Chicago Teachers Union Joins Demand for Rahm Emanuel, Anita Alvarez To Resign
The Chicago Teachers Union's House of Delegates, the union's member-led governing body, voted tonight to demand the resignations of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and State's Attorney Anita Alvarez in the wake of the Laquan McDonald scandal, which has roiled the city for nearly two months and led to the resignations of multiple city officials, including Chicago police superintendent Garry McCarthy.
"Both Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez and Mayor Rahm Emanuel orchestrated and intentionally delayed the release" of multiple videos showing police killings of African Americans, the statement reads, "apparently for their own political gains in order to secure victory in their 2015 re-election bids. ... The only way to restore this trust is with their resignations."
The statement goes on:
[T]he CTU support[s] demands that Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez resign immediately from public office forthe unconscionable delay of their governmental institutions in addressing Laquan McDonald's killing and other issues of excessive, unwarranted, unjustified, and lethal police force in the City of Chicago.
The move is unprecedented: The CTU has never before called for a sitting mayor to resign.
McDonald was a 17-year-old African-American boy who was shot 16 times by Chicago Police Department (CPD) officer Jason Van Dyke in October 2014. CPD squad car dash cameras captured footage of the shooting which contradicted the department's early statements saying McDonald had been shot as he lunged at police with a knife, but the city fought to suppress the footage for over a year as Mayor Emanuel sought reelection—leading to accusations that Mayor Emanuel and the city had engaged in a cover-up.
In December 2015, the CTU also passed a resolution calling to endorse a Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC), Chicago Teachers Union Joins Demand for Rahm Emanuel, Anita Alvarez To Resign - Working In These Times: