Loevy & Loevy client Brandon Smith, an independent journalist from Chicago, recently secured a major victory under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, requiring the City of Chicago to release video recordings of Chicago Police officer Jason Van Dyke shooting and killing teenager Laquan McDonald. Loevy & Loevy is proud to represent journalists and citizens in their efforts to increase government transparency and hold government officials accountable for their actions.
This week, Loevy & Loevy attorney Matt Topic released the following statement on the Laquan McDonald shooting videos:
The release of the Laquan McDonald shooting video has put Chicago in the center of national debates over police accountability. Without access to information under the Freedom of Information Act, that would never have happened. Too often the government tries to operate in secret and hide its wrongdoing, and it is the right and obligation of all of us, as the public, to monitor our government to make sure it is being conducted in the public interest. Much of the story into the year-long effort to hide the truth about Laquan McDonald has not yet been told, but it will be, and we will continue to assist our client, Brandon Smith, to vigorously enforce transparency laws to make sure the public receives a total and complete accounting of everything that happened and everything that was done to try to cover it up.
Read the court opinion requiring release of the McDonald shooting video here.
View some of the coverage of Loevy & Loevy client Brandon Smith’s efforts to secure release of the McDonald shooting video in the Columbia Journalism Review, the Guardian, Time Magazine, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Tonight, the Chicago Sun Times, and WGN TV.
