CHICAGO (AP) - Attorneys for a white Chicago police officer charged with murder in the 2014 shooting death of black teenager Laquan McDonald plan to hire a polling company to look at the question of whether the trial should be moved out of Cook County.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Jason Van Dyke’s attorney, Dan Herbert, told Judge Vincent Gaughan about the planned survey on Thursday. Herbert said he intends to hire a firm to conduct the survey by mid-March.
Special Prosecutor Joseph McMahon told Gaughan that he also plans to commission a poll.
Shortly after Van Dyke’s 2015 arrest and the release of the dashcam video showing the officer shoot McDonald 16 times, Herbert told reporters that a change of venue was necessary because of what he contended were inflammatory comments Mayor Rahm Emanuel had made about Van Dyke.
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Information from: Chicago Sun-Times, http://chicago.suntimes.com/
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