DOJ sends more violent-crime prosecutors to Chicago
Five additional staffers to focus on gun crimes as dept. files brief opposing city consent decree
WASHINGTON — Attorney Gen. Jeff Sessions is sending five federal prosecutors to Chicago to focus on gun crimes as his department filed a brief Friday opposing a proposed police department consent decree as expensive unneeded “micromanagement.”
That caps a week of focus on Chicago crime from President Donald Trump and his Justice Department.
On Monday, Trump said an agreement between the American Civil Liberties Union and the Chicago Police Department to curb stop and frisk abuses was “terrible,” and on Thursday, in an extraordinary Oval Office meeting, talked about Chicago crime with rapper Kanye West, who was raised on the South Side.
The two actions Friday were not unexpected; the Justice Department announced Tuesday it would oppose the consent decree.
That pending decree, spawned in the last weeks of the Obama administration, stemmed from police misconduct allegations surfacing after the 2014 shooting death of Laquan McDonald.
Such decrees can “strip local government officials of the flexibility they need to address evolving issues and can deprive the local populace of the ability to control their policies through the democratic process,” the Justice Department said. The brief was signed by: Sessions; John Gore, the acting chief of the Civil Rights Division; and Chicago’s top federal prosecutor, U.S. Attorney John Lausch, a Trump appointee.
The brief states the “problem” of binding the hands of local officials “is even more acute when a mayor who is not running for re-election will sign the proposed consent decree on one of his final days in office.” (Mayor Rahm Emanuel is not seeking a third term.)
The brief said the 2015 pact between the ACLU and CPD “significantly contributed” to a “shocking homicide rise.”
But Karen Sheley of the ACLU of Illinois’ Police Practices Project called the filing “a last-minute political play” and said the decree is a “long-needed reform.”
Chicago homicides spiked in 2016, declined in 2017 and have continued to decline so far in 2018. The brief does not mention that drop.
“There is one government institution, and one alone, that has the ability to make Chicago safer — that is the Chicago Police Department,” Sessions said in a statement. ‘‘Our goal should be to empower it to fulfill its duties, not to restrict its proper functioning or excessively demean the entire Department for the errors of a few. Make no mistake: unjustified restrictions on proper policing and disrespect for our officers directly led to this tragic murder surge in Chicago.
“At a fundamental level, there is a misperception that police are the problem and that their failures, their lack of training, and their abuses create crime.
“But the truth is the police are the solution to crime, and criminals are the problem,” Session said, calling the ACLU agreement a “folly.”
The Trump administration argues that Chicago cops became reluctant to stop and frisk potential criminals for fear of getting in trouble.
Those stops have risen in Chicago over the past two years — though they remain far below pre-2016 levels. This year, through Sept. 30, cops have made 102,663 such stops, according to CPD. That’s up 22 percent from 2017, something Sessions doesn’t mention.
A hearing on the consent decree is set for Oct. 24-25 in Chicago.
In a statement, Emanuel spokesman said while the additional resources are appreciated, “we don’t appreciate efforts — even a halfhearted one like this legal brief — to impede our public safety reforms or inhibit our efforts to rebuild the bonds of trust between officers and residents.”
Though the Justice Department branded the five new staffers as part of a “new Chicago gun crimes prosecution team,” federal prosecutors have pursued gun crimes in the Chicago area for years.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago employs 158 prosecutors, according to office spokesman Joseph Fitzpatrick. About 60 of those handle gun cases specifically.
This year, shooting incidents are down 19 percent in the Englewood police district and 23 percent in Deering, both on the South Side.
Sessions tied those violence reductions to the Trump administration’s 2017 hiring of 21 extra ATF agents in Chicago, but CPD has thrown other resources at the gun problem, too.
Englewood and Deering were among the first districts to get Strategic Decision Support Centers, which gather human intelligence from the street along with data from video cameras and gunshot detectors.