What To Expect From DOJ Report On Chicago Police Abuses Of Power

By Rachel Cromidas in News on Jan 13, 2017 3:31PM

The U.S. Department of Justice is on the verge of releasing a big and potentially damning report on Chicago Police misconduct, developed from a year of investigation into the police department's practices.

Sources have told Chicago news outlets to expect the findings, slated to be announced in a 10 a.m. Friday morning press conference, to show the Chicago Police Department has committed a pattern of constitutional civil rights abuses. Those abuses, reporting, will center around the department's use of force and racial disparities in how suspects are treated. According to our reporter, the press conference is crowded and tense:

Packed room for #DOJ Chicago #CPD report release pic.twitter.com/vixpJmW2Kn

— Aaron Cynic (@aaroncynic) January 13, 2017

Justice Department investigators reportedly study CPD by scrutinizing police records, interviewing officers, conducting ride-alongs with beat cops and meeting with people of color to discuss their treatment by police, among other tactics. Based on how the investigation was conducted, sources within the police department told the paper that they expect the report to make vague criticisms against how police conduct street stops, but offer no specific examples to go on.

“They’re going to say we violated people’s Constitutional rights but they won’t have any specifics,” one department employee told the paper. “They’re going to say we stopped people without justification, but they won’t have any examples of that. So it’s almost impossible to respond to it. We’re not going to be able to defend ourselves, and then we’re going to be left with having to deal with this.”

The employee also pointed out that some of the most likely advice from the DOJ—that CPD could use better de-escalation training and an improved system for investigating shootings of civilians by police—are already in the works:

“They’ve given us some feedback on use of force policy and body camera policies, but in a very aloof way — ‘We don’t want to tell you what to do, but you might want to do this.’ We adjusted some things, mostly because it was best practices.

“They’re not likely to tell us anything we don’t already know. And they’re not likely to say, ‘We’re revealing something new for the whole world to see.’ It’s going to be short on facts and long on implications.”

In a separate report, the Sun-Times says that the DOJ will specifically discuss misconduct with the Independent Police Review Authority—the supposedly independent body tasked with investigating police misconduct and police shootings, which has been rife with controversy and accusations of rigged decision-making. The DOJ reportedly reviewed over 100 IPRA files which showed investigators that the organization rarely questioned police officers' narratives of events when it came to questions of misconduct. (The Laquan McDonald shooting scandal serves as one high-profile example of how police narratives can be misleading or glaringly wrong.)

The DOJ has investigated 20 city police departments under the Obama administration according to the AP, with the goal of negotiating "consent decrees," or court-enforcable settlements that will mandate how cities should reform their police departments based on the findings. The most recent and high-profile case is Baltimore; the DOJ announced its latest findings on the city's police last week, along with a binding settlement. But in Chicago it seems unlikely the DOJ and the city will reach a binding agreement before the Trump administration takes office, and PEOTUS Donald Trump's Attorney General appointee, Jeff Sessions, has criticized some of the DOJ's efforts as undermining police morale. So it's very as-yet-to-be-seen how a Trump DOJ will deal with Chicago.

In the meantime, the current DOJ aimed to wrap up its investigation before Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration. Attorney General Loretta Lynch will be presenting the findings alongside Mayor Rahm Emanuel and top regional federal prosecutor Zachary Fardon. Though some outlets were reporting earlier this week that Emanuel would sign an "agreement in principle" with the DOJ (the step before reaching a consent decree), Emanuel seemed to indicate otherwise in a Thursday afternoon press conference.

The Tribune is calling it a "landmark" day for CPD, but people they interviewed about the news seem largely skeptical that it will have an impact or present new information:

"They messed over a lot of people," said Ben Baker, who spent 10 years in prison after he was framed on a drug case by a corrupt police sergeant. "A lot of people lost faith in the justice system and the Police Department. (But) you have to believe that all of them are not bad. … There has to be some good ones out there. If something was to happen to me or my kids, I would still call the police."