CHICAGO, Ill. — A jury found Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago police officer charged with murdering Laquan McDonald, guilty of second-degree murder Friday afternoon.
He was also found guilty of 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm and not guilty of official misconduct. Van Dyke was immediately taken into custody and had his bail revoked.
The verdict was read around 1:50 p.m. Friday.
Van Dyke, 40, was charged with first-degree murder, official misconduct and aggravated battery in the Oct. 20, 2014, slaying of 17-year-old McDonald, who was shot 16 times. Jurors were told Thursday they had the option of convicting Van Dyke of second-degree murder, which is probationable.
Van Dyke is the first Chicago police officer in decades to be charged with murder for an on-duty incident.
What jurors heard in closing arguments
Before Judge Vincent Gaughan dismissed them for the day Thursday evening, jurors requested a transcript of testimony from former Officer Joseph Walsh, Van Dyke’s partner the night of McDonald’s death.
In closing arguments, a prosecutor claimed Van Dyke showed no regard for the life of the black teenager while the defense portrayed him as a police veteran ensnared in a tragedy but not a murder.
Assistant special prosecutor Jody Gleason told the jury that Van Dyke contemplated shooting McDonald before he even encountered the young man on the street
“You heard what it was that he said, ‘I guess we’ll have to shoot him,'” Gleason said, referring to testimony about what Van Dyke told his partner before arriving at the scene.
“It wasn’t the knife in Laquan’s hand that made the defendant kill him that night. It was his indifference to the value of Laquan’s life.”
When Van Dyke took the stand Tuesday, Gleason asked about a statement he made to his partner as they approached the shooting scene:”Oh my God, we’re going to have to shoot the guy.”
“I thought the officers were under attack,” Van Dyke said.
Gleason told the jury Thursday, “We know the defendant contemplated the decision to shoot Laquan before he even got out of his vehicle. … And he never adjusted that mindset.”
Defense attorney Daniel Herbert, in his closing, sought to discount a piece of evidence at the center of the case: video of the shooting.
“We have to look at this from Jason Van Dyke’s perspective,” he said.
He added, “The state wants to watch the last two minutes of this movie without knowing the context.”
Herbert said there was no question the case is tragic but it did not amount to murder.
“It’s a tragedy that could have been prevented with one simple step,” he said. “At any step during that 20-minute rampage — if Laquan McDonald had dropped that knife — he would have been here today.”
Van Dyke told the jury Tuesday that McDonald’s face was expressionless — “his eyes were just bugging out of his head” — as the teenager kept “advancing” on him, holding a knife.
Standing about 10 to 15 feet away, McDonald “turned his torso towards me,” the officer testified.
“He waved the knife from his lower right side, upwards, across his body, towards my left shoulder,” the officer said, appearing to get choked up as he demonstrated the action to jurors.
The officer told jurors he then shot McDonald.
CNN contributed to this report; this is a developing story.