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Chicago PD Task Force: Structural & Procedural Flaws Make Real Accountability Nearly Impossible
A “Police Accountability Task Force” was set up by Chicago Mayor Rob Emmanuel in the wake of the release of the video depicting Laquan McDonald’s murder by Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke. Now that task force has released its report and that report doesn’t play out well for the current oversight system of the Chicago Police Depatment.
Via PoliceMisconduct.net:
Last December Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel formed a task force to conduct a top-to-bottom review of the Chicago Police Department. That move followed calls for Emanuel’s resignation in the wake of the video release of the Laquan McDonald shooting.
The Task Force released its report yesterday. Here is an excerpt:
- The public has lost faith in the oversight system. Every stage of investigations and discipline is plagued by serious structural and procedural flaws that make real accountability nearly impossible. The collective bargaining agreements provide an unfair advantage to officers, and the investigating agencies—IPRA and CPD’s Bureau of Internal Affairs—are under-resourced, lack true independence and are not held accountable for their work. Even where misconduct is found to have occurred, officers are frequently able to avoid meaningful consequences due to an opaque, drawn out and unscrutinized disciplinary process… Any one of these metrics in isolation is troubling, but taken together, the only conclusion that can be reached is that there is no serious embrace by CPD leadership of the need to make accountability a core value. These statistics give real credibility to the widespread perception that there is a deeply entrenched code of silence supported not just by individual officers, but by the very institution itself….Simply put, there is no ownership of the issue within CPD leadership or elsewhere, and thus there have been no substantive efforts to address these problems which continue to cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars each year.
The full report is close to 200 pages and we have not yet studied the whole thing. Most of the criticism is directed at the police department itself–and it is damning. The executive summary says little about Mayor Emanuel or his culpability. Hmm.
That last part shouldn’t be at all shocking. As stated, the task force was created as a result of demands for Emmanuel to step down as mayor and the task force consisted of people “hand picked” by him.
Nor should the fact that the oversight system is wildly ineffective be any sort of surprising revelation. Much like the task force was designed to deflect blame from Mayor Emmanuel’s doorstep, the internal oversight system is designed to deflect blame from and cover up the actions of police who commit crimes, especially when they are of a violent nature that would inflame the public and cause unrest.
Chicago PD Task Force: Structural & Procedural Flaws Make Real Accountability Nearly Impossible is a post from Cop Block – Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights
Source: http://www.copblock.org/158041/chicago-police-accountability-task-force-structural-and-procedural-flaws-make-real-accountability-nearly-impossible/
