Chicago Pays $5500000 to 57 Victims of Police Torture

Mayor Rahm Emanuel says there is zero tolerance for any individual not upholding professional standards, especially when that individual represents the city of Chicago in the courtroom. According to USA Today, Judge Edmond Chang overturned a jury verdict acquitting Officers Gildardo Sierra and Raoul Mosqueda in the shooting death of Darius Pinex.

“To the context that we’re now in, it says that the city is willing to hold itself accountable and be responsible in fixing something and having the determination”, Emanuel said. “We’ve already taken steps and will take additional steps to make sure it never happens again”. McCaffrey said the decision to look at the cases was made by the head of the city’s law department, Steve Patton, and that there are no plans to examine closed cases that Marsh worked on since joining the department in late 1997. When he sanctioned the city for Aumann’s actions, Chang said practices conducted by the Law Department placed its attorneys “at risk” for violating discovery rules because of improper training about requesting and collecting evidence and documents.

The public will get a chance to speak about who they want to be Chicago’s next police superintendent. The officers testified at the trial that they had pulled Pinex’s Oldsmobile over because it matched a description they had heard over their police radios of a vehicle wanted in an earlier shooting.

Rauner’s spokesman responded, saying Emanuel is “blaming others” for his unwillingness to fix city finances.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel told the newspaper that before righting more recent wrongs in a police department that’s now the focus of a federal civil rights investigation, the city must heal wounds inflicted decades ago.

The judge also accused the law department, which defends city employees accused of wrongdoing, of shoddy record-keeping, saying it contributed to the problem in the Pinex case. They said they shot Pinex after he refused their orders and put his vehicle in reverse. But records emerged after the trial began that officers weren’t listening to the channel broadcasting the radio traffic about the suspect’s vehicle.

In a press conference unrelated to Emanuel’s fallout from the mishandling of the Laquan McDonald shooting and video, Rauner told reporters he was “very disappointed” in his friend and Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez. “I think it does”. “It shows the city hasn’t just fought to protect officers, it also fights tooth and nail to protect its lawyers”, Greenberg said. The officer involved, Jason Van Dyke, was charged with first-degree murder just hours before the video’s release. Emanuel said Tuesday Jan. 5, 2015, that chief counsel Patton is handling “all the pieces” when it comes to any possible review of cases. There’s nothing to indicate that Emanuel’s job is in immediate trouble, but he has faced numerous protests and plenty of criticism over the police issues. And the calls for his resignation have largely come from grassroots activists and residents, not from the city’s political powerbrokers.