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ByDonBabwinandEric Tucker TheAssociatedPress CHICAGO AChicagopolice officer will not be charged in the shooting of a 25-year- old black man who author- ities said was armed with a gun as he ran away from officers, prosecutors an- nounced Monday, the same day the U.S. Justice Depart- ment opened an investiga- tion into patterns of racial disparity in the use of force by Chicago police. The investigation, an- nounced by U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, comes nearly two weeks after the release of a video showing a white Chicago police officer shooting a black teenager 16 times. The federal investigation, which is separate from an existing federal investiga- tion into last year's shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, also will review how the department disci- plines officers and handles misconduct accusations. Justice Department officials say they use such patterns- and-practices investigations to identify systemic failings in troubled police depart- ments and to improve trust between police and the com- munities they serve. "This mistrust from members of the commu- nity makes it more difficult to gain help within inves- tigations, to encourage the victims and the witnesses of crime to speak up and to fulfill the most basic respon- sibilities of public safety of- ficials," Lynch said. "And when suspicion and hostil- ity is allowed to fester, it can erupt into unrest." The civil rights probe follows recent ones in Bal- timore and Ferguson, Mis- souri, and comes as the po- lice department and Mayor Rahm Emanuel are under intense scrutiny over their handling of the October 2014 death of McDonald. Officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder Nov. 24, more than a year after the killing and just hours before the release of police dashboard camera footage showing the officer shooting the teenager. Emanuel, who initially said a federal civil rights in- vestigation would be "mis- guided" but later reversed course, said in a news re- lease after Lynch's an- nouncement that his goal is to create a stronger and bet- ter police force "that keeps the community safe while respecting the civil rights of every Chicagoan." Also Monday, Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said there would be no charges against Officer George Hernandez in the shooting of 25-year- old Ronald Johnson, whom authorities say pointed a gun at police before he was killed on Oct. 12, 2014. Alvarez and Assistant State's Attorney Lynn Mc- Carthy spent more than 30 minutes detailing evidence before showing the video, which similarly to the Mc- Donald case has no dash- cam audio; the state's at- torney's office overlaid po- lice radio communications. The video showed Johnson running from police across a street with several officers in pursuit, and then one of- ficer shooting. Johnson is not on screen when he was struck by two bullets. The video was also slowed down to show what McCarthy said was a gun in Johnson's hand; prose- cutors say a loaded weapon was found in his hand after he was killed. She also said Johnson "ignored" officers' commands to stop and drop his weapon and had been in a physical altercation with at least one other officer be- fore he was shot. "We're in different times right now when we're talk- ing about transparency and what the public wants to see," Alvarez said after showing the video of the shooting. "I have pretty much opened the door here." The attorney for the Johnson family, Michael Oppenheimer, says prose- cutors' investigation was a "joke" and an affront to Johnson's family and Cook County citizens. When asked why there was no audio on this video and others, Alvarez said: "That's a problem for the Chicago police department and I think they need to answer to that. ... Time and time again we look at these videos and there is not any audio." Alvarez has been criti- cized for not filing charges earlier in the McDonald case, in which the video shows the teen veering away from officers on a four-lane street when Van Dyke, sec- onds after exiting his squad car, opens fire from close range. The officer contin- ues shooting after McDon- ald crumples to the ground and is barely moving. The Chicago City Council signed off on a $5 million settlement with McDonald's family even before the fam- ily filed a lawsuit, and city officials fought in court for months to keep the video from being released pub- licly. The city's early efforts to suppress its release co- incided with Emanuel's re- election campaign, when the mayor was seeking Af- rican-American votes in a tight race. Since the release of the McDonald video, Eman- uel forced Police Superin- tendent Garry McCarthy to resign and formed a task force to examine the police department. But protest- ers' calls for the mayor to resign — something he said he won't do — have grown louder. CHICAGO Police probe announced; no charges in 2nd shooting CHARLESREXARBOGAST—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Sharon Fairley, newly-appointed leader of the Independent Police Review Authority, speaks during a news conference in front of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Monday. By Erica Werner The Associated Press WASHINGTON Amid frightening attacks at home and abroad, the House is poised to crack down on visa-free travel to the U.S. from friendly nations like Belgium and France, aiming to ensure that the Paris attacks won't be repeated here. Legislationdenyingvisa- free travel to anyone who's been in Iraq or Syria in the past five years is set for a vote in the House on Tues- day and is likely to pass by a wide bipartisan margin. The bill also makes a series of other changes to the visa waiver program, which al- lows citizens of 38 coun- tries to travel to the U.S. without a visa for stays of 90 days or less. Around 20 million