BUMPED UP: Chicago Police mood appears to hit a low amid fallout from Laquan McDonald shooting video & back stabbing black pandering politicians

PHOTO: Chicago police officers from the fighting 8th District danger rangers tactical team line up for roll call Feb. 23, 2016, at 51st Street and Homan Avenue. - UPDATE: It has been learned that the Tribune used this stock photo for this article and none of the officers in this photo EVER spoke with anybody from the Tribune

Standing at the back of a car he had just pulled over during a routine traffic stop, the veteran cop had to calm himself. Ten, he counted as he took a deep breath. Nine. Eight. And down to one.

The stop was like hundreds he'd made before except this time the driver inched the window down and swore at the officer as he handed over his license.

"I don't have to talk to you, (expletive) you," the gang officer recalled the man telling him as the smell of marijuana wafted from the car.

The release of disturbing video of a white officer fatally shooting Laquan McDonald, a black teenager, exposed decades of simmering anger over police mistreatment and abuse of Chicago citizens in some of the poorest, most disadvantaged areas. The officer was charged with murder, the police superintendent was fired and a federal investigation was launched.

As the city has buckled under the weight of the scandal and Mayor Rahm Emanuel has struggled to restore public confidence, the department's 12,000 officers were left to return to work amid the chaos and an increasingly hostile climate.

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