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Evidence of a Corrupt System

In a prior post on the Chicago Police Shooting of Laquan McDonald, I stated that the circumstances of the case “suggest massive corruption.”  Now more information is coming out indicating how corrupt the system was. 

It is certainly true that Chicago Rahm Emanuel acted to keep the video of the shooting from public view until after his re-election.  In fact, city lawyers waited until a week after his election to get final approval for the $5 million settlement with Mr. McDonald’s family, even though the settlement had been “substantially agreed upon” weeks earlier.  But that a politician apparently took action to protect his election at the expense of justice is just the surface of a more serious problem.

One basic problem is that police complaints do not appear to be investigated seriously.  “Only 19 of 10,000 complaints” in a two year period resulted in “significant disciplinary action” and 85% of complaints were dismissed without interviewing the officer.  

Another problem is that the so called “Independent Police Review Authority” is not really independent.  While the Authority investigates police shootings, it is not genuinely independent, because the cases need to be approved by the Chicago Police Department for approval.  If you think about it, such a system is well designed to insulate the Police.  They can claim there is an independent authority without there actually being one.

Yet another problem is the “fixing” of investigations.  It appInears that investigators are asked by management to change findings of police misconduct. Moreover, an investigator was fired because he would not make changes to his reports in order to exonerate officers.  When his report recommended exonerating an officer, it was accepted.  But when his report concluded a shooting was unjustified, he was asked to change his report.

These aspects of the Chicago Police are no surprise.  The system operates to protect police against being held responsible for wrongful behavior.  The horrific shooting by Jason Van Dyke is the result of such a system.

Update: Another aspect of the corruption. The Chicago police announced after the shooting that the victim had been charging towards the police when he was shot, which was a blatant lie.