A Former Chicago Officer Who Killed Laquan McDonald Is Released From Prison
Former Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke left prison on Thursday after serving less than half of his nearly seven-year sentence for killing Black teenager Laquan McDonald, angering community leaders who feel the white officer’s punishment didn’t fit his crime.
Van Dyke, 43, was released at 12:15 a.m. from the Taylorville Correctional Center in central Illinois, a corrections official said. The conditions of his parole and what Van Dyke plans to do next weren’t immediately known.
Van Dyke became the first Chicago officer in about half a century to be convicted of murder for an on-duty killing, and many people hoped his 2018 conviction for second-degree murder and aggravated battery signaled a new era of police accountability and of the department’s treatment of the city’s Black residents. But they said his early release for good behavior after he served about three years and four months of his sentence of six years and nine months revictimized McDonald and the Black community.