visi- tors come to the U.S. each year on the visa waiver program, and overhaul- ing it has emerged as an area of unusual bipartisan agreement amid partisan sniping over Syrian refu- gees and President Barack Obama's larger anti-terror strategy. Most of the Paris attackers were citizens of Belgium and France, coun- tries that participate in the visa waiver program. "A radical with a French passport or a Belgian pass- port can get on a plane in Brussels or Paris today and come to America no ques- tions asked, be here for 90 days, without us knowing any better," House Speaker Paul Ryan said Monday on The Big AM 1380, a radio station in Janesville, Wis- consin. The House bill is backed by the White House. But GOP lawmakers say that Congress will also take a wider look at U.S. visa pro- grams and policies, includ- ing scrutinizing the K-1 fi- ancée visa that was used by Tashfeen Malik, the shooter in the San Ber- nardino terror attacks. Visa waiver travel- ers are already required to undergo counterter- ror screening through an electronic system main- tained by the Department of Homeland Security. But the program has been used on at least a few occasions in the past by terrorist plotters. SECURITY CONCERNS House set to tighten rules on visa-free travel to US By Steve Peoples The Associated Press WASHINGTON Minutes after a solemn President Barack Obama spelled out his plans to protect Ameri- cans from terrorism, Marco Rubio declared that he "may have made things worse." Jeb Bush called the pres- ident "weak" and his ap- proach "business as usual." And Donald Trump de- clared on Twitter, "We need a new President — FAST!" Yet beneath their harsh rhetoric lies a fundamen- tal political reality: Few in the Republican Party's 2016 class would break sig- nificantly with the Demo- cratic president's approach to combating the Islamic State group. The avalanche of Republican criticism that continued Monday focused on the president's tone, his word choice and the fine points of his plans — not in most cases the specific policy prescriptions he pre- sented in his address from the Oval Office Sunday night. Bush, in an MSNBC in- terview, twice acknowl- edged that he agreed with the president's approach in specific areas. Still, he chided Obama's planning for lacking "the intensity that's necessary." "He needed to persuade people that our fears will subside when we're engaged actively in the destruction of ISIS, and from there you would have a strategy that would be much more com- prehensive," said Bush. He then outlined a plan to strengthen the existing U.S. effort to train local forces and engage Sunni tribal leaders. Like Obama, most of the GOP's White House hope- fuls oppose the use of many U.S. ground troops, preferring instead to send a limited number of spe- cial forces to train and support anti-Islamic State forces in the region. Like Obama, they support an aggressive air campaign to bomb the Islamic State group — and its reliance on oil revenue — across Iraq and Syria. There are specific differ- ences in some cases — most notably on the GOP's sup- port (shared by Democratic contender Hillary Clinton) for a no-fly zone in Syria. But on a broader U.S. ap- proach to taking on ISIS in the Middle East, leading Re- publicans have more in com- mon than not with the pres- ident they hope to replace. Rubio, when asked how he'd differ from Obama, fo- cused on style rather than substance: "First, we would bestraightforwardandhon- est with the American peo- ple," the first-term Florida senator said on Fox News. "ISIS is a growing, signifi- cant and very serious threat. They're not contained." Rubio opposes a signifi- cant increase in U.S. ground troops, instead calling for "a substantial ground army that needs to be made up primarily of Sunni Arabs from the region." He says that force would "need American special opera- tors, a significant increase in air support, and we will have to beef up our intelli- gence programs." Bush called last month for sending U.S. troops to the Middle East but was not specific on numbers and said, "The bulk of these ground troops will need to come from local forces that we have built workable re- lationships with." The Obama administra- tion last week announced plans to expand the U.S. special operations force in Iraq and Syria to help fight Islamic State militants. De- fense Secretary Ash Carter said the expeditionary force would be more than 50 but would not be more specific. Other U.S. officials said the number would be about 100. There currently are about 3,500 U.S. troops in Iraq, and Obama had previously announced he was sending fewer than 50 special oper- ations forces to Syria. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who appears to be rising in the polls, echoed Rubio's charge that the bombing effort isn't aggressive enough. The Obama administra- tion is already taking steps on both fronts. Altogether, fighter jets, bombers, attack planes and drones are dropping an av- erage of 2,228 bombs per month on Islamic State tar- gets: training camps, ma- chine gun positions, oil fa- cilities, weapons shacks and more. The Pentagon says it doesn't do body counts, but the attacks are believed to have killed upward of 20,000 ISIS fighters. The U.S. price tag: $5 billion since August 2014. The United States also has begun more aggres- sive airstrikes against the oil infrastructure in Syria that produces a large share of the Islamic State group's revenue. And the Pentagon says it is already arming ethnic Kurds in Iraq in a way that allows the Iraqi government to see the contents and give customs approval. REACTIONS TO SPEECH GOP assails Obama on ISIS despite similarities AP PHOTO/SUSAN WALSH Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at the Republican Jewish Coalition Presidential Forum in Washington on Thursday. 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