Laquan McDonald Settlement: $5 Million Payout, Video, and Fallout

The Laquan McDonald settlement was a $5 million payout that the Chicago City Council unanimously approved on April 15, 2015, six months after Officer Jason Van Dyke shot the 17-year-old 16 times and before McDonald’s family had filed any wrongful death lawsuit. The deal came with a confidentiality clause that kept the police dashcam video out of public view until a judge ordered it released seven months later. When the footage finally surfaced, it contradicted the official police account, forced murder charges against Van Dyke, and set off a chain of resignations, firings, election defeats, and federal oversight that continues to shape Chicago policing.

How a $5 Million Deal Happened Without a Lawsuit

McDonald’s mother, Tina Hunter, hired attorneys Jeffrey Neslund and Michael Robbins on November 7, 2014, less than three weeks after her son’s death. The lawyers spent five months subpoenaing dashcam video and police records and interviewing witnesses. After reviewing the footage, they concluded that the official police account was false and that McDonald had never lunged at officers. In a March 2015 letter to the city, they described the shooting as a “gratuitous execution as well as a hate crime” and alleged the department had employed a “code of silence.”¹

Their initial demand was $16 million, calculated as $1 million for each shot Van Dyke fired.² After two meetings with city attorneys on March 16 and March 24, 2015, the two sides reached a tentative $5 million agreement. No wrongful death complaint was ever filed in court.³

On April 13, 2015, city chief counsel Steve Patton recommended the settlement to the City Council Finance Committee, citing the dashcam footage and a pending FBI investigation as reasons to settle.⁴ Two days later, the full Council approved the payout unanimously with no debate. The vote took seconds.⁵

How the Money Was Divided

McDonald’s sister received 55% of the settlement, or $2.75 million, structured as monthly payments running until 2060. Hunter, his mother, received the remaining 45%, or $2.25 million, paid out at roughly $2,821 per month over 20 years. Neslund and Robbins collected a combined $1.816 million in legal fees, taking 40% of the mother’s share and one-third of the sister’s. A judge ruled that McDonald’s father was not entitled to any portion of the estate.¹

The Confidentiality Clause and the Buried Video

The settlement barred the family’s lawyers from releasing the dashcam footage. Neslund later told the Chicago Sun-Times he had agonized over the decision: “I really wanted to let it go viral, but how would that affect the city of Chicago?” He acknowledged the video was a “huge bargaining chip” in the talks but agreed to keep it under wraps.³ Robbins added that prosecutors had also urged the family not to release it during the ongoing criminal investigation.¹

The timing raised suspicions almost immediately. Settlement negotiations began on February 27, 2015, three days after Mayor Rahm Emanuel was forced into a runoff election against Jesús “Chuy” Garcia. Emanuel won that runoff on April 7, and the Council approved the settlement eight days later.³ Members of the City Council’s Black Caucus later accused the Emanuel administration of orchestrating a cover-up to keep the footage from voters. Alderman Howard Brookins said the Council had been “misled” by the administration’s claim that ongoing investigations prevented the video’s release.⁶

The video stayed sealed for 13 months. Activist William Calloway and freelance journalist Brandon Smith filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the footage, and after the Chicago Police Department denied it, they retained attorney Matt Topic and sued. In Smith v. CPD (No. 15 CH 11780), Cook County Judge Franklin Valderrama ruled on November 19, 2015 that the police department could not withhold records by pointing to investigations conducted by other agencies. He ordered the video released by November 25.⁷⁸

The footage was released on November 24, 2015. It showed McDonald walking away from officers when Van Dyke opened fire, contradicting the police narrative that McDonald had lunged at them. Hours before the court-ordered release, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez announced first-degree murder charges against Van Dyke, more than 13 months after the shooting. She said she had intended to charge him for months but accelerated the timeline because of the impending disclosure.⁶

What Happened to Van Dyke

Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm. In January 2019, Judge Vincent Gaughan sentenced him to 81 months in prison on the second-degree murder charge and declined to impose any separate sentence on the 16 aggravated battery counts.⁹¹⁰

The sentence drew widespread criticism. An analysis by Injustice Watch found the average second-degree murder sentence in Cook County was 12 years, and Gaughan’s own average for the same charge over 18 years was 14 years and three months. Julie Koehler, a supervisor in the Cook County public defender’s homicide unit, called it “a cop sentence,” saying she had never obtained a single-digit sentence for second-degree murder for any of her clients.¹⁰

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Special Prosecutor Joseph McMahon petitioned the state Supreme Court for resentencing, arguing that the judge was legally required to impose sentences on the aggravated battery counts, each carrying a minimum of six years. The defense called the challenge “politically motivated.”¹¹¹²¹³ No federal civil rights charges were brought; an FBI investigation opened in 2019 was closed the same year.¹⁴

Cover-Up Charges and Officer Firings

Three officers at the scene were charged with conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and official misconduct for allegedly filing false police reports that exaggerated the threat McDonald posed. Officer Thomas Gaffney, former officer Joseph Walsh, and former detective David March opted for a bench trial before Cook County Judge Domenica Stephenson, who found all three not guilty on January 17, 2019, ruling that prosecutors failed to prove a conspiracy.¹⁵¹⁶

On July 18, 2019, the Chicago Police Board fired four other officers for their roles in falsifying or distorting accounts of the shooting. Sgt. Stephen Franko was found to have approved false reports claiming McDonald tried to stab Van Dyke. Officer Ricardo Viramontes reported that McDonald continued to rise with a knife after being shot, statements the board called “at odds with all of the evidence at the scene.” Officer Janet Mondragon falsely claimed she did not see the shooting because she was shifting her squad car’s gear. Officer Daphne Sebastian was found to have given misleading and inconsistent statements. The vote was unanimous for the first three; Sebastian’s firing was nearly unanimous, with one dissent. None faced criminal charges.¹⁷¹⁸

