New FOP President: Racism Not an Issue

BY CURTIS BLACK

Racism is not an issue in the Chicago Police Department, according to newly-elected FOP president Kevin Graham, and he doesn’t “know of any code of silence.”

In a wide-ranging podcast interview with The Daily Line, Graham rejected the charge of a coverup by rank-and-file officers in the Laquan McDonald shooting and defended contract provisions which were characterized as problematic by the mayor’s Police Accountability Task Force and the Justice Departmentinvestigation of CPD.

The union needs to do a better job communicating with the public and with aldermen, he said. Citing his years of experience as a cop in Uptown, Graham said more officers are needed to walk regular beats and establish better relationships with residents.

Also last week, Graham’s comments seemed to align with criticism by the ACLU of police supervisors apparently setting illegal quotas for street stops. He called “legally questionable” and “poor policy” a memo by a lieutenant in the Jefferson Park district that referred to “the agreed upon ‘one good stop’” per workday. Earlier this month the civil liberties group said a South Side commander’s memo calling on officers to make “ten documented traffic stops” during special “missions” may violate a state law barring departments from requiring officers to issue a specific number of citations.

Burge special prosecutor challenged

Civil rights lawyers criticized a Cook County judge for appointing a former assistant state’s attorney as special prosecutor in cases tied to disgraced former Cmdr. Jon Burge. Attorneys from the People’s Law Office called onJudge Thomas Byrne to rescind his appointment of Robert Milan to replace special prosecutor Stuart Nuddleman in cases where new trials are sought based on allegations of torture.

Milan was a top aide to Richard Devine, who was state’s attorney while many Burge cases were initially prosecuted. Former Criminal Division Presiding Judge Paul Biebel ruled in 2002 that Devine and all his prosecutors had a conflict of interest in any Burge case.

The Chicago Sun-Times editorial board backed the call for a different appointment.

Glenn Evans’ lawsuit against IPRA dismissed

A federal lawsuit by controversial Lt. Glenn Evans charging retaliation by theIndependent Police Review Authority was dismissed last week when U.S. District Judge Manish