CHICAGO _ Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke's attorneys resumed their efforts Thursday to try to show that Laquan McDonald had embarked on a "wild rampage" in the hours before the patrolman fatally shot him.
Two witnesses _ a neighbor of McDonald's aunt and a pharmacology expert hired by the defense _ offered their take on his behavior on the day of the shooting, painting starkly different portraits of the 17-year-old.
Yvette Patterson, who lives next door to McDonald's aunt, told Cook County jurors she encountered McDonald in the alley behind her home at 3 a.m. on the day of the shooting and called 911. She had been returning from a party on Oct. 20, 2014, when she saw an African-American male _ later identified as McDonald _ sitting on the stairs. She had never seen him before.
"He walked over and was like, 'Can I see your car?'" said Patterson, who was subpoenaed by the defense to testify. "'I just want to use it. I'll bring it right back.'"
Patterson said the question seemed bizarre to her, but she was not afraid. In fact, she said, she and McDonald were "laughing and talking" during the exchange.
"I was like, 'No, you can't use it,'" she said. "'I don't even let my son use my car.'"
Patterson said McDonald told her he lived upstairs, but she was skeptical because she'd never seen him before. She said she called 911 as a precaution _ to ensure she was able to get inside her house safely.
In his questioning, Van Dyke's lead attorney, Daniel Herbert, asked Patterson about her statement to the FBI in 2015 when she said McDonald had approached her and said, "Who the f--- do you know that lives here?"
Patterson acknowledged on the witness stand that was how the teen first addressed her but reiterated that she wasn't frightened.
"I wasn't in fear at all," she said. "He seemed like a nice young guy."
Patterson's account was decidedly less dramatic than the version told by Herbert during his opening statement to jurors last week. During his presentation, Herbert told jurors McDonald had attempted to "take a woman's vehicle" and that she was "so petrified by this she calls 911."
The defense has put on a number of witnesses in a bid to show McDonald was an "out-of-control individual who didn't care about anyone" that night, as Herbert said in his opening remarks.
But Judge Vincent Gaughan has blocked some of that testimony, including a defense request earlier this week to call a Chicago Transit Authority witness to detail how McDonald used a disabled veteran's public transit card to crisscross the city in the hours before the shooting.
"The evidence will show that the 24 hours preceding this, LM was on a wild rampage through the city," Herbert said during his opening remarks to jurors. "We have CTA records. ... Laquan uses this card going back and forth all over the city. West Side. South Side. West Side. South Side. Bizarre."
The jury, however, has been presented several examples of McDonald's strange _ and unlawful _ behavior that night, including breaking into a truck yard, threatening a truck driver with a knife, popping a police tire, scratching a squad car window and refusing to obey officers' commands.
James O'Donnell, a pharmacology expert hired by the defense, told the jury that McDonald's actions that night can be partially blamed on PCP, a drug he tested positive for after his death. He told the jury the drug can cause hallucinations, delusions and aggressiveness.
Toxicology tests also revealed that McDonald was not using two psychiatric drugs that he had recently been prescribed: a mood stabilizer and an antipsychotic. If he was not using that medication, the effects of PCP could have been even stronger, O'Donnell said.
"These were prescribed for him. He wasn't taking them. He took (PCP) ... which can cause severe rage, aggression, violent behavior, drug-induced psychosis," he told jurors. "And he's in a more vulnerable state for a more severe reaction to PCP because he's not getting the protection of the prescribed drugs."
Police officers' descriptions of McDonald as "unfazed" and "deranged" are consistent with the "rage, violence and aggression" resulting from PCP use, O'Donnell testified.
"He was impaired, he was intoxicated and there's a slang term: He's whacked on this PCP at the time of his death," O'Donnell told jurors.
Assistant special prosecutor Joseph Cullen questioned O'Donnell on whether McDonald was displaying rage that night _ from the effects of the PCP _ or whether he was simply trying to avoid police.
"He continued to walk away from officers toward an empty fence. ... That's what you describe as rage?" Cullen asked.
"Yes," O'Donnell replied. "He's still in the situation with a knife in his hand and disobeying orders from the police ... still showing aggressive behavior and actions. I would describe that as violent rage behavior."
Testimony concluded early Thursday afternoon after only three witness, a shortened day for the fourth consecutive day since the defense began presenting evidence.
The defense had hoped to call two other witnesses, but Gaughan blocked their testimony.
Van Dyke's attorneys wanted to call McDonald's caseworker from the state Department of Children and Family Services in an attempt to show that at the time of the teen's death the agency was investigating whether he could live with his uncle.
"Depending on results of that investigation, Laquan McDonald may have been sent back to (the Department of Corrections)," Herbert said before the jury entered the courtroom. "On the night Laquan McDonald died, Laquan McDonald was out of control and was simply at the end of his rope for many reasons, one of which included that he thought he was going back to DOC."
Gaughan barred the testimony after special prosecutor Joseph McMahon argued that the caseworker was not qualified to testify about McDonald's mental state.
In addition, Gaughan ruled that the defense cannot call a witness from the Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities program, a nonprofit that connects people in the criminal justice system with substance abuse treatment and mental health service, to testify about McDonald's positive drug tests for marijuana, cocaine and PCP in the months before he died.
Jurors already have been told that authorities ordered McDonald to be drug tested at least once but were not told the results of that test.
The trial is scheduled to resume Monday.
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