Vol. 2, Issue 25: Chicago's Criminal Justice Playbook

At Issue: CPD’s Proposed New Use-of-Force Policy

The Chicago Police Department’s proposed new use-of-force policy “sanctions the use of deadly force in questionable circumstances,” according to two clinical law professors.

Photo by Will Camargo

Comments by Sheila Bari of Northwestern and Craig Futterman of the University of Chicago were among more than 300 received by CPD, which opened the draft policy for public comment for the first time, The Chicago Tribune reported. The use of force in CPD is currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Terms such as “reasonably necessary,” as applied to the use of force, are “confusing and fail to provide clear guidance,” Bari and Futterman wrote.

Speaking with View from the Ground last month, Professor Samuel Walker of the University of Nebraska made a similar point, arguing that the policy’s statement that “the reasonableness standard is an objective one” seems to contradict its statement that “reasonableness is not capable of precise definition.”

Bari and Futterman argue that the draft policy falls short on transparency, as it fails to require immediate notification of independent investigators or grant them control over police shooting scenes. Additionally, the policy authorizes the use of “devices that cause excruciating pain,” such as pepper spray and long-range acoustic devices, on individuals exercising their First Amendment protest rights when they are uncooperative but pose no threat to public safety. It also permits the use of potentially deadly tasers against unarmed but uncooperative individuals.

In addition, the policy includes no limitations on tasing pregnant women, individuals with mental illnesses, and the very young or very old. Standards backed by a national research group—as well as a standard issued by a federal court in North Carolina in January—go far beyond CPD’s. The department has been sued by two women who were tased while pregnant.

CPD has no plans to post online the comments it has received but has not ruled out doing so after they have been reviewed, the department’s news office told View from the Ground (for more, see VFG No. 22).

For a sample of comments received, see City Bureau and Invisible Institute’s interactive Use of Force Tracker, which collected more than 40 comments from readers who used the public tool.

THE WEEK IN COURT: Subject to City Council approval, the city is expected to pay $6.4 million to settle two lawsuits over fatal police shootings, The Chicago Tribune reports. Both victims were unarmed at the time of their deaths.

The case of Darius Pinex, a 27-year-old father of three who was shot and killed during a traffic stop in 2011, is one of seven in which city attorneys have been sanctioned for failing to turn over evidence.

One of the officers involved in Pinex’s death, Gildardo Sierra, was involved in three shootings—two of them fatal—over a six-month period. In June, the Independent Police Review Authority found that his shooting of Flint Farmer in 2011 was unjustified. Sierra resigned last year. The other officer involved in Pinex’s death, Raoul Mosqueda, remains on the force (see VFG No. 5).

The other case involves the death of 17-year-old Cedrick Chatman, who was killed during a foot chase. IPRA investigator Lorenzo Davis has stated that he was fired after refusing to alter his finding that the shooting of Chatman was unjustified.

Meanwhile, a Canadian man filed a lawsuit alleging that he was attacked in 2015 by an off-duty police officer working as a security guard at a downtown restaurant—and that four responding officers helped Officer Khaled Shaar cover up his use of excessive force. Shaar, who has been named in at least two federal lawsuits since 2001, has been stripped of his police powers pending an IPRA investigation.

A Cook County judge found Chicago officer William Pruente guilty of perjury, obstruction of justice, and official misconduct for lying about the circumstances of a 2013 drug arrest.

Officers Jason Orsa and Brian Murphy resigned earlier this month—more than ten years after they were caught on video attacking a man at a late-night taco stand. Their firing was overturned by a Circuit Court judge in 2012; however, her decision was reversed in August by an appeals court, which called it “inexplicable” (see VFG No. 14).

Surveillance video

Cook County prosecutors “are not opposed” to a petition for a special master to identify wrongful convictions tied to corrupt former CPD Sgt. Ronald Watts, WBEZ reports. A special master could open the door to criminal charges against officers who participated in framing suspects, said Joshua Tepfer, attorney for Jamie Kalven of the Invisible Institute, who filed the petition.

CIVIL FORFEITURE: Illinois confiscated more than $319 million in property and cash—without any legal determination of wrongdoing—through civil forfeiture, according to a report by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Illinois Policy Institute. It is “policing for profit,” said ACLU attorney Ben Ruddell, calling for “meaningful reform.” CPD has used millions of dollars from seized assets “to secretly purchase controversial surveillance equipment without public scrutiny or City Council oversight,” The Chicago Reader previously reported.