At Issue: City lawyers and the code of silence

The city routinely resists turning over police complaint records and other evidence in civil rights lawsuits, according to an investigation by the Chicago Tribune.

The report raises the possibility of conflicts between defending individual officers and serving the public good and taxpayers’ interests — and whether the city’s law department is upholding a police code of silence by fighting to keep public information secret.

Resistance to turning over documents is stronger in cases involving charges of wrongful convictions and serious excessive force, according to the report. Thecity routinely resists releasing officers’ complaint records, a practice which corporation counsel Steven Patton defended.

The city has “resisted turning over the most basic documents,” sometimes resulting in years-long legal skirmishes. In a number of cases the city has faced judicial sanctions, sometimes costly. In the case of the 2011 shooting death of Darius Pinex, a judge overturned a jury verdict in the city’s favor after he found a city lawyer “intentionally concealed” relevant documents; the city then settled with Pinex’s family for over $2 million.

Meanwhile the Chicago Reporter has published a database of 655 police misconduct lawsuits filed between 2012 an 2015, along with an investigation finding the police department fails to analyze lawsuits — as department in other cities do — to identify issues that need to be addressed or officers who need correction.

Looking at the small number of cases where the city admitted to police misconduct, the Reporter found that of 151 officers who admitted wrongdoing, only nine were investigated by the Independent Police Review Authority — and of them, only one was found responsible for misconduct.

Diversity. White male officers are disproportionately favored in promotions within the Chicago Police Department — and “the higher theposition, the more likely it’s been…filled by a white man” — according to a Sun Times report.

A merit selection process based on supervisor recommendations intended to address the dearth of minorities in upper ranks has made some difference, but it’s also been used by politicians backing favorite officers and multigenerational police families backing a relative. And sometimes supervisors with histories of abuse have promoted officers with similar histories.

The Sun Times highlights the recent promotion of a former Special Operations Section officer to detective after he and other SOS cops were ordered to pay $96,000 in punitive damages for a false arrest; he was recommended by Chief of Detectives Dean Andrews, who resigned last December to avoid being fired in the cover-up of a killing by former Mayor Daley’s nephew.

Another officer who fatally shot quadriplegic in a 2003 traffic stop — subject of a court settlement in which the city paid $5.2 million — was promoted to detective in 2013 at the recommendation of then-Commander Glenn Evans, himself subject of numerous excessive force complaints and several legal settlements.

Meanwhile, the proportion of blacks on the force has “steadily declined” overthe past decade, according to the Sun Times.

The Washington Post recently surveyed national data and found that in cities with more representative police forces, fewer black civilians are killed by police.

In its April report, the mayor’s Police Accountability Task Force found that thedepartment has made some progress since the early 1970s, when 83 percent of officers were white and a federal judge found the department “knowingly discriminated” in hiring and promotion. But CPD “still has a ways to go to reflect the racial makeup of the city — and the department “has particular work to do when it comes to promotions,” the task force found.

The task force recommended that CPD “develop recruitment, selection and promotion strategies that increase diversity,” and that it follow the lead of most large companies and organizations and implement a diversity program overseen by a Deputy Chief of Diversity and Inclusion.

No bonfires. A bill requiring CPD to preserve police misconduct records passed the House Judiciary-Criminal Law Committee last month but wasn’t called for a vote in the full House. The Better Government expects an effort to get a vote on the bill in the General Assembly’s extended session.

The records are currently covered by an arbitrator’s ruling protecting them forthe duration of the investigation of CPD by the U.S. Department of Justice. TheFraternal Order of Police is appealing the ruling.

Dean Angelo, president of the Chicago lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police, spoke at the City Club last week, saying police officers today face unprecedented levels of disrespect, and calling for rebuilding impoverished communities which have high levels of violence.

He also spoke about current efforts to reform policing in Chicago. “Today everybody and their sister wants to implement changes in policy,” he said. “It’s dangerous to think those changes will be credible if they come from people who have never strapped a weapon on.”

His remarks came at a time when Angelo has been accused of “a complete lack of understanding” of the recommendations for reform issued by the mayor’s Police Accountability Task Force. That’s according to task force chair Lori Lightfoot, president of the Police Board, who was quoted by Politico saying, “Read the report, Dean — and get on board with reform.”

