These Folks Need to be in Jail

Not just Rahm Emanuel, but the aldermen that he bribed as well:

Four seconds. That’s all the time it took for item number Or2015-204 to pass the Chicago City Council on April 15, 2015. It was a proposed settlement to pay Tina Hunter, the mother of Laquan McDonald, a $5 million legal settlement after Officer Jason Van Dyke shot him 16 times on October 20, 2014.

Eight days before on April 7, 2015, Mayor Rahm Emanuel crushed Jesus “Chuy” Garcia in the city’s first ever mayoral run-off. He needed another big victory, and he got it.

But the real prize was the silence of a group of Black aldermen who along with 39 aldermen, approved the $5 million settlement more than a month after they received nearly $300,000 in campaign donations from Emanuel as he battled Garcia during the runoff. The Crusader has learned that these aldermen kept the money and stayed silent about it even after the video of McDonald’s brutal killing emerged, sowing distrust in the mayor, the police department and the Cook County States’ Attorney office. Now, the spotlight turns on a group of aldermen who have their own code of silence.

For the next several years after the $5 million settlement, they would give the mayor his money’s worth. They would stand by Emanuel as he weathered a storm that he tried to ride out until he announced on September 4, 2018 that he would not seek re-election.

Until the very end of Emanuel’s final term in office, these aldermen would say nothing negative about him or about questionable hefty donations that have made the Black aldermen the “Silent 8” at City Hall.

According to a Crusader investigation, there are actually nine aldermen who took money from the mayor before the $5 million settlement, but eight of them are Black. They are Anthony Beale (9th Ward), Carrie Austin (34th Ward), Michelle Harris (8th Ward), Walter Burnett, Jr. (27th Ward), Emma Mitts (37th Ward), Willie Cochran (20th Ward), Pat Dowell (3rd Ward), and Howard Brookins, Jr. (21st Ward). The only non-Black alderman who took campaign donations from the mayor is Patrick O’Connor (40th Ward), campaign records show.

For the last three years, Chicago’s Black aldermen have struggled along with Emanuel to regain the trust of their constituents. But unlike Emanuel, many are seeking re-election. In order to win another term, they must answer to an angry Black electorate that is having a hard time believing that they knew nothing about a case that happened right under their noses as it went through City Hall.

Rahm Emanuel might be the most contemptible "Democrat" in politics today, and unlike William Magear "Boss" Tweed, who created Central Park, funded social welfare programs, and he didn't actually do anything for the ordinary people of in his city.