Vol. 2, Issue 57: Chicago's Criminal Justice Playbook
At Issue: Kalven Won't Reveal Sources
In a hearing Wednesday, Judge Vincent Gaughan postponed a decision on whether journalist Jamie Kalven must testify in Officer Jason Van Dyke’s murder trial.
Van Dyke faces trial for the 2014 shooting of Laquan McDonald. Kalven’s reporting first brought public attention to the case.
Van Dyke’s attorney, Dan Herbert, subpoenaed Kalven, seeking to determine whether he received leaked information from the internal investigation, including Van Dyke’s compelled statements, and whether that information influenced witness testimony.
Kalven has denied receiving leaks. In court, his attorney, Matthew Topic, noted that the material Herbert referenced in a Slate article was publicly available via a Chicago Police Department press release and a statement from Fraternal Order of Police spokesperson Pat Camden. Topic also pointed out that the witness in question gave a videotaped statement to investigators weeks before meeting Kalven.
Kalven has moved to quash the subpoena, stating he will not reveal his sources.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, joined by 18 media organizations, including the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times, filed an amicus brief supporting Kalven’s motion.
“The public interest in protecting confidential sources is particularly compelling in this case,” the media coalition wrote, emphasizing that Kalven’s reporting exposed police misconduct and an official cover-up, prompting a U.S. Department of Justice investigation.
The Sun-Times editorial board condemned the subpoena as “a spurious legal tactic” and “an unnecessary legal sideshow that threatens public oversight of government,” arguing that legal standards for compelling journalist testimony haven’t been met.
Over 250 authors, scholars, and journalists have signed a statement of support, initiated by the Sidney Hillman Foundation, backing Kalven’s refusal to name sources.
WBEZ has explored Kalven’s dual career as a journalist and human rights activist, while The New York Times has reported on the broader implications of the subpoena, including Van Dyke’s trial, Kalven’s history, and the impact of his reporting.
After Wednesday’s hearing, Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell criticized Van Dyke’s attorney for comparing his client’s situation to that of three Black sharecroppers tortured into confessing in a 1936 Supreme Court case. “After the McDonald shooting, several police officers allegedly built a blue wall of silence around Van Dyke,” she wrote.
DOCUMENTS WITHHELD IN CODE OF SILENCE TRIAL
In a dramatic twist, previously undisclosed records surfaced in a wrongful death lawsuit alleging a code of silence protecting Chicago police officers.
U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall told plaintiffs they could “infer that the city intentionally withheld” the documents due to this code of silence, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Attorneys for the families of two men killed by then-Det. Joseph Frugoli in a 2009 drunken driving crash argue that the code of silence led Frugoli to believe he could “drink and drive with impunity” because fellow officers had protected him in previous incidents of suspected drunken driving.
After plaintiffs’ attorneys presented evidence that Frugoli was never disciplined in 18 administrative complaints during his career, Frugoli testified that he had been suspended for five days for a 1992 bar fight. Kendall then ordered city attorneys to produce the case file.
The “highly damaging information” revealed that “the city was on notice of aggressive and alcohol-related problems with Joseph Frugoli” 17 years before the fatal crash, Kendall said.
Frugoli escaped discipline despite being suspected of drunken driving when he crashed a squad car in 2008. He was later convicted of aggravated DUI in 2012 and sentenced to prison.
The uncovered documents emerged just two weeks after the city agreed to pay $62,500 in legal fees following a federal judge’s ruling that city attorneys acted with “willfulness, fault, and bad faith” in failing to turn over evidence in a wrongful death lawsuit over a 2012 police shooting. That case raised further concerns about the city’s legal department, which had previously been sanctioned for withholding evidence.
CPD REMOVES ONE NAME FROM GANG DATABASE
The city settled a lawsuit challenging its gang database by agreeing to modify records to clarify that Guatemalan immigrant Wilmer Catalan-Ramirez is not a gang member and to support his visa application.
Catalan-Ramirez was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in March based on his listing in CPD’s database, an ICE agent testified. According to documents cited by Injustice Watch, CPD first labeled him a Latin Saints member after he was found “loitering in a known Latin Saints street gang/narcotics area.” Later, after a traffic stop in a different gang’s territory, he was listed as a member of the Satan Disciples.
“They racially profiled him,” said Vanessa del Valle of the MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern, one of his attorneys. “There was no basis, no evidence to label him a gang member—let alone of two rival gangs.”
Before his arrest, Catalan-Ramirez worked as a mechanic and lived in Back of the Yards with his wife and three children.
