Emanuel ducks questions about teen shot 16 times by Chicago police

The Washington Post reports:

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel ducked questions Thursday about whether he knew far earlier than he has previously disclosed about differences between police accounts of the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald and what a dash-cam video of the 2014 incident actually shows.

A Chicago Tribune report on Thursday, citing emails, interviews and official city calendars, suggested that the mayor’s aides and attorneys at city hall knew of the discrepancies in the case as early as December 2014 — months before Emanuel said he was fully briefed about the case. Emanuel, who was fighting for re-election at the time, has said he had not been aware that police reports about the shooting differed so dramatically from the now-infamous video until long after the incident. The city settled with McDonald’s family last spring.

Asked at a press conference Thursday how he could have been unaware for months about the contradictions between police reports and the video in the high-profile case, even as some of his closest advisers had known of the potential legal and political implications, Emanuel demurred. “The answer, which is consistent with, and also what I’ve said before, at that point, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. attorney and the state’s attorney are looking into it, and that’s exactly where it should be so they can get to the bottom of it,” he said.

The right to remain silent.