Vol 3. Issue 20
All episodes of You Didn't See Nothin out now, Trina presents on policing, and updates from Chicago Police torture survivors
In February, our team traveled to Urbana-Champaign to launch the beta version of champaign.cpdp.co, our first police data tool outside of Chicago.
We gathered with community members and partners in Urbana-Champaign at the Independent Media Center to discuss policing data from Champaign, how to use the tool, and our continued efforts toward data transparency.
Sam Stecklow, Maheen Khan, and Isra Rahman, Invisible Institute team members of our recently launched champaign.cpdp.co project, in conversation with Maira Khwaja
The below is an excerpt - Read the conversation in full
March 21, 2023
Maira: When did you start making Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] requests in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois?
Sam: In 2018 I started making requests there because there was a lot of coverage of police misconduct there, and I wanted to see where else in Illinois we could use the Kalven v. Chicago (2014) decision. I was curious to see what it looked like in a smaller city context outside of COPA [the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, oversight agency in Chicago] and the Chicago Police Board.
Isra: And I made some FOIA requests when I was a student [at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign].
Maira: In our early data collection about Champaign-Urbana, was there anything that stood out to you in your initial impression of how different or similar it felt to your work in Chicago?
Isra: Policing is different in Champaign, and the data we got back reflected that.
Maheen: When you have the bigger police departments, like in Chicago, the data is way more in-depth and a lot more thorough. With Champaign-Urbana you have way less data. For instance, with Urbana, a lot of the data is pretty incomplete or officer rosters don't have all the information we want.
Maira: How is this data useful in a place like Champaign?
Sam: It is useful on an individual level, whether that's someone who gets pulled over, or someone who witnesses a use of force, or someone who experiences police misconduct in some way and is able to get the name of the officer.
We know that criminal defense attorneys and public defenders use CPDP.co a lot, not only in civil rights cases where you would be suing over an act of police misconduct, but also for Brady material: In the 1960s, the Supreme Court ruled that any exculpatory evidence has to be given to the defense attorney. There is a lot of debate as to what that actually includes, but it definitely can include records about misconduct committed by the police officers involved in that case, especially if it involves perjury or lying on official records; essentially anything that can affect that officer and his credibility on the stand would be Brady material. A lot of times prosecutors and police departments won't turn over everything that might be considered Brady material. So, this tool can tell defense attorneys about the officers who are involved in something as minor as a traffic stop.
And then obviously, it’s helpful for students, researchers, and journalists, even with minor stories that involve a police officer. For example, if you can say, this officer had X uses of force in the last year and wasn't disciplined for any of them, that makes your story more credible because you're not only citing the police department which is the interested party in that story, you're also centering the person who use of force was used against, in a way showing that this is a pattern for this officer.
Read the conversation in full→
Earlier this month, we celebrated the release of the podcast You Didn’t See Nothin.
A production of USG Audio and Invisible Institute, You Didn’t See Nothin follows host Yohance Lacour as he revisits a 1997 hate crime on the South Side of Chicago that introduced him to the world of investigative journalism, examining how its ripple effects have shaped Lacour’s own life over the past quarter-century. Part-memoir and part investigation, the seven-part series uses archival audio and new interviews with those involved to bring a fresh perspective to the narrative and correct the historical record of this case nearly 25 years later.
All episodes of You Didn’t See Nothin are now available, wherever you listen to your podcasts. In a previous View From the Ground, we shared a reflection from Yohance on the podcast’s release. Read that reflection here.
Yohance recently sat down with WTTW's Brandis Friedman for Chicago Tonight: Black Voices to discuss You Didn't See Nothin. Watch the interview
Trina on (DIS) Proportionate Impacts of Policing in Chicago
Data Director Trina Reynolds-Tyler presented at Stanford’s Women in Data Science conference earlier this month. Trina’s presentation, titled (DIS) Proportionate Impacts of Policing in Chicago, centered on Beneath the Surface, our work to uncover patterns of gender based violence at the hands of police, and the community volunteer team that helped to train an algorithm that parsed through narratives of complaints in more than 27,000 misconduct records between 2011 and 2015.
Watch Trina’s presentation (beginning at 59:56) →
Updates in Chicago Police Torture Survivors Jackie Wilson's and George Anderson's Fights for Justice
On March 7th, an Illinois appeals court ordered a new trial for George Anderson, ruling his claims of being tortured into confessing were credible given “the voluminous evidence of past police abuse.” In early 2020, a Cook County judge ruled against Anderson’s bid for a new trial and he remained incarcerated.
George Anderson was convicted in 1994 and has remained incarcerated since his conviction. Read more about George Anderson’s story at the Chicago Police Torture Archive →
On March 8th, the office of Loevy & Loevy announced that former prosecutor’s Nick Trutenko and Andrew Horvat are facing criminal charges for their roles in the wrongful conviction of their client and Burge-era torture survivor Jackie Wilson. Trutenko and Horvat have been accused of falsely testifying and concealing a witness. This indictment marks the first criminal charges brought against prosecutors involved in one of Burge’s cases. Read the announcement in full→
This is the latest in Jackie Wilson’s continued push for exoneration after being tortured and incarcerated for 36 years. Read more about Jackie Wilson’s story at the Chicago Police Torture Archive →
The Chicago Police Torture Archive is a human rights documentation of former police Cmdr. Jon Burge’s violence against more than 100 Black people, from the 1970s to the 1990s. The centerpiece of the site is profiles of police torture survivors, most of whom were represented by the People’s Law Office, which donated its case files to this project.
Shapearl Wells Demands Release of Full Watchdog Report on Courtney Copeland's Death
Last week, Shapearl Wells and Jamie Kalven met with WTTW's Heather Cherone to discuss the continued withholding of the full report from the Office of Inspector General's probe into Courtney's death.
Last month, Jamie and Alison Flowers wrote about the limited transparency of the Lightfoot administration in releasing OIG reports like this one. Our FOIA request for the full report was denied, leaving Shapearl and others without the answers and transparency they deserve.
Shapearl Wells is the host of the Somebody Podcast. The series documents her quest for justice on behalf of her son Courtney. Throughout, she guides listeners to explore questions of police accountability and public trust.
“It’s very painful,” Wells said. “Seven years, and we still don’t have the answers. We still don’t know what happened to my son. Seven years, I’m still fighting, trying to find the truth.” Wells remains determined to solve her son’s murder and will not stop demanding answers from the Chicago Police Department, which she said botched not only its response to Copeland’s plea for medical assistance but also the investigation into his murder.
Jamie Kalven on Wondros Podcast
Jamie recently joined Jesse Dylan and Priscilla Cohen, the hosts of The Wondros Podcast, for an episode on his work reporting on police abuse in Chicago. Jamie, Jesse, and Priscilla discuss, among other things, the origins of the Invisible Institute, familial legacy, expansions of ideas of neighborhood and community, the systemic conditions that uphold racist and abusive police practices and human rights violations, and the necessity of community participation in movements of change.
Watch The Wondros Episode →
