Sheriff Urquhart: No reason to have shot, even once, in Chicago

After watching video showing the shooting death of a 17-year-old Chicago boy at the hands of a cop, King County Sheriff John Urquhart says the incident is “horrifying.”

“I don’t think that my reaction is any different than anybody else’s in Washington,” Urquhart said. “I certainly don’t see any reason to have shot the young man &#8212 especially 16 times. And probably not even once.”

The public waited 13 months before it was given access to the video this week. It shows officers chasing down McDonald, 17, who was carrying a 3-inch knife on Oct. 20, 2014. He was reportedly high on PCP, which a toxicology test later confirmed. Police union officials initially claimed that McDonald had lunged at the officers. The video, however, shows a differing account.

“Apparently he refused the command to drop the knife. But he certainly is angling away from the cops. He did not appear to be in any kind of attack mode at all,” said KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson after viewing the video.

The officer who shot McDonald, Jason Van Dyke, is now being charged with first degree murder. He was on the scene for 30 seconds before he fired his weapon &#8212 16 times within 15 seconds; mostly while McDonald was on the ground, according to CNN. He is the only officer who fired.

Sheriff Urquhart understands the notion behind a threat with a knife. It’s not likely a factor in this case, however.

“Police officers are trained across the country in what’s called a 21-foot rule &#8212 if a man has a knife in his hand, he can get at least 21 feet to you before you can get your gun out, stab you and kill you,” he said. “I don’t disagree with that rule at all.

“First of all, that’s if your gun is in its holster,” Urquhart said. “Secondly, if there are attack indicators; if he is about to do that.”

In McDonald’s case, multiple guns were already out of their holsters and aimed.

“Well, I think the 21-foot rule goes out the window,” Urquhart said. “If you’re as far away as that individual was, I don’t think he poses any risk. I certainly wouldn’t have shot him.”

The fact the McDonald was shot 16 times also seems odd to Urquhart.

“The rule is that you shoot to stop the threat. We used to call it ‘double tap.’ You shoot twice and then you re-assess what’s going on,” Urquhart said. “Now the training is you shoot to stop the threat. That means if he’s still coming at you after two shots, or three shots, or four shots, or 16 shots, you keep firing.”

“I think what’s happened over the years is that we’ve gone from a six shot revolver…when I started that’s all anybody ever carried so you better count your shots,” he said. “Now everybody has 16 rounds in their magazine if they’re a 9 mm; if they’re carrying a 45 mm they got eight [rounds]. They have this extra fire power and I don’t think officers in a traumatic situation are counting their rounds. We have to train them to do that.”

Even after seeing the video, Urquhart said that he can somewhat sympathize with the officer &#8212 any officer who shoots and kills someone.

“From my experience, officers don’t get up in the morning and plan on going to work and shooting somebody. But they end up in that situation,” Urquhart said. “Sometimes it’s through their own bad judgment, sometimes they make a mistake and they end up shooting people.”

“But there are times when we can’t walk back from that mistake,” he said. “Clearly, that’s the issue in Chicago. That’s why he was charged. You can’t walk back whether he meant to kill him [or] whether he made a mistake. Who knows at this point? It’s a tragedy for everybody. And it’s a tragedy for the profession.”

But despite being sympathetic to officers in shooting situations, Urquhart said that Chicago is moving forward correctly with charging Van Dyke.

“I think the [murder] charge is appropriate. Let’s leave it at that,” he said. “Let’s let the system work its way through.”