[WATCH] Chicago Cop Faces Sentencing For Firing 16 Shots at Car Filled With Teens

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[WATCH] Chicago Cop Faces Sentencing For Firing 16 Shots at Car Filled With Teens

November 20th, 2017

Awake Goy

A veteran Chicago police officer faces sentencing Monday for his excessive force conviction for firing 16 times into a moving vehicle filled with teens.

Marco Proano, 42, was the first Chicago cop in memory to be convicted in federal court of criminal charges stemming from an on-duty shooting.

His attorney is seeking probation, arguing the officer should not be punished for alleged systemic problems in the department and calling him a scapegoat “sacrificed to the furor” over police misconduct.

Prosecutors, however, are seeking up to eight years in prison, saying Proano could have killed the six teens when he fired indiscriminately into a reportedly stolen Toyota.

The 11-year department veteran was convicted by a jury in August of two felony counts of using excessive force in violation of the victims’ civil rights. The December 2013 shooting was captured on video by a police dashboard camera.

In asking U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman for probation, Proano’s attorney, Daniel Herbert, said in a recent court filing that Proano had a decorated career before it was derailed amid protests against police violence and a civil rights probe by the U.S. Department of Justice — all sparked by the court-ordered release in November 2015 of video of the police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2014.

The timing of Proano’s September 2016 indictment “could not have been worse for him,” Herbert wrote, adding that he should not have to “shoulder the blame” for a Police Department that the Justice Department, in its scathing report earlier this year, said has a decadeslong history of mistreating citizens.

“It would be naive to ignore the facts here and fail to recognize that Mr. Proano served as somewhat of a scapegoat in this case,” Herbert said. “The situation was at a boiling point, and Mr. Proano was sacrificed to the furor.”

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