Emanuel tries to contain fallout after Chicago’s latest police shootings

Emanuel’s 10-day trip to Cuba was interrupted Saturday after Chicago police, responding to a domestic violence complaint, shot and killed a combative 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier — who had a mental health disorder — and 55-year-old Bettie Jones.

Family members of the two blamed the deaths on law enforcement’s poor practices when responding to mentally ill individuals. At a Sunday press conference, LeGrier’s mother, Janet Cooksey, and others wore shirts that read, “Rahm failed us.”

Emanuel, working remotely from Cuba until his Tuesday return to the Windy City, on Sunday announced two policy changes focused on improving how police officers respond to mental health crises.

“I directed the new Acting Chief Administrator of the Independent Police Review Authority and the Interim Superintendent of Police to meet with each other … to determine the deficiencies in the current training, and determine what steps can be taken immediately to address them,” Emanuel said in a statement. The mayor also asked the Independent Police Review Authority to investigate the shooting.

Rev. Al Sharpton criticized that decision Monday, and criticized him for keeping the investigation in-house and hidden.

“I think it’s clear that he has eroded the question of policing and police reform in Chicago to a degree that I don’t think he can adequately rebuild public trust or handle the reform necessary,” Sharpton said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program.

Sharpton also criticized the Democratic mayor for how he has reacted to high-profile shootings over the past year and a half, calling the move “the height of insensitivity, lack of intelligence, arrogance or combo of all 3”

This weekend’s shootings were the department’s first use of lethal force since dash cam footage of police shooting Laquan McDonald was released in late November.