CHICAGO _ When deliberations began in one of the biggest trials in Cook County, Ill., history, juror Charlene Cooke says she was certain Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke was guilty of first-degree murder.
Gathered around the long cherry wood table in the nondescript jury room, Cooke was unable to erase the image from her head of Van Dyke continuing to fire as 17-year-old Laquan McDonald lay twitching on the pavement. But not everyone agreed. Hours passed without a unanimous decision before Cooke and her fellow jurors were sequestered for the night at a suburban hotel.
The next morning, an agreement was struck to convict Van Dyke of second-degree murder, finding he acted in fear for his life, even if that fear was unreasonable. But before the verdict was signed, another juror suddenly hesitated, and the deliberations grew heated, according to Cooke. The lone black juror on the 12-member panel, Cooke said she confronted the woman, who had grown emotional about Van Dyke and his family.
"Let's not make this a race thing or a sympathy thing," Cooke recalled telling her fellow juror, a white woman. "We're talking about a man, not even a white man, but a man who used his authority the wrong way. He took somebody's life, and it was overkill."
Then, Cooke made it clear that she wasn't backing down.
"I told everyone, 'Kick your shoes off, get comfortable because we're not going anywhere.'"
In the first in-depth, one-on-one interview with a juror since Van Dyke's historic conviction, Cooke told the Chicago Tribune it was important to her to give the officer a fair trial, saying her preacher father raised her to keep an open mind about people and "look at the whole picture."
"Everything is too much about black and white instead of right and wrong," said the 60-year-old great-grandmother from the south suburbs.
Speaking on the four-year anniversary of McDonald's death, Cooke said she had been surprised to be picked for the jury after she had made it quite clear while being questioned by the judge and lawyers that she was bothered by the 16 shots fired by Van Dyke.
Cooke, known during the trial only as Juror No. 245, spoke briefly to reporters on the day of the verdict along with several other jurors _ all of whom remained anonymous as part of an interview tightly controlled by Judge Vincent Gaughan.
But for her interview with the Tribune, she agreed to go public with her identity and set no limitations on what she would discuss.
Among the highlights of the four-hour interview:
_ Cooke had to fight to control her emotions on the day prosecutors displayed graphic photos from McDonald's autopsy on a large screen. McDonald suffered shots to his neck, chest, back, legs, arms, one hand _ and bullet fragments were even pulled from his teeth. Cooke said she kept her composure, focusing on maintaining meticulous notes, as she did with each of the trial's 44 witnesses.
_ She found Van Dyke's tearful testimony rehearsed and unconvincing as he portrayed McDonald as far more menacing than what was shown on the infamous police dashboard camera video that captured the shooting.
_ Van Dyke's comments to his partner on the way to the scene _ "Oh, my God, we're going to have to shoot the guy" _ sealed his fate with the jury. "That was really a nail in his coffin," she said.
_ Cooke said Officer Joseph McElligott, who trailed McDonald on foot for blocks while keeping his distance and waiting for a police car with a Taser to arrive, might have been justified had he shot the knife-wielding teen after he attacked the police car driven by his partner.
