Justice Department Will Investigate Chicago Police

The U.S. Justice Department will begin a civil rights investigation of the Chicago Police Department, sources familiar with the matter told several media outlets on Sunday, including the Chicago Tribune, Washington Post and Reuters.

The “patterns and practices” investigation will focus on whether the department violates constitutional rights.

The video shows the teen, Laquan McDonald, who was carrying a knife, made no menacing gestures or advances toward the police officers.

Chicago police officers have been involved in 70 fatal shootings in five years, more than any other police force. Chicago is the nation’s third-largest city.

» ALSO ON PATCH

• Watch the Laquan McDonald Shooting Video
• Police Reports of ‘Lunging, Knife-Swinging’ Laquan McDonald Contradict Video

Last week, Gov. Bruce Rauner and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin announced their support for a Civil Rights Division investigation of the police force.

Police departments in Ferguson, MO, and Baltimore, MD, which have also seen questionable use of deadly force on the part of police officers, are being investigated by the Civil Rights Division. In the last six years, more than a dozen investigations of police departments have been initiated. The investigations typically take more than a year to conduct and result in a “consent decree” between the city involved and the Justice Department requiring alterations in practices and policies.

Initially, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who was President Obama’s White House chief of staff in his first term, reacted coldly to Madigan’s request and said he was opposed. The mayor called such a review “misguided.” One day later, Emanuel announced he would support a Justice Department investigation of his police force.

Reports the Tribune:

The investigation into the department’s policies and practices will likely focus on the use of deadly force by Chicago officers as well as training and community engagement.

The Special Litigation Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has at least 15 lawyers who do nothing but conduct such investigations around the country. They primarily use a 1994 law passed in the wake of the Rodney King beating by police in Los Angeles.

A formal announcement is expected.

After the mayor signaled his intention to fully back Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy after the Laquan McDonald tape went public, he terminated McCarthy’s employment on Tuesday morning.

Protesters, who’ve been active almost every day since the recording was made public, including on Black Friday when they shut down Michigan Avenue, wanted McCarthy’s resignation and Emanuel’s. The mayor has said he will not resign.

Late Sunday, the mayor replaced the head of the Independent Police Review Authority, the agency that investigates police shootings. Former federal prosecutor Sharon Fairley will take over, the city announced, replacing Scott Ando, who has resigned.

“ ... it has become clear that new leadership is required as we rededicate ourselves to dramatically improving our system of police accountability and rebuilding trust in that process,” Emanuel said in a statement, according to a Chicago Sun-Times report.

Better Government Association President Andy Shaw published a story in the Chicago Sun-Times on Sunday in which he offered the BGA’s investigative findings as a starting point for any probe of the Chicago Police Department and what he called its ”dystopian culture.”

Shaw notes:

• Chicago spent more than $521 million local tax dollars in the past decade — a staggering figure — defending and settling excessive force cases ...
• Chicago police have fatally shot 70 people in a recent five-year span, tops among the largest U.S. cities.
• Chicago’s Independent Police Review Authority, which investigates brutality and misconduct allegations, found only a handful of the 400 fatal and non-fatal cop shootings since 2007 “unjustified,” and “sustained” only 4 percent of the excessive force complaints, fewer than most big cities.
• The BGA had to sue CPD three times in the last year for ignoring open records laws.
• Last month former Supt. McCarthy raised numerous eyebrows by promoting Dean Andrews to chief of detectives, even though Andrews supervised a thoroughly discredited 2011 re-investigation of David Koschman’s 2004 death at the hands of former Mayor Richard Daley’s nephew R.J. Vanecko.

» read more about these investigations on the Better Government Association website

A Justice Department Civil Rights investigation of the police force would be separate from the federal investigation currently under way in connection with the Jason Van Dyke shooting. That investigation commenced in December 2014, about seven weeks after Van Dyke shot McDonald to death, when Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez agreed to conduct a joint investigation of the case with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Van Dyke, charged with first-degree murder, is free on $150,000 bond.

To this point, President Obama has said very little about the Laquan McDonald video and the ensuing turmoil surrounding the city and its police force.

On Thanksgiving Day, Obama posted this comment to his Facebook page: “Like many Americans, I was deeply disturbed by the footage of the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. This Thanksgiving, I ask everybody to keep those who’ve suffered tragic loss in our thoughts and prayers, and to be thankful for the overwhelming majority of men and women in uniform who protect our communities with honor. And I’m personally grateful to the people of my hometown for keeping protests peaceful.”

With Obama’s Justice Department opening an investigation into the police force in his hometown, he no doubt will need to expand upon those comments.

Related Coverage on Patch

• Police Reports of ‘Lunging, Knife-Swinging’ Laquan McDonald Contradict Video
• ason Van Dyke’s Bail Set at $1.5 Million
• Federal Grand Jury Heard Evidence of ‘Deleted’ Video
• FBI Arrests UIC Student in Laquan McDonald Revenge Threat
• Judge Asks: Why No Protests for Children Shot Down in Chicago’s Streets?
• Magnificent Mile Fills With Laquan McDonald Protesters on Black Friday
• City’s Black Leaders Demand Firing of Chicago’s Top Cop
• Video Shows Jason Van Dyke Shoot Laquan McDonald
• Police Union Stands by Officer Charged in Murder of Teen
• Angry Protesters Flood Chicago Streets
• Poet, Four Others, Arrested After Night of Unrest
• 5 Perspectives on ‘16 Shots: The Death of Laquan McDonald’
• Chicago Cop Charged in ‘Graphic, Violent, Chilling’ Murder
• Teen Shot 16 Times by Chicago Police a ‘Modern-Day Emmett Till’