Chicago’s independent police review authority (IPRA) has publishedan online database that makes public more than 100 incidents of alleged police misconduct, that the agency is now investigating.
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The Independent Police Review Authority, or IPRA, said release of the footage was part of new transparency policies it was adopting in the wake of uproar over shootings by Chicago police officers, mostly of young black men.
The video made public today appears to show Simmons roughly thrown against the squad auto.
Six months after the city released a video showing a police officer killing a black teenager, Chicago released video and case files from 101 open investigations into police killings and abuse Friday.
The new trove of material is being released thanks to Mayor Rahm Emmanuel’s Police Accountability Task Force, which was created following high levels of public pressure that followed the release of the McDonald video.
In the graphic video of the 2012 incident, a number of police are seen confronting, then tasering and shooting 28-year-old Ismael Jamison, who was agitated and was approached by police after they received reports he had assaulted a bus driver.
Fairley stressed that the release of Friday’s video had no bearings on the pending investigations involved, nor did it mean a determination has been made about the conduct of the officers seen or referenced in the reports.
The release marks another chapter in the dark history of police misconduct at the Chicago Police Department (CPD), which was put on full display in a Police Accountability Task Force report.
“Decades of secrecy and institutional denial should give us reason for skepticism about this, but I look forward to seeing whether this will really be a significant step in the direction of transparency”, Craig Futterman, a University of Chicago law professor who was involved in the release of the McDonald video, told the AP.
The department released the footage via Vimeo, and includes a link to an additional website where users can get more detail about each incident.
The materials released were released by the city’s IPRA – which investigates complaints of police misconduct – marking the implementation of a new transparency policy regarding the release of materials related to serious incidents involving Chicago police.
The recordings include videos from police body cameras, patrol auto dashboard cameras, as well as audio from 911 calls.
Police dashcam footage showing Officer Jason Van Dyke shoot 17-year-old Mr McDonald 16 times was released more than a year after the incident.
The mayor also had a message for police officers who may have gone from pro-active to re-active for fear of being caught on the next YouTube video to go viral.
Dean Angelo is president of the Fraternal Order of Police, Chicago Lodge #7.
Disciplinary decisions are still pending in this case, as well as all the other cases where video was released by IPRA Friday. Emanuel released a statement praising the release of the material but adding, “we know there is a lot more work to do”. The cases, all of which are still being investigated, concern officer-involved shootings (whether a person was struck or not), and cases in which a person died or was seriously injured while in police custody.
“Today represents an important first step toward that end”, she continued.
Numerous videos only capture part of the encounter with police, and documents, for the most part, reveal few clues as to the context surrounding them.
In announcing the new policy in February, Emanuel said the city’s default stance to resist releasing such video was outdated.
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He says some of the videos are only partial clips of what happened, and don’t include audio.
