NOWHERE LEFT TO HIDE FOR CHICAGO PD’S BAD APPLES
In law enforcement, the “Untouchables” are supposed to be the good guys — law officers who are absolutely incorruptible.
Unfortunately, there’s another small class of law enforcement “untouchables,” bad apples who have concealed their depredations behind a wall of secret files and a code of silence for so long they feel no one can touch them, and that they can get away with almost anything. Not anymore. Under a consent decree drawn up following an important state appellate court ruling in March, key documents related to police misconduct will now be public information. Just as important, the names of officers with the most abuse complaints also will be public.
Most police officers do their jobs well and collect relatively few complaints. But a small number of others have been able to quietly rack up complaint after complaint, with the support of a small group of fellow officers who rally to their defense, saying they were present at the scene of alleged incidents but nothing happened.
In the past, that pattern has been invisible to the rest of us. Now, it will come out from the shadows. The decree also will turn a spotlight on how the two oftencriticized agencies that handle complaints, the Independent Police Review Authority and Internal Affairs, are doing their jobs.
For years the Chicago Police Department refused to disclose complaints and other documents about possibly wayward cops, saying it would sully the reputations of good officers unfairly, and that every cop would be a target of complaints.
It’s doubtful [Cline] would have felt as free to act in such a manner if he knew it all would be made public someday.
But as soon as Rahm Emanuel’s administration agreed to change that policy, what did we find? According to a Watchdogs story Monday by reporters Tim Novak and Chris Fusco, former Police Supt. Phil Cline went easy on a pal, wiping away a recommended suspension for submitting fraudulent documents to City Hall so the pal, a detective, could operate a valet company that parked cars at Rush Street night spots. Former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration had accused the detective of providing false insurance certificates, operating a valet parking service without liability insurance and failing to pay parking lot fees, accusations the appellate court found to be true. The valet service is no longer in business.
Cline’s decision to overturn a penalty against a cop was something the public surely had a right to know when it happened back in 2007, but the documents were kept under wraps. And Cline knew they would be. It’s doubtful he would have felt as free to act in such a manner if he knew it all would be made public someday. That’s why full disclosure serves the public interest.
The police are most often in the news as the city’s front line against shootings, murders and other violent crime. But there also have been stories about corrupt or irresponsible officers who evidently felt they could act with impunity. The new policy will make it harder for such officers to go unnoticed, and harder for them to undermine the image of cops who are doing their jobs.
The Emanuel administration deserves some credit here. Although the city’s feet were held to the fire by the state appellate court ruling, the city could have kept fighting. But on July 11, the administration said it would not appeal the case, Kalven v. Chicago, and instead had adopted procedures to implement the court’s ruling.
Now, it will be up to the Police Department to adhere to the spirit of transparency going forward. Both the police and the public need the department to do so.