Dec. 03--Gov. Bruce Rauner on Thursday weighed in on the political firestorm that has erupted around the deadly shooting of an African-American teen by a Chicago police officer last year, saying the recently released video of the incident brought him to tears and raised questions about the city's delayed response.
"I watched the video when it came out last week. I cried," Rauner told reporters. "That video -- shocking, terrifying. I cried for the young man who was brutally shot. I cried for the thousands of police officers who are honest and hardworking, put themselves in harm's way to serve and protect us and whose reputation gets damaged by the behavior of a few bad people."
Speaking after he and Mayor Rahm Emanuel attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Google's new offices in the West Loop, Rauner questioned why it took 13 months for officials to charge Officer Jason Van Dyke with murder.
"Anybody who sees that video has to really wonder, why would it take so long to prosecute or deal with this? What's taking so long? It's a legitimate question for everybody to be asking."
Rauner's remarks came just moments after Emanuel explained his decision to reverse course and welcome a federal probe of the city's police tactics, an idea the embattled mayor had dismissed as "misguided" just a day earlier.
The video, released last week as a result of a court order, sparked outrage over the city's handling of the incident and the Emanuel administration's yearlong effort to keep the video out of public view. On Tuesday, Emanuel fired police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, but that did little to stem calls for a federal investigation of the city's policing practices.
Emanuel initially said that a federal investigation into the McDonald shooting is already in progress and that, "hitting the restart button on a whole new investigation does not get you to the conclusion in an expedited fashion."
By Thursday morning, after Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign indicated that she would be calling for a federal investigation of the city's Police Department, Emanuel had reversed course.
"I understand that the mayor has now agreed, after a number of people have encouraged, a broader federal investigation by the Department of Justice," Rauner said. "I think that's a good thing. I think it's the right thing."
The Republican governor, a longtime friend and onetime business associate of Emanuel, stopped short of calling for an investigation himself, however.
"I think the mayor took a very positive step today by agreeing to expand and encourage the federal investigation to grow larger," Rauner said. "That's really a decision to be made by the Obama administration. The federal government does not need to be asked or encouraged to investigate where they think there are problems. They can do it unilaterally. I'm a little surprised that the Obama administration hasn't taken steps before now. I don't know why."