In January, he suffered brain damage and partial paralysis in a drive-by shooting. While recovering at home in March, ICE agents raided his residence without a warrant, slamming him to the floor and aggravating his injuries, his attorneys said.
His lawsuit continues over the raid and the denial of medical care at McHenry County Jail, which his attorneys argue could leave him permanently disabled.
CPD’s gang database is vast, according to new reporting by the Social Justice News Nexus—containing over 128,000 names, compared to 20,000 in the statewide database for New York. The database is overwhelmingly skewed: fewer than 6,000 whites are listed, compared to over 90,000 African Americans and 32,000 Hispanics. More than 11 percent of Chicago’s Black population is included.
Advocates, calling the database arbitrary and inaccurate, are pushing for safeguards similar to California’s, where individuals are notified when they are added and can challenge their inclusion. Others argue Chicago should follow Portland’s lead in eliminating its gang database entirely, citing “unintended consequences,” including lifelong barriers to employment.
RIALMO ADMITS BETTIE JONES’ “CLOSE PROXIMITY” IN SHOOTING
In the latest twist in the legal battle following the December 2015 killings of Quintonio LeGrier and Bettie Jones—where Officer Robert Rialmo is suing LeGrier’s estate for emotional distress—Rialmo has acknowledged that he knew Jones was in “close proximity” to LeGrier when he fired. His attorneys argue the shooting was still justified, while lawyers for Jones’ family, who are suing Rialmo and the city, contend his admission amounts to legal liability.
Rialmo has also sued the city, claiming he was inadequately trained to handle the situation.
Rialmo was responding to distress calls from LeGrier and his father on December 26, 2015. Jones opened the door for officers, and LeGrier appeared wielding a baseball bat. Rialmo shot LeGrier six times, with one bullet striking Jones in the chest.
LAWSUIT CHALLENGES ARREST ON FLAWED WARRANT
The family of a 22-year-old Black man who became disabled after attempting suicide in a police lockup is suing the city. Tyler Lumar was arrested last year on a Lee County warrant for a 2015 traffic fine—issued when he was two days late on a payment, though the fine was rescinded after he paid three days later.
Despite having enough cash to post bond, Lumar was held for nearly 24 hours. He attempted to hang himself after being falsely charged with narcotics possession—claims later disproven by security footage. After he was hospitalized, police dropped the charges, leaving his family responsible for over $2 million in medical bills.
The case is “another example of the city and county’s alleged failure to keep nonviolent offenders from languishing in jail,” the Chicago Tribune reported. “If this were a rich white kid, they would’ve gladly taken his $50 and let him go,” said the family’s attorney.
ZOPP APPOINTED TO POLICE BOARD
The City Council approved Mayor Emanuel’s appointment of his former deputy mayor, World Business Chicago CEO Andrea Zopp, to the Police Board—despite calls from civic groups to delay the vote.
Ald. Danny Solis called it “a wow appointment,” adding, “If you had appointed Jesus Christ, you couldn’t have done better.”
Zopp defended her independence, stating, “I have no questions about my independence.”
West Side NAACP President Karl Brinson praised Zopp’s credentials but criticized the “recycling” of mayoral allies onto public boards without community input. “You want to fast-track appointments to the board, but you will not fast-track reform [or] the consent decree,” he said. (Three lawsuits are currently seeking a consent decree with judicial oversight for police reform.)
Earlier, the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and the ACLU called for further review of Zopp’s appointment.
“At this critical moment—when Chicago police are in dire need of reform—selecting an insider in a rushed process does not advance public confidence,” said Karen Sheley of the ACLU.
“This is not about Andrea Zopp’s qualifications,” said Bonnie Allen, executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee. “It’s about a clear conflict of interest when a mayoral ally joins a police oversight agency, with absolutely no time for public comment from the communities most impacted by police misconduct.”
FAIRLEY SLAMS COPA BUDGET
The 2018 budget for the Civilian Office of Police Accountability is “woefully inadequate and inconsistent with the spirit, if not the letter, of the funding requirement” in the agency’s founding ordinance, said former COPA administrator Sharon Fairley, now a candidate for Illinois attorney general.
The City Council passed a budget that “falls significantly short of the resources the agency needs to deliver on its mission,” she said.
“Without sufficient resources, the quality and timeliness of investigations will suffer, and I fear the agency will be unable to fulfill its role in police accountability—disappointing both officers and the community it serves. I urge all Chicagoans to call on City Hall and the City Council to address this immediately.”