Weis Jumps Gun On New Deadly Force Rule

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Jul 30, 2009 2:40PM

It seems Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis got a bit ahead of himself with the new rule that would allow officers to shoot at the drivers and passengers of cars as they flee police. Yesterday, Michael Sneed reported a police department spokesman as saying the new rule would go into effect Monday. One problem: no one cleared this past the City Council which is, as the Sun-Times' Fran Spielman put it, "a no-no for any Chicago police superintendent." Instead, at yesterday's Council meeting Ald. Isaac Carothers, introduced an ordinance that would require the police department to get City Council approval before enacting any new policy related to deadly force, citing two cases that occurred in 1999 in which innocent civilians were shot by police: "Let's not forget what happened in the LaTanya Haggerty case, which cost the city a lot of money [$18 million], and the [Robert] Russ case, which cost an awful lot of money [$9.6 million] with police officers firing their weapons." The move was also announced without the approval of the police union, according to union president Mark Donahue. Mayor Daley himself later said nothing had changed yet and, They're just looking at it. If you have general orders that conflict with one another, you should look at it." [NBC 5, Sun-Times]