ever tell my children," he said.
