‘Nobody deserves to be shot like that’: Father and son witnesses disclose details of Laquan McDonald shooting
Jose Torres and his son became the smoking gun that secured a conviction against Chicago cop Jason Van Dyke who was found guilty for the 2014 shooting death of Black teen Laquan McDonald.
Jose Torres opened up to the Chicago Tribune about how he and his son both witnessed firsthand the murder of Laquan McDonald and the lies he heard about the case that led him to report his truth of what they saw.
Torres ultimately was the smoking gun that secured a conviction against Chicago cop Jason Van Dyke who was found guilty for the 2014 shooting death of McDonald. Van Dyke shot the 17-year-old 16 times and continued to fire his weapon even as the teenager was on the ground motionless. None of the other officers on the scene opened fire.
However, Van Dyke made claim that McDonald advanced toward him aggressively with a knife. That’s something Torres said was a lie. Torres said when he watched a police union official make the claim on television, it just didn’t sit well with him.
“I told my wife, ‘They’re lying,’” Torres said. “‘That didn’t happen.’”
“It took me a few days to work up the strength, the nerve to call somebody and report it,” he said. “I couldn’t sleep. It was eating away at me and my conscience. It was killing me, and I thought if I stay quiet, then I’m part of the cover-up and I couldn’t live with myself.”
Torres said he was warned by family members not to get involved, but he did.
“We talked about it and worried about possible threats and things that could possibly happen,” Xavier, 26, said. “But at the same time we’re already in it, and you just got to follow your heart and do the right thing, the way he taught me.”
Torres and his son spoke to the FBI and later appeared before two grand juries to tell their side of the story.
That fateful night, Torres, 46 said police sirens were blaring and several police cars raced past him. He came upon the scene and saw McDonald run from somewhere near a Burger King onto a southbound lane of Pulaski.
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Torres said he and his son had an unobstructed view of the events as they unfolded. They said McDonald walked in a southwest angle on Pulaski away from police and had his hands to his side. The officers shouted at him, Torres explained, before gunfire erupted. Even as he hit the ground, they said gunshots continued.
“Why are they still shooting him when he was on the ground?’” the elder Torres recalled on the witness stand asking out loud at that moment.
“As soon as I heard the gunshots, he fell,” he said in the Chicago Tribune interview. “And then there was a pause, and as soon as he just made a move, all of a sudden it seemed like it was never going to end. It was like pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop as he was on the ground, and they just kept shooting and shooting and shooting.”
Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke, left, is taken into custody just minutes after jurors found him guilty of second-degree murder and aggravated battery (Antonio Perez/ Chicago Tribune via AP, Pool)
Recently prison officials at the Cook County jail where Van Dyke was placed after his conviction last week in the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald said they were so fearful of his safety that they have moved him to a neighboring county.
