Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth reintroduced federal legislation Friday aimed at reducing police-involved deaths, timing the move to what would have been Laquan McDonald's 29th birthday. The Chicago teenager was fatally shot 16 times by then-Officer Jason Van Dyke in October 2014, a killing that reshaped policing debates in Illinois and beyond.
Duckworth's office says the Police Training and Independent Review Act would create financial incentives for states to adopt fair and impartial policing training and to use independent investigators and, when warranted, independent prosecutors in cases where law enforcement officers are accused of causing death or serious bodily harm, according to WTTW News. The bill would also require training on best practices for working with people with disabilities and mental illness, and it would authorize the U.S. Attorney General to award grants to states that meet those standards. States that fail to mandate such training and independent deadly-force investigations could see federal block grant funding cut by up to 20 percent.
“Black teenagers, men, and women are still being unjustly executed at the hands of law enforcement without judge or jury,” Duckworth said, according to the WTTW report, adding that McDonald's death was preventable and that Congress “has not done enough” to prevent similar tragedies. She said families who have suffered such losses deserve justice and that the country must ensure accountability in law enforcement agencies.
A Bill With a Long, Blocked History
This is not the first time Duckworth has pushed the measure. She originally introduced the Police Training and Independent Review Act as S. 814 in April 2017, according to the Senator's press office. She later brought the bill to the Senate floor, where then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham objected, according to footage shared by U.S. Senate Democrats.
A House companion bill has followed a similar path. Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee reintroduced a House version of the measure, citing recent fatal encounters including the July 2024 shooting of Sonya Massey in Illinois and the death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, per the Office of Representative Steve Cohen.
The Case That Started It All
McDonald was 17 when Van Dyke opened fire on him as he walked away, according to WTTW's account of the case. Police video of the shooting was kept from public view for more than a year before its release sparked widespread protests across Chicago. Van Dyke was eventually charged and convicted in 2018 of second-degree murder and aggravated battery, after then-Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez recused her office from the case and a special prosecutor handled the trial.
Van Dyke was sentenced to 81 months in prison in 2018, but was released on parole in February 2022 after serving roughly 38 months due to good behavior credits under Illinois law, according to The Guardian.
A federal consent decree also governs the Chicago Police Department, according to PBS.
National Numbers Behind the Push
Duckworth's office says police kill more than 1,000 people nationwide each year, and that fewer than 3 percent of those killings result in an officer being criminally charged, according to WTTW's report on the bill's reintroduction.
Duckworth's bill would tie those national numbers directly to state-level policy by rewarding states that build independent investigation and prosecution requirements into how they handle police use-of-force cases. Whether the measure fares any better in 2026 than it did in 2017 or 2020 remains to be seen, but its reintroduction on McDonald's birthday underscores how a single Chicago case continues to anchor a national argument over how police are investigated when someone dies.
