The video that might rip Chicago apart -- and why you need to see it

One man who said he has talked to federal authorities told me on Tuesday he’d been driving his son to the hospital and saw it all. The police union version was that McDonald “lunged” at the officer. The witness’s account differs markedly.

“I was there, I saw it,” he said. “He (McDonald) wasn’t attacking anybody. He was looking for a way out. He was just trying to turn away. The kid turned away, was dropped at the first shot or two, and the police kept shooting and shooting. You could see his body moving.

“It freaked me out. It freaked my son out.”

Reading or hearing about 16 shots pumped into the body of a young man isn’t the same thing as seeing it.

If the video is released, many won’t care about the drugs or the knife. Here’s what will be seared on the American mind: the black body flinching with bullet after bullet from a white cop’s gun.