Chicago Police Board President calls DOJ report an ‘important milestone’

According to the report, the “unlawful” use of force “resulted from a collection of poor police practices”, including exhibiting “poor discipline” when discharging their weapons, “tactically unsound” foot pursuits, officers shooting at vehicles “without justification”, and failing to wait for backup before engaging suspects.

The perception that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel badly mishandled the Laquan McDonald shooting hurt the former Obama chief of staff politically and he may feel pressure to address all, or almost all, of the Justice Department’s findings to restore his political fortunes.

Hours after the mayor appeared with Attorney General Loretta Lynch and others on Friday to announce the report, the activists said they have no faith that Emanuel will reform the police force as he pledged to do. If established, a consent decree would mandate reforms enforceable by a federal court and be overseen by an independent monitor. These could take many more months, however. Its findings are outlined in a 161-page report.

“If we stretch it out we’re looking at an 11-month investigation”, said Dean Angelo of the FOP, adding that investigating “12,000 people” in that time frame is “pretty quick”.

Amid the CPDs longstanding reputation of misconduct, lack of accountability, including instances of officers lying to protect each other (even under oath), the DOJ provided perhaps the most detailed synopsis of the department’s personal contribution to the corruption and rampant violence in the city. Misconduct not only harms the individuals affected, it damages the reputation of the Chicago Police Department. They have focused on small departments with fewer than 10 officers to much larger ones like those in Chicago and Puerto Rico, which has 18,000.

Many of the Chicago police department’s problems stemmed from deficient training and accountability, Lynch said. Additionally, the report states the department has been far too lax in rigorously investigating complaints about officers’ use of force. “Second to restore the community’s trust in law enforcement and finally, to advance public and officer safety”, Lynch said.

Chicago police showed racial bias and a “pattern” of excessive use of force, the US Justice Department has found.

Police brutality cases cost the city more than $500 million in settlements and legal costs from 2004 to 2014.

It cited statistics that the CPD used force nearly 10 times more often against African-Americans than whites. “We found numerous incidents where CPD officers chased and shot fleeing persons who posed no immediate threat to officers or the public”.

Investigations into police misconduct were often thwarted by “a code of silence among Chicago police officers. extending to lying and affirmative efforts to hide evidence”, the report said.

The use of excessive force, including deadly force, violates the Fourth Amendment, the report (PDF) concluded. But the report comes as serious questions loom about the future of police reform nationwide. The DOJ signed 20 such agreements with other police forces, including 15 consent decrees.