CHICAGO _ Former Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke has been transferred from an upstate New York federal prison where he was serving his sentence for murder to a state facility somewhere outside of Illinois _ but prison officials won't say exactly where.
The Illinois Department of Corrections on Tuesday confirmed that Van Dyke, convicted last year of fatally shooting Laquan McDonald, left the medium-security federal prison in Otisville, N.Y., for another prison facility.
Van Dyke's transfer was first reported by WTTW.com.
IDOC spokeswoman Lindsey Hess confirmed the transfer but added Van Dyke is not being held anywhere in Illinois.
"Jason Van Dyke is no longer in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons," Hess said in an email Tuesday evening. "He remains under the jurisdiction of the Illinois Department of Corrections, but is not in our custody."
Hess declined to say more, citing safety and security purposes.
Van Dyke, 41, was transferred to Otisville, an hour north of New York City, earlier this year to serve his 6}-year sentence due to safety concerns. It wasn't the first time that Van Dyke had been relocated. He'd been held in isolation at a Quad Cities-area jail following his conviction last October.
Van Dyke's trial _ the first in a half-century to charge an on-duty officer with murder _ renewed the city's age-old tensions between police and the black community over allegations of excessive force.
Van Dyke fatally shot McDonald in October 2014 as the 17-year-old backed away from police on a Southwest Side street while holding a knife. Graphic police dashboard camera video of the shooting led to widespread protests and to the firing of police Superintendent Garry McCarthy.
