Mayer Brown litigation partner Lori Lightfoot stepped into an explosive situation when she agreed last December to head a task force examining police misconduct in Chicago. Mayor Rahm Emanuel formed the task force shortly after a video was released that showed police officer Jason Van Dyke shooting Laquan McDonald 16 times in October 2014, as McDonald walked away from police.
Van Dyke, who was responding to reports that someone was damaging cars, fired all but one of the shots as the 17-year-old African American teen lay motionless on the street. Before the video emerged, the police had falsely claimed that the officer was defending himself against an attack.
