The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Report slams Chicago police over rights
Feds’ investigation decries routine use of excessive force.
CHICAGO — The Chicago police have systematically violated the civil rights of residents by routinely using excessive force, a practice that particularly affects African-Americans and Latinos, the Justice Department said in a scathing report released on Friday, unveiling the findings of a 13-month investigation into the city’s police department.
The report, coming in the wake of the city’s highest murder rate in 20 years, laid out in chilling detail incidents in which police officers used unnecessary force against residents, including children. Among the findings:
Officers often engaged in dangerous foot chases that often ended with “officers unreasonably shooting someone — including unarmed individuals.”
Gang members were taken to a rival gang’s neighborhood as way of scaring them into providing information.
Tasers were used against people who posed no threat.
Morale was low throughout the department and officers felt abandoned by the public and the city.
The city did not adequately review use-of-force incidents to determine if they were warranted.
“We found that officers shoot at vehicles without justification and in contradiction to CPD policy,” the report said. “We found further that officers exhibit poor discipline when discharging their weapons and engage in tactics that endanger themselves and public safety, including failing to await backup when they safely could and should; using unsound tactics in approaching vehicles; and using their own vehicles in a manner that is dangerous.”
One officer, receiving a call from a resident that teenagers were trespassing on his property, found them riding their bicycles, the report said. He “pointed his gun at them, used profanity, and threatened to put their heads through a wall and to blow up their homes,” it said. “The boys claim that the officer forced them to kneel and lie facedown, handcuffed together, leaving visible injuries on their knees and wrists.”
The officer did not report the use of force; he received a five-day suspension but was not interviewed about the episode.
Speaking at a news conference, Attorney General Loretta Lynch put some of the blame for the problems on “severely deficient training procedures” and “accountability systems.”
“The systems and policies that fail ordinary citizens also fail the vast majority of Chicago Police Department officers who risk their lives every day to serve and protect the people of Chicago,” said Lynch, who raced to complete the investigation before the end of President Barack Obama’s term.
The Obama administration has made expansive use of Justice Department investigations amid a wrenching national debate over race and policing. Chicago is among nearly two dozen cities — including Baltimore; Ferguson, Mo.; Seattle; and Cleveland — where the Justice Department has pushed for wholesale changes in policing.
By negotiating an agreement with Chicago to fix the problems, the Justice Department has laid the groundwork for change regardless of what happens under President Donald Trump. Trump’s attorney general nominee, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, has said he believes that many of the police department overhauls sought by the Obama administration went too far and unfairly maligned officers. He has also spoken out against the court-enforced settlements, known as consent decrees, that usually result from investigations like the one in Chicago.
With the statement announced on Friday, the Justice Department has put the Chicago’s problems on the record and set in motion a process — albeit one that may be less easy to enforce — for change, even if the Trump administration does not seek a consent decree with Chicago.
Lynch said the negotiations would go forward “regardless of who sits atop the Justice Department,” a statement echoed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who said the city was committed to correcting the problems regardless of who is in the White House or leading the Justice Department.
Chicago’s police superintendent, Eddie Johnson, said some of the findings were “difficult to read,” and that he wanted to expand training and mentoring for officers. “While I’m optimistic and hopeful about the direction that we’re heading in, I’m realistic about the fact that there is much, much, much more work that needs to be done,” Johnson said.
Chicago’s announcement came only a day after the Justice Department and city leaders in Baltimore announced an agreement that called for greater oversight of the police department there, as well as improved training and safety technology.
Chicago officials have been bracing for the findings after more than a year of tense public debate about the police and their long, troubled history of community relations, particularly with African-American and Latino residents. Announced in December 2015, the investigation came in a year of cascading violence for the city. In 2016, there were 762 criminal homicides in Chicago, more than New York City and Los Angeles combined.
The inquiry was spurred by the city’s reluctant release of a chilling video that showed a white police officer shooting a young black man, Laquan McDonald, 16 times. For months, the city had fought to keep the dashboard camera footage from being made public, but a judge ultimately ordered it released. Residents were outraged by the images, which sparked protests and demands that Emanuel resign.
Long before the Justice Department’s findings, critiques of the Chicago police were stark. Two years ago, the city announced reparations and an apology to black men who had for years said they were tortured and abused at the hands of a “Midnight Crew” of officers overseen by a notorious police commander in the 1970s and 1980s. Last year, a task force appointed by Emanuel issued a blistering report that concluded racism had contributed to a long pattern of institutional failures by the police.
“CPD’s own data gives validity to the widely held belief the police have no regard for the sanctity of life when it comes to people of color,” the task force wrote. “Stopped without justification, verbally and physically abused, and in some instances arrested, and then detained without counsel — that is what we heard about over and over again.”