Vol. 2, Issue 31: Chicago's Criminal Justice Playbook
At Issue: Checking in on the Task Force
LIGHTFOOT’S LITTLE PROGRESS
The “vast majority” of recommendations made by the mayor’s Police Accountability Task Force last year “have not been implemented,” said Police Board President Lori Lightfoot, who chaired the task force, speaking on CAN-TV’s Chicago Newsroom.
Host Ken Davis asked Lightfoot about Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s claim, made shortly after the task force issued its report last April, that he had implemented one-third of its recommendations. Lightfoot declined to comment on Emanuel’s claim.
“There were 126 specific recommendations that were purposely designed to be a matrix that fits together, not to be one-off things,” she said. “There were clearly things you can do on a one-off basis, but the point was to move forward in a strategic, thoughtful way, and that has not happened.”
In a wide-ranging interview, Lightfoot expressed frustration with the lack of progress on police training in the nearly one year since the task force “mapped out [the issue] in bold relief.” She noted that the Justice Department had reviewed training initiatives over the past year and found them sorely lacking. She also discussed the failure of stop-and-frisk policies—describing how “a light bulb came on for me” when listening to older Black professional women testify about how they had been disrespected in street stops—and linked the defunding of social services by the state to the increase in shootings over the past two years.
Lightfoot called on Mayor Emanuel to “come up with a comprehensive plan” for improving law enforcement with a timeline for rolling out its components. She added, “I want him to recognize that reform and accountability go hand in hand with effective crime fighting.”
NEW DISCIPLINARY GUIDELINES
Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson described the new disciplinary guidelines as “a starting point,” adding that, going forward, “we will tweak it to try and get it as right as we can,” WBEZ reported.
The “complaint register matrix,” which took effect last Wednesday, does not incorporate major changes recommended by the Justice Department in its recent report on the Chicago Police Department.
The DOJ report criticized CPD’s new discipline matrix for being unnecessarily vague in some categories, prescribing “unduly low punishments for conduct that is inconsistent with constitutional policing,” failing to provide progressive punishment for repeat offenders, and including disciplinary ranges that are “so large that they provide no useful guidance.”
The DOJ pointed to one category that includes sex offenses and conspiracy to commit a crime, with recommended discipline ranging from 31 to 365 days. The report questioned, “It is unclear why the city believes that an officer found to have engaged in some of these offenses should remain on the police force at all.”
The recommended punishment for verbal abuse involving a racial slur ranges from a one-day suspension to termination, The Chicago Tribune reported.
Police union officials argued that the disciplinary guidelines should have been negotiated as part of upcoming contract renewals and stated they were “weighing options for fighting their implementation,” according to The Tribune.
COPS IN SCHOOLS
Of the 250 officers stationed in Chicago Public Schools (CPS), several have “disturbing complaints” on their records, including “two who have killed teenagers, one who was sued for beating a minor, and one who was recommended for firing by the Police Board,” according to an investigation by City Bureau and The Chicago Reader. Additionally, 33 officers had more than eight complaints, far exceeding the department average.
Officers stationed in schools receive no youth-specific training, undergo no systematic screening, and are not subject to effective review, according to the report.
The mayor’s Police Accountability Task Force reported last year that Chicago officers were “not adequately equipped to engage with youth.” The DOJ’s recent report similarly found that officers “[subjected] children to force for non-criminal conduct and minor violations,” citing an incident in which a 16-year-old girl was beaten and Tasered after being asked to leave school for having a cell phone in violation of school rules.
Another new report states that “the mere presence of police in schools increases the likelihood that students will be referred to law enforcement for adolescent behaviors,” placing students “on the fast track to the school-to-prison pipeline.”
"Handcuffs in Hallways," a report from the Sargent Shriver Center on Poverty Law, traces the history of police presence in Chicago schools from the “Officer Friendly” program in the 1960s to the dramatic expansion—in both numbers and authority—of police in schools under federal initiatives in the 1990s.
Between 2012 and 2016, police officers assigned to CPS amassed $215,000 in misconduct settlements for in-school incidents and $1.5 million in lawsuits alleging excessive force against minors.
The Shriver Center calls for improved training, screening, and monitoring; protections for students’ civil rights; an end to arrests for violations of the CPS disciplinary code; a CPS complaint process; and public reporting on arrests and use-of-force incidents.
VAN DYKE TRIAL
Attorneys for Officer Jason Van Dyke have filed a second motion seeking to dismiss his indictment, arguing that the grand jury that indicted him for first-degree murder in the death of Laquan McDonald “was deceived on critical issues.”
According to the motion, prosecutors improperly told jurors that Van Dyke and other officers at the scene tampered with video and audio evidence and that McDonald was first shot in the back, The Chicago Tribune reported.
A previous motion to dismiss charges argued that prosecutors improperly used statements Van Dyke was required to provide to investigators.
Judge Vincent Gaughan stated that any evidentiary hearings on the motions would be held in public. The Tribune recently reported on Gaughan’s penchant for secrecy, noting that he has held extensive proceedings in his chambers with no court reporter present.
MINORITY RECRUITMENT
Superintendent Eddie Johnson said he is “extremely ecstatic” about the representation of minorities among the 16,500 people who have applied to CPD in the past two months, The Chicago Sun-Times reported.
African Americans accounted for approximately 35 percent of applicants, Latinos 33 percent, and whites 29 percent.
The number of applications represents a 16.5 percent increase over the department’s 2015 recruitment drive, DNAinfo Chicago reported.
Currently, the police force is 48.5 percent white, 27.5 percent Black, 20.7 percent Latino, and 2.5 percent Asian, according to DNAinfo. In comparison, Chicago’s population is 32.2 percent white, 31.5 percent Black, 28.9 percent Latino, and 5.7 percent Asian.
Last year’s recruitment drive also attracted about 70 percent minority applicants, with Black applicants comprising 29 percent and Latinos 39 percent. In the department’s 2013 drive, 46 percent of applicants were white.
NO TRUMP SUMMIT
An Ohio pastor said he “misspoke” when he told President Trump that he had spoken with Chicago gang leaders who wanted a “sit-down” with the president to discuss how to “get that body count down,” Fox 32 reported. Rev. Darrell Scott later admitted that he had not, in fact, spoken with “top gang thugs” and attributed his error to a lack of sleep.