At Issue: Emanuel Backs Off Consent Decree
BY CURTIS BLACK
“Woefully inadequate” — that’s how the former Justice Department official who oversaw the investigation of the Chicago Police Department described Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to seek a memorandum of understanding with the federal government.
Emanuel “backed off” the commitment he made before Donald Trump became president to enter a court-supervised consent decree, the Chicago Tribunereported.
Under the proposed agreement — details of which have not been made public — the city and the Department of Justice would appoint an independent monitor to oversee reform of CPD, but the arrangement would not include oversight by a federal judge.
“A memorandum of agreement is going to become yet another set of recommendations for the Chicago Police Department that are [not] going to have any teeth,” Vanita Gupta, former head of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, told the Tribune.
It’s a “handshake” deal, according to Jonathan Smith of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, who previously oversaw Justice Department investigations of police departments. “They are going to rely on the City of Chicago’s good faith,” he told the Tribune, adding, “That is a disaster, under the circumstances.”
The Chicago Sun-Times reported that the agreement would include an enforcement mechanism, a legally binding agreement that would allow the Justice Department to take the city to court for noncompliance. But Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has expressed a strong aversion to federal oversight of local agencies.
A mayoral spokesperson refused to answer questions about details of the agreement, according to the Tribune.
A better approach would involve a court-supervised consent decree with community groups representing CPD victims, said Craig Futterman of the Mandel Legal Clinic at the University of Chicago. The administration’s proposal “creates the veneer of, ‘Look we are doing something,’” but in reality it’s “part of a strategy to avoid doing something real,” he told the Tribune.
Cincinnati and Washington D.C.
“A memorandum of agreement with an independent monitor and transparent, public reporting is a structure that has been used to drive police reform in Washington D.C. and Cincinnati, and we believe it is a tool that can be used with success in Chicago as well,” mayoral spokesperson Adam Collins told the Tribune.
In fact, in Cincinnati a private legal settlement between the police department and community groups was implemented alongside DOJ’s memorandum of agreement — which meant that organizations including the ACLU and Black United Front, along with the local Fraternal Order of Police, were involved with policy decisions in the reform process.
And it was a federal judge who joined the Justice Department and community lawsuits — and forced the parties to hash out a joint agreement, said police reform expert Sam Walker, professor emeritus at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The judge played a crucial role in forcing the Cincinnati police department into compliance after it refused to turn data over to an independent monitor and barred a member of the monitoring team from police headquarters, Walker told View from the Ground. (At one point Judge Susan Dlott threatened Cincinnati’s police chief with contempt of court, which would have meant jail time.)
The Washington agreement shows the crucial role of local leadership, Walker said. It was initiated by then-Police Chief Charles Ramsay, a strong proponent of reform, who requested a Justice Department investigation into police use of deadly force. Ramsay, a former Chicago police official, subsequently chaired President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing.
Walker said he has serious doubts about whether Chicago’s leadership is equally committed to reform. He said it appears that Emanuel “is trying to get through this with the appearance of reform but without the necessary action.”
“We have a long, long history of blue-ribbon commissions that make recommendations, and that mayors and police commissions pay lip service to,” he said. “Our library shelves groan with them.” What was different about the Obama administration’s police reform program was the specificity of reforms that were required and strong enforcement mechanisms, he said.
On Monday, Emanuel maintained a memorandum of agreement “allows us to achieve the same goal” as a court-supervised consent decree, and denied he was backing away from his earlier commitment.
Police Board President Lori Lightfoot said such an agreement “is the next best thing,” given Sessions’s opposition to consent decrees. But she said the agreement needs to involve strict deadlines, specific commitments of resources, and a process for resolving impasses that may include arbitration.
She added that there are “many stakeholders” in the process, and “the mayor has to engage those stakeholders in order for any agreement to have any legitimacy whatsoever.”
Van Dyke case
The deputy chief and the detective who cleared Jason Van Dyke of wrongdoing following the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald will testify in a preliminary hearing on Van Dyke’s murder charge later this month.
Deputy Chief David McNaughton retired and Detective David Marchresigned after the city’s inspector general called for their firing over their role in the investigation of the shooting.
Judge Vincent Gaughan said he wants to hear about their conversations with Van Dyke before ruling on whether Van Dyke’s statements to them can be used in special prosecutor Joseph McMahon’s investigation of the case.
Gaughan also ruled that McMahon could have access for investigatory purposes to statements by five officers who were on the scene when McDonald was killed.
Last month Gaughan ruled against motions by Van Dyke’s attorneys to dismiss first degree murder charges against the officer.
IG on police contracts
A review of a range of upcoming city contract negotiations by Inspector General Joe Ferguson cited changes to police disciplinary provisionsrecommended by the Justice Department and the mayor’s Police Accountability Task Force, noting that “an ineffective disciplinary system can play a role in increasing municipal exposure to civil liability.” He called on the city and unions to work collaboratively to ensure that disciplinary systems “foster public trust and confidence, while both treating employees fairly and providing the city with effective tools to maintain a disciplined workforce.”
Fraternal Order of Police President Kevin Graham responded, “The evidence grows on a monthly basis that fraudulent claims are made regularlyagainst Chicago police officers.”
Ferguson also called for the city to enforce provisions allowing it to restrict secondary employment. An investigation by the Chicago Reporter earlier this year found that CPD has the weakest oversight of secondary employment of any major police department, and that the city pays for that in lawsuits over misconduct by moonlighting cops.
Torture center opens
The Chicago Torture Justice Center opened at 63rd and Lowe on May 26, offering mental health and case management services to survivors of police torture and other community members affected by police violence. It’s part of the $5.5 million reparations ordinance passed by the City Council two years ago.
Judge Cannon recuses herself
Days after blasting defense lawyers for repeatedly seeking her removal from a murder case, Cook County Judge Diane Cannon recused herself “for ethical reasons” in the trial of Malvin Washington. Cannon presided over Washington’s 2004 trial. His conviction was overturned and a new trial ordered in 2010.
Vol. 2, Issue 44: Chicago’s Criminal Justice Playbook