Political Fallout

The video’s release triggered massive protests and demands for Emanuel’s resignation. On December 1, 2015, the mayor fired Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, saying he had “become an issue rather than dealing with the issue.” McCarthy maintained he had been scapegoated, insisting the suppression of the video “happened on the civil side, which was completely outside of my purview.”¹⁹²⁰

Emanuel said he had not watched the video until the week of its release, a claim law professor Bernard Harcourt called “extraordinarily difficult to believe,” given that the mayor had authorized a $5 million settlement specifically to keep it confidential.⁴ Emanuel announced in 2018 that he would not seek a third term. At his October 2021 Senate confirmation hearing to become U.S. Ambassador to Japan, he said, “I clearly missed the level of distrust and skepticism that existed. That’s on me.”²¹

Alvarez’s 13-month delay in charging Van Dyke ended her career. Activist groups including BYP100, Assata’s Daughters, and Black Lives Matter Chicago launched the #ByeAnita campaign, staging more than a dozen direct actions in less than a month and hanging banners reading “Blood on the ballot” across the city.²² The local Democratic party withdrew its endorsement in January 2016 and backed challenger Kim Foxx. Alvarez lost the March 2016 primary by nearly 30 points, with Foxx taking 58% of the vote to Alvarez’s 29%.²³

Federal Investigation, Consent Decree, and COPA

On December 7, 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation into the Chicago Police Department, prompted directly by the release of the McDonald video. The investigation, conducted with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, concluded on January 13, 2017 that the CPD engaged in a “pattern or practice of using force, including deadly force, that is unreasonable.” It found that fewer than 2% of more than 30,000 misconduct complaints over five years had been sustained and identified a pervasive “code of silence.”²⁴

When the incoming Trump administration declined to pursue a consent decree in 2017, the Illinois Attorney General’s office and a coalition of reform advocates sued the city to force one. The resulting 2019 consent decree is a binding court order that places a federal judge in oversight of the department and requires reforms to training, supervision, and officer discipline.²⁵

The city also created the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) in October 2016 to replace the Independent Police Review Authority. COPA was given guaranteed funding of at least 1% of the CPD’s budget, broader investigatory jurisdiction over civil rights complaints, a five-year ban on hiring former police officers as investigators, and a mandate to publish redacted investigative reports.²⁶²⁷

A Separate Settlement With a Witness

The family’s $5 million was not the only claim to come out of the shooting. Alma Benitez, a witness to the killing, filed a federal lawsuit against the city in September 2016, alleging that police detectives pressured her to change her account and falsely told her that video contradicted what she saw.²⁸ The Law Department negotiated a $125,000 settlement, but the City Council Finance Committee rejected it after aldermen objected to the amount.²⁹ Benitez reached an undisclosed settlement with the city in November 2019.³⁰

1
Chicago Sun-Times. How Laquan McDonald Settlement Unfolded After That Initial Demand
2
ABC 7 Chicago. Attorneys Took Home $1.8M of $5M Laquan McDonald Settlement
3
DNAinfo Chicago. New Details About Negotiations in $5 Million Laquan McDonald Settlement
4
The Guardian. Laquan McDonald Shooting: Rahm Emanuel Faces Political Battle
5
Fox 32 Chicago. City Council Took Just Seconds to Approve $5M Laquan McDonald Settlement
6
CNN. Laquan McDonald Shooting Explainer
7
Chicago Reporter. Judge’s Decision Could Lead to Release of More Police Shooting Videos
8
ProPublica. Illinois FOIA Flaws: Laquan McDonald and Chicago
9
NPR. Ex-Cop Jason Van Dyke Who Killed Laquan McDonald Is Released From Prison
10
Injustice Watch. Jason Van Dyke Murder Sentence in the Laquan McDonald Case
11
ABC News. Prosecutors Challenge Judge’s Sentence for Chicago Cop Jason Van Dyke
12
CNN. Jason Van Dyke Release: Laquan McDonald
13
ABC 7 Chicago. Jason Van Dyke Released From Prison
14
ABC 7 Chicago. Jason Van Dyke Federal Charges: Civil Rights Investigation Closed
15
NPR. Verdict for Chicago Cops Charged in Cover-Up of Laquan McDonald Shooting
16
WTTW News. Laquan McDonald Police Cover-Up Verdict
17
PBS NewsHour. Four Chicago Officers Fired for Laquan McDonald Shooting Cover-Up
18
Chicago Reporter. Chicago Police Officers Fired Over Laquan McDonald Testimony Were Accused of Another Cover-Up
19
Politico. Chicago’s Ex-Police Chief Was Fired After the Laquan McDonald Shooting
20
The Guardian. Chicago Mayor Fires Police Superintendent After Laquan McDonald Shooting Protests
21
C-SPAN. Rahm Emanuel Addresses Murder of Laquan McDonald
22
Movement Metrics Research. Case Study: #ByeAnita Campaign
23
ABC 7 Chicago. Foxx Defeats Alvarez in Cook County State’s Attorney Primary
24
U.S. Department of Justice. Investigation of the Chicago Police Department Findings
25
WTTW News. How Does Chicago’s Police Consent Decree Work
26
Civilian Office of Police Accountability. Our History
27
Better Government Association. What’s Really New About Chicago’s Newest Police Oversight Office
28
CBS News Chicago. Finance Committee Settlements Including Alma Benitez
29
Fox 32 Chicago. Chicago Aldermen Reject Settlement With Laquan McDonald Witness
30
Chicago Sun-Times. Woman Who Witnessed Laquan McDonald Shooting Settles Lawsuit With City