(The task force said the FOP contract has “essentially turned the code of silence into official policy.”)

Angelo sidestepped a question about the union’s role in the police accountability crisis, saying less than a half of 1 percent of police officers “tarnish the uniform.”

“Are we responsible for that behavior? That is that adult person’s choice to behave that way. Do we defend people when they get written up or disciplined? We do to an extent. But that is up to the department to recognize behavior that needs to be adjusted.”

He did seem to nod toward the existence of a code of silence among police when he said the union has reached out to the Department of Justice as it investigates the Chicago Police Department “to help facilitate meetings at our building so that the officers wouldn’t be ostracized if they were in the commander’s office for more than 15 minutes and everyone would [ask], what did you say? why were you in there so long?”

He was less clear when asked about contract provisions mandating the destruction of police misconduct records, saying that only unsustained allegations are required to be destroyed: “When something is proved it stays; when something is alleged it needs to go.” He added that “if [a complaint is] part of litigation it stays forever.” Neither assertion is true.

Angelo asked what relevance records going back several decades could have today. One function noted by the task force is as potential evidence for individuals challenging wrongful convictions.

Contracts and consent decrees. At In These Times, Adeshina Emmanuel recently reviewed 20 years of Department of Justice consent decrees mandating reform in police departments across the country, finding many cases where police union contracts “presented a roadblock to achieving key reforms required by the settlement.” Contract provisions have been used to block efforts to improve the handling of police misconduct, strengthen civilian oversight, or establish early-warning systems to identify problem officers, he reports.

In Portland, Oregon, the union sued to block changes to use-of-force rules and training, after DOJ found a pattern of excessive force by police dealing with people with mental illness.

In Newark, New Jersey (in a settlement reached after Newark’s police chief, Garry McCarthy, moved to Chicago), the local FOP welcomed the Justice Department and “helped feds unearth problems” — particularly unconstitutional stops of pedestrians, driven by quota-based department directives that the union had opposed. But the local also sued to block creation of a civilian oversight agency. (The national FOP opposes civilian review boards.)

Experts say real reform will require state and local legislators to take on powerful police unions and repeal so-called “Police Officer Bill of Rights” laws, Emmanuel reports.

Emmanuel has previously analyzed the Chicago FOP contract as well as state law providing extra legal protections to police officers accused on misconduct.

Guevara victims win reviews. Years after going to court to win review of their 2000 murder conviction, Gabriel Solache and Arturo DeLeon Reyes last week won a post-conviction hearing.

Theirs is one of at least eight cases identified by the Better Government Association last year in which prisoners have alleged they were framed for murder by Detective Reynaldo Guevara, who retired from the police force in 2005. Three murder convictions based on Guevara investigations have been overturned, and a fourth Guevara target was released after he won a new trial in 2009.

A decade ago, a Humboldt Park group found some 40 cases where Latino youth were investigated for murders by Guevara and convicted with no physical evidence linking them to the crimes — and with witnesses who reported being coerced and intimidated by Guevara. Attorneys familiar with the matter have said there may be many more.

The order for a new hearing for Solache and DeLeon Reyes came three years after Guevara took the Fifth Amendment when called to testify in their case.

The Emanuel administration has refused to release a report completed last year by outside lawyers who reviewed scores of cases in which Guevara was involved, reportedly finding that several likely resulted in wrongful convictions.

Mary Powers. Anyone who has attended or spoken at a Police Board hearing can thank Mary Powers, founder of Citizens Alert, who forced the board to hold open meetings in 1970. Powers, who died on June 25 at the age of 93, took up the cause of police reform after she toured the building where Black Panther leader Fred Hampton was killed in 1969.

The small but persistent group was for decades the foremost proponent of police accountability. A 1992 Chicago Reader profile of Powers says Citizens Alert was a major force in litigation disbanding the Chicago Red Squad and was later “the unquestioned leader in keeping the Burge case in the spotlight.” Powers was an early critic of the use of Tasers.

“A lot of ad hoc groups … spring up after a crisis and then break down,” said Fred Rice, police superintendent under Mayor Harold Washington, speaking of Powers’ group. “But these folks stay with it.”