Laquan McDonald was armed with a knife and acting erratically on the evening of October 20, 2014. The 17-year-old had already used the knife to pop the tire of a police car and scratch its windshield. He’d ignored orders from officers to drop the knife. He had PCP, a hallucinogenic that can cause combativeness, in his bloodstream.
Gaughan, 74, was an apt draw for several reasons. He’s a 25-year veteran of the bench. He’s handled other high-profile “heater” cases. In 2008 he presided over the jury trial of singer R. Kelly, who was acquitted of child pornography charges. In 2007 and 2009, the two men charged with killing seven people at a Brown’s Chicken in Palatine were convicted by juries in Gaughan’s courtroom.
At 3 AM the following morning, the couple next door was awakened by gunfire. Two bullets had shattered their bedroom window and pierced the wall above their bed, according to Mullen’s story. The couple ran from the bedroom, and the husband, Darius Latchin, called police. When two officers arrived at the home, Latchin showed them into his dining room. He was talking with them when two more shots came through a window, narrowly missing the officers.
Mullen reported that Gaughan was charged with aggravated assault, unlawful use of a weapon, failure to register a weapon, and discharging a firearm in the city. But there was a warm and uplifting tone to the story nonetheless. Police had worked to calm Gaughan and had responded with restraint—extraordinary restraint, if indeed four people, two of them police officers, had nearly been shot. The officers called to the scene hadn’t tried to chase Gaughan from his room with tear gas, which could have led to a deadly shootout on the stairway.
I reached him by phone Monday morning, but before I could ask a question, he informed me that “I don’t do interviews or any of that.” I said I was calling about the 1970 shooting incident he was involved in. He thanked me for letting him know, then reiterated that he doesn’t give interviews. “God love you, take care,” he said, and hung up.
His affinity for the military might seem to make him sympathetic to a defendant who’s a police officer. Indeed, the military has remained central in his life; he’s been active in the American Legion in Illinois, serving as its commander in the 1990s. But a couple of lawyers told me that because of Gaughan’s deep principles, he also might be offended by an on-duty officer who egregiously breached the tenets of his profession.
