Vol 3. Issue 17

On September 28, a consent decree—a judicial-enforced agreement resolving a legal dispute—was entered in state court that requires the Chicago Police Department to provide every person in custody with prompt access to an attorney. The CPD will now have to give every arrestee a phone call or meeting with an attorney within the first three hours of arrest, along with a 24-hour access line to the Public Defender in every interrogation room, and private space to meet with attorneys in every police station.

CPD’s arrest records reveal that between August 2019 and July 2020, more than half of the people detained in murder cases—in which the stakes of a false confession are highest—never made or were offered a single phone call.

At a time when Miranda rights are threatened by a hostile Supreme Court majority, the consent decree gives concrete meaning to those rights and, in so doing, provides a model for other cities and states. Read more by Jamie Kalven in The Atlantic →

October 17, 2022
Two years later, some resolution
a reflection by Maira Khwaja

The 2020 lawsuit against the Chicago Police Department that resulted in a consent decree was brought by a legal team that included our longtime colleagues at the Mandel Clinic of the University of Chicago Law School on behalf of at Let Us Breathe Collective, STOP Chicago, Ujimaa Medics, GoodKids MadCity, Cook County Public Defenders, and others. 

In retrospect, the events of the summer of 2020 seem like a fever dream. In the first weekend of protests,  I saw some of the plaintiffs from this lawsuit beaten by police blocks from my home in Hyde Park. After a peaceful  march through the neighborhood, during which neighbors clanged pans from their window in encouragement, the protest began to disperse. Suddenly, the police became more aggressive, pushing people with their batons. It was unclear what accounted for this  shift in the police presence. Was it perhaps because university students had been joined by more Black protestors?

I had gone outside to document possible police use of force at the protest, but when I saw friends and neighbors bloodied by blows to the head from police batons, I was for a moment disoriented and felt anger toward  the dozens of people who had taken their phones out  to document what was happening instead of heeding organizers’ calls to lock arms in an emergency protection wall. 

Yet it was precisely that form of witness that subsequently enabled my colleagues Andrew Fan and Dana Brozost-Kelleher to report in the Chicago Reader on the pattern of baton strikes by Chicago police officers. (A feature in the Neiman Report titled “How Coverage of the Police is Changing, from Crowdsouring to Centering Victim Accounts” discussed the innovative nature of Andrew and Dana’s reporting.)

Later that day, activists stood vigil in shifts, late into the night, outside the police station where those arrested were assumed to be held. Witnessing the outpouring of (legal, emotional, material) support and grief that night outside the police station, I thought about the many  times former students have called us to pick them up from a police station or bond out of jail, and have described  their interactions with police while in custody. 

As Jamie says in his article, the reality is that “people without means lack access to counsel, leaving them exposed to coercive interrogation techniques.” 

I am heartened by the possibility that the chaos of the summer of 2020 has now yielded genuine progress in the form of the consent decree that narrows the gap of time when the most vulnerable can be  disappeared by the state. 

Maira Khwaja
director of public strategy

Amid the noise of fear-mongering ad campaigns in Chicago and disinformation surrounding the “Purge Law” and SAFE-T Act, Jamie Kalven wrote in the Chicago Tribune about being robbed at gunpoint this summer and reflected on the ways in which our fears are exploited for political gain. 

“Among the greatest dangers posed by the fear of violence is that we will lose sight of our true resources for being safe and secure: the care and solidarity of human beings acting together," he writes.

Read the essay in the Chicago Tribune → 

As we collect police disciplinary data throughout the state of Illinois, we’ve partnered with local journalists at C-U Citizen Access on a series of stories about police in Champaign-Urbana. The latest piece is a deep dive into the ways police in Champaign County respond to mental health crises, and the possibilities and limitations of current alternative-responder models, by Kelsey Turner, with data and editing from Sam Stecklow and our team. 

Read more in C-U Citizen Access→

Following our investigation of the police killing of Cortez Bufford in The Intercept and forensic follow-up in The Riverfront Times, a new St. Louis ordinance went into effect last month creating a new civilian-led investigation agency of St. Louis police.

On the heels of this ordinance, three police organizations are now trying to block the new oversight efforts, as reported by the Missouri Independent. The legal fight could have implications for police accountability across Missouri.

In The News

• Our latest reporting on Champaign Police's responses to mental health crises was cross-published by the Chicago Reader, Northern Public Radio (WNIJ), Illinois Public Media (WILL), and others.
   

• CPDP.co was cited in recent Block Club Chicago reporting on Sgt. Michael Vitellaro, who pinned a boy to the pavement in Park Ridge, IL.
   

• Maira Khwaja joined Chicago Tonight on WTTW to talk about the City's changes to make the Chicago Police scanner less transparent.
   

• Jamie Kalven was profiled by In Pursuit on the history of making Chicago Police misconduct records available to the public.