Mayor Rahm Emanuel is expected to announce Wednesday a “major overhaul” of police training, including a requirement that every officer responding to a call be equipped with a Taser, after a series of fatal shootings by police sparked weeks of protests and complaints that Chicago officers are too quick to fire their weapons.

Emanuel and Interim Police Superintendent John Escalante also will discuss changes in department policy on when officers may use physical or deadly force, with a focus on using “de-escalation tactics” to try to resolve potentially violent situations, according to a statement from the mayor’s office late Tuesday.

The statement said the Police Department will begin to require every officer who “responds to calls for service” to be equipped with a Taser and trained to use it by June 1, 2016.

The mayor’s office had already said some changes in training would be forthcoming in the wake of the release of dashcam video last month showing white officer Jason Van Dyke shooting black 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times in 2014. McDonald, armed with a knife, is seen veering away from Van Dyke in the video before the veteran officer starts firing.

Van Dyke, who faces six first-degree murder counts, pleaded not guilty to the charges Tuesday.

The release of the video set off citywide demonstrations, forced the resignation of Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy and has led to an ongoing wide-ranging civil rights investigation of the entire Chicago Police Department by the U.S. Department of Justice. Protesters also have called for Emanuel to resign.

The mayor’s office statement did not specifically mention the McDonald shooting or another shooting over the weekend in which Chicago police killed two people: 55-year-old Bettie Jones, who police said was shot accidentally, and 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier.

But the statement said: “The policy changes center around de-escalation tactics to reduce the intensity of a conflict or a potentially violent situation at the earliest possible moment, emphasizing that the foremost goal is to protect the safety of all involved.”

Police said LeGrier was being “combative” before he was shot early Saturday. Both he and Jones were black.

Police have not released the race of the officer or officers involved and will not say how many officers fired their weapons or what the man and woman were doing before they were shot.

Emanuel had been vacationing with his family in Cuba when the weekend shooting occurred. His office said he cut his trip short to return to Chicago on Tuesday night.

In a statement issued over the weekend, Emanuel said he ordered Escalante and the city’s Independent Police Review Authority to review the department’s crisis-intervention team training. The program teaches officers how to respond to a person in crisis or with mental health problems, and is aimed at resolving incidents without violence.

About 1,860 officers — or roughly 15 percent of Chicago’s police force — has completed the training, according to department statistics. Advocates for the program say that number should be 25 to 35 percent.

(AP)