CHICAGO — In a two-month investigation, two Chicago-based independent journalists writing for the award-winning news organization Truthout have uncovered patterns and practices at the Chicago Police Department raising questions about officers on the force with repeat misconduct allegations and a history of shooting citizens, often with commendations.
The investigation found:
21 police officers currently serving on the force who have shot citizens under highly questionable circumstances, resulting in at least $30.2 million in taxpayer-funded settlements
Three dozen officers currently serving on the force, with double the number of indicted Commander Glenn Evans' misconduct complaints on record
Absence of accountability for excessive and deadly force
Pattern between misconduct complaints and controversial shootings
Departmental commendations for such shootings
The full Truthout report [ available at the link: www.truth-out.org/news/item/26986-amid-shootings-chicago-police-department-upholds-culture-of-impunity ] includes interviews with:
Ortiz Glaze, survivor of a police shooting which occurred when he was unarmed and fleeing
Jamie Kalven, journalist who won the recent release of misconduct complaint data
Dr. Art Lurigio, criminologist
Dr. Richard Greenleaf, retired police officer, criminologist
Chicagoans who claim regular experience with CPD excessive force
Additional findings include:
-At least 500 Chicago police officers with more than 10 misconduct complaints over a five-year period ( 2001-2006 ) are still serving on the force. Their combined salary is $42.5 million dollars.
-Four lieutenants, the director and an organizer of the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy ( CAPS ), 55 detectives, a field training officer and 69 sergeants are among 500 Chicago police officers with more than 10 misconduct complaints over the five-year period.
-Police officer Raymond Piwnicki, now a detective, had the highest number of complaints in the five-year period, with 55 misconduct complaints and zero penalties. Piwnicki was awarded the Superintendent's Award of Valor in 2013, for a shooting in which he is now a defendant in a civil suit that cites his "deliberate indifference" to a fellow officer's deadly force.
-More than 60 of the 662 police officers with at least 10 misconduct complaints hailed from the Special Operations Section, responsible for 1,311 complaints in the five years of data alone. An elite citywide unit tasked with drug and gang investigations, Special Operations was disbanded in 2007 amidst multiple corruption scandals resulting in not only criminal charges of armed robbery, aggravated kidnapping and home invasion among seven of its former members - of which two are in jail - but a guilty plea in a murder for hire scheme. It was replaced by the Mobile Strike Force one year after Special Operations was disbanded, in the same unit headquarters, with the same orders, and many of the same officers. Disbanded in 2011, Mayor Rahm Emanuel reactivated Mobile Strike Force in 2013 with orders to "smother outbreaks of violence," according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
-From 2002 to 2008, out of 90 excessive force complaints, specifically denoting improper "weapon, use/display of," all but eight were dismissed, with only five noting the violation. In this time period, a paralyzed man, Cornelius Ware, was shot and killed by Officer Anthony Blake, whose record denoted a weapon complaint as "unfounded." The City of Chicago later awarded Ware's family a settlement of $5.25 million.
