How to Clean Up a Cover-Up Culture
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's reaction to a new report by a police accountability task force that he appointed displayed a keen grasp of the obvious.
"The question isn't, 'Do we have racism?' " he said. "We do. The question is, 'What are you going to do about it?' "
What to do about racism in the Chicago Police Department is a far from new question. Nor is it one to ask Chicago alone, as we have seen in the controversial deaths of black men in police encounters in Cleveland, New York City, Baltimore and Ferguson, Mo., among others.
Emanuel created the task force, led by prosecutors and other experts, in December after the city released a video -- after more than a year of fighting FOIA requests -- that directly contradicted official police accounts of the death of black teenager Laquan McDonald.
Contrary to reports that police officer Jason Van Dyke shot McDonald 16 times in self-defense, the video shows McDonald moving away from police before Van Dyke opens fire. In the uproar following the video's release, Van Dyke became the first Chicago police officer in 35 years to be charged with first-degree murder for an on-duty shooting.
I have seen racially charged police scandals lead to profound political consequences before. As a young Chicago reporter in 1972, I covered black Rep. Ralph Metcalfe's startling break with the powerful Democratic machine of Mayor Richard J. Daley as the issue of police conduct became increasingly personal for him.
The last straw came when his friend Dr. Herbert Odom, a prominent black South Side dentist, was roughed up by police after a minor traffic stop. Among other actions, Metcalfe convened a "blue-ribbon panel" of experts on "The Misuse of Police Authority in Chicago."
Among its findings, "complaints from citizens about abusive conduct by police are almost universally rejected" by the department's "self-investigation system." The panel's recommendations led to formation of a new Office of Professional Standards.
It seemed like a good idea at the time. But by 2007, widespread dissatisfaction led to replacement of the OPS by a newly created Independent Police Review Authority.
Yet in many ways there has been stunningly little progress since the Metcalfe panel. In Metcalfe's day, excessive force complaints were upheld in only 1.4 percent of cases. Today, of the 10,500 complaints filed by black people between 2011 and 2015, only 166 or 1.6 percent were sustained or led to discipline after an internal investigation.
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