The Police Accountability Task Force called it the “tipping point for long-simmering community anger”.
Advertisement
“This is an official report that finally acknowledges the reality of racism in Chicago and the lack of police accountability, unchecked patterns of abuse and violence”, says Professor Futterman.
Racism and maltreatment at the hands of the police have been consistent complaints from communities of color for decades.
Recommendations by the task force are numerous, including the creation of an independent inspector general to monitor CPD behavior, body cameras, and ending the CPD’s “significantly damaged” Community Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) program in favor of revised approaches.
That means that white residents file significantly fewer officer complaints than blacks, yet their complaints were substantiated at a far greater percentage than the complaints of black residents.
“The question isn’t, ‘Do we have racism?’ We do”, Emanuel said.
“Mayor Emanuel has to stay out of the way, he’s not a police officer, he doesn’t know how to police, he needs to let Superintendent Johnson do his job, the other officers, leave them alone, and don’t micromanage them”, Livingston said. That came after heated demonstrations followed the release of a video showing Jason Van Dyke, one of the city’s police officers, firing more than a dozen bullets at 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.
The task force report is “powerful and different from other blue ribbon reports that have sat on the shelf in part because it begins with some honesty and truth telling”, says Craig Futterman, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School who was instrumental in getting the city to release the McDonald video.
A 22-page report detailed that data collected from 2008 to 2015 involving more than 400 shootings showed that three-quarters of the victims wounded or killed in those incidents were indeed black. In a statement late last month, Emanuel said Johnson’s various roles within the department had led to the reduction of crime in several districts and he has proven he “has been willing to hold officers accountable when necessary”.
The release of the report is even more significant as it comes on the same day the council voted to make Eddie Johnson, an African-American and 27-year veteran of the department, Chicago’s top cop.
“The collective bargaining agreements between the police unions and the City have essentially turned the code of silence into official policy”, the report concluded.
“Overall, we found that good police are not supported or rewarded, while too many bad police are given a pass. Red flags about officers heading down the wrong path are not quickly and aggressively addressed, as they should be”.
The city’s new police chief said the department welcomed “a fresh set of eyes” but was not waiting for recommendations from the task force or from a civil rights investigation by the U.S. Justice Department before making changes. Earlier this month, we reported that the Windy City is on track to experience 500 homicides this year.
Task Force on Police Accountability chairwoman Lori Lightfoot at a news conference in Chicago on Wednesday. She also said an outside auditor is reviewing closed cases of police-involved shootings.
“It also requires a mayor and a police department that feel compelled to make hard choices”, Runner said.
Features the report says, “make it easy for the officers to lie if they’re so-inclined”.
Advertisement
The report, which encourages the dismantling and replacement of the city’s police oversight agency, focuses heavily on changes that could be made to union contracts.
