The mood was tense on Friday in a fifth-floor event room at Chicago’s Union League Club as news began to spread that the verdict would be read that afternoon in the trial of Jason Van Dyke, the police officer who shot and killed 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2014. The crowd even thinned a bit when attendees began receiving word that some of their friends and colleagues were being encouraged to leave work early, ahead of the 1:45 p.m. jury verdict.