A fascinating exchange over the Laquan McDonald cover-up

Last week, a panel sponsored by the Better Government Association tackled the legacy of the police shooting of Laquan McDonald, a national watershed moment that has spurred reform and a continuing and contentious debate over the future of policing.

I wrote a bit about the panel and questions raised about the U.S. Justice Department here — particularly by Jamie Kalven’s series on two sidelined whistleblowers — but one exchange at the BGA panel deserves a little more light.

It came between the head of CPD’s police oversight board, Lori Lightfoot, and Andy Shaw, the BGA CEO and president who moderated the forum. To me, this is a striking exchange, especially because Lightfoot is a former assistant U.S. attorney general and has been involved with the McDonald investigation and reform efforts since their inception.

This came one hour and 15 minutes into the forum, and I’ve transcribed from a personal recording as faithfully as possible.

ANDY SHAW: It’s been suggested to me by people who are former prosecutors that the missing piece in the investigatory process is City Hall. The fact that whatever was done or not done by way of dissembling and disinformation had to be known by approved by perhaps the mayor, his corporation counsel people all around him and why is no one investigating them?

LORI LIGHTFOOT: Well, let me weigh in on that.

And I won’t make any specific comments about what is or what isn’t happening on the grand jury investigation with respect to the officers because the case is in front of the … court. But I’ll say this about that.

IPRA went out the night of the shooting, it did its investigation, I think within 24 hours it had the video, realizing this was a serious problem it also obviously had the police report which were seemingly inconsistent with the video. It did what it normally does with police-involved shootings, it sent the case to the state’s attorney’s office, the state’s attorney’s office made the decision to put the case with the U.S. attorney’s office.

By early December 2014, that case was with the U.S. attorney’s office, and the FBI, and then nothing happened. So frankly one of the questions you have to ask yourself is what happened with the U.S. attorney’s office? Why is it that now two years later nothing’s happened? Now I think the truth is we can all include and there are many former prosecutors here in the room, we know what happened. Which is that case got closed. The special grand jury and special prosecutor that is Judge Holmes, is conducting her investigation, that’s going to be whatever it’s going to be, but it’s there because the U.S. attorney’s office frankly didn’t do its job.

SHAW: Why do you suppose that is Lori? You’ve been in that office and …

LIGHTFOOT: I think that’s a question you’re going to have to ask my friend and former colleague Zach Fardon, because I think he’s the only one who has that answer.

SHAW: The conventional wisdom is everyone who went before the grand jury plead the Fifth and so there was no one to corroborate a falsified story.

LIGHTFOOT: Well, I think there are many of us who think we could of made that case if we had the power and the subpoena power of the grand jury. Let me shift gears to talk for a moment briefly about the code of silence because I think it’s important to put this in some context. When we talk about the code of silence in the police department we talk about it as something that is insidious and something that can easily be solved. The second part bears a little more reflection.

All of us, all of us, in every institution we’ve ever been in to elementary school to where we are right now, we’ve probably all engaged in some form of the code of silence. We are taught it’s part of our culture, our larger culture, that you don’t want to be the one to stick your neck out, you don’t want to be the whistleblower, you don’t want to be the kid who reports on one of your colleagues to your teacher that Sally isn’t doing what she needs to be doing in the classroom. That kind of reporting is not supported.

It’s no different in some regards to the police department. The other context you have to think about is the minute an officer walks into the academy they are told a couple of things: your partner is the most important relationship in your life. This is the person who is going to save you, who is going to have your back out on the street … what do you think your temptation is given that cultural … are you going to be the person who stands up and reports your partner when you see your partner going too far? Or when you see your partner is it enough for a pass because of something going on in his or her personal life? To the other point that Jamie made, and the second thing you learn in the academy, is you’re a para-military organization and you have to respect the chain of command.

So when your supervisor comes to you and tells you, ‘here’s what we will right, here’s what you will sign off on,’ what are you going to do when you’re a PO that just got on the job and you’re hoping to make a career for the rest of your life?