A report that was released by the Police Accountability Task Force on Wednesday skewered the Chicago Police Department.
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The task force also called out police unions, saying that the collective bargaining agreements between the city and the unions have “essentially turned the code of silence into official policy”.
The city’s police department is beset by racism and needs sweeping reforms to help it win back trust in the community, according to a report released Wednesday by a panel tasked by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Task Force Chair Lori Lightfoot says credibility is low because 74 percent of those killed or wounded by police over eight years were black and 72 percent of those stopped in 2014.
The Justice Department launched a civil rights probe of the police force in the wake of the November release of a video showing a white officer firing 16 bullets at black teenager Laquan McDonald, killing him. Eddie Johnson, an African-American with 27 years on the force, was Emanuel’s hand-picked choice to take the top police job. “We found that good police are not supported or rewarded, while too many bad police are given a pass”, she said. Now their scathing report is here, detailing how racism led to rampant police misconduct and a broken relationship with the people they’re meant to serve. His rise within the force stands in stark contrast with the previous two superintendents, McCarthy and Jody Weis, both of whom are white and came from other law enforcement agencies.
During his testimony before the City Council committee Tuesday, Johnson said he hasn’t had a chance to review the report.
The report contains over 100 recommendations for reform, and was replete with statistics that suggest that African-Americans in the city are disproportionately targeted by Chicago cops.
According to the report, the Police Accountability Task Force said police “have no regard for the sanctity of life when it comes to people of color”.
The stinging findings come at a particularly troublesome time here, as violent crimes have increased this year and as police morale is reported to have sunk.
Emanuel spokeswoman Kelley Quinn said the group is scheduled to brief the mayor on its recommendations Wednesday.
Moreover, the report paints a damning picture of the police department’s accountability processes, highlighting “serious structural and procedural flaws that make real accountability almost impossible”.
Loury was portrayed by police as a “documented” gang member who had “prior contact” with police and a gun, and he was described by his family and friends as an “average teen”.
The CPD “lacks a culture of accountability” and has “a long, sad history of death, false imprisonment, physical and verbal abuse and general discontent about police actions in neighborhoods of color”, the report said.
The panel also recommended creating the post of deputy chief of diversity and inclusion.
The report, by 46 people from diverse backgrounds, found that out of the 404 people shot by police between 2008 and 2015, 299 of them were black.
Police union contracts give unfair advantages to officers, the task force found, with the internal investigation agencies underfunded, lacking true independence, and not accountable for their work. A shocking dash-cam video of the incident, released last fall thanks to the painstaking efforts of a local journalist, revealed that McDonald wasn’t really threatening anyone at the time the first shot was sacked.
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Demonstrators protesting the shooting death of 16-year-old Pierre Loury block traffic on the Eisenhower Expressway during a march, April 12, 2016 in Chicago.more +. “It is to me unimaginable that somebody runs and stops and decides – knowing that the police have arms – that they’re going to have a shoot out”.
