After serving less than half of his sentence for murdering 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, former Chicago cop Jason Van Dyke, 43, was released from federal prison Thursday morning. In 2018, the officer was charged with second-degree murder for shooting McDonald 16 times on Chicago’s Southwest side in 2014, and was sentenced to 81 months behind bars. As reported by the Chicago Sun Times, Van Dyke was beaten behind bars and thus spent much of his time in solitary confinement. In September 2021, the Illinois Prisoner Review Board agreed to release Van Dyke. Mayor Lori Lightfoot issued a statement prior to his release, stating: “I know some Chicagoans remain disheartened and angry about Jason Van Dyke’s sentence for the murder of Laquan McDonald. As I said at the time, while the jury reached the correct guilty verdict, the judge’s decision to sentence Van Dyke to only 81 months was and remains a supreme disappointment. I understand why this continues to feel like a miscarriage of justice.”