Demonstrators protest the shooting of Laquan McDonald in Chicago in November 2015 (Joshua LOTT)

Chicago (AFP) – The trial of a white Chicago cop over the fatal shooting of a black teenager began Wednesday as protesters accused authorities of a “cover up” in a case that has set America’s third-largest city on edge.

Police officer Jason Van Dyke faces murder charges for shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times in an October 2014 confrontation. 

The incident, captured on police dash-cam video, has upended the city’s politics with fears of violence if the officer is acquitted.

Outside the courthouse, dozens of protesters decried police shootings and demanded accountability, chanting, “Sixteen shots and a cover up.”

“We’re here to find out what they’re going to do. We are tired of them making excuses for people who are killing human beings,” Mary Johnson, 85, told AFP. 

“The message today is that we have to quit covering up what officers are doing wrong,” added Charles Edward Perry, a 52-year-old father of six.  

The video shows Van Dyke firing bullets into the knife-wielding teen, who appeared to have been walking away from officers. The officer continues to fire after the teen collapses to the ground. 

None of the other officers at the scene fired their weapons. 

“I never would have fired my gun if I didn’t think my life was in jeopardy or another citizen’s life was,” Van Dyke told the Chicago Tribune in an interview last week.

McDonald’s family, in rare public comments, urged people to remain peaceful ahead of the trial. A large contingent of family members gathered in court for the first day of proceedings, as did Van Dyke’s supporters. 

Potential jurors were to receive instructions from Judge Vincent Gaughan and be given questionnaires. They are due to return next week as the pool is narrowed to a jury of 12.  

– Appeal for calm –

The police video of the shooting, which was filmed from a distance and has no audio, was initially withheld from the public for a year, until a judge compelled its release. 

Van Dyke was charged on the day the video was made public. 

The political fallout claimed the jobs of the city’s police chief and lead prosecutor.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, once a star of the Democratic party, announced Tuesday he would not seek re-election, after years of unrelenting calls to resign amid accusations of an attempted cover-up. 

“This case is a very high-profile case,” said Father Michael Pfleger, a pastor on Chicago’s South Side and an outspoken anti-gun violence activist.

“We’ve got to see justice or there’s going to be a mass amount of folks that just say, you know what, I no longer believe in the system,” Pfleger told AFP. 

McDonald’s family called for “complete peace” at a news conference on Tuesday.

“We don’t want any violence before, during or after the verdict in this trial,” the teen’s great uncle Martin Hunter told a news conference on Tuesday. 

The trial will test the justice system’s ability to wrest a conviction in a high-profile police shooting case. 

A series of such incidents around the country, publicized by smartphone and police video, have given rise to the “Black Lives Matter” movement.

But prosecutions, let alone guilty verdicts, have proven rare.

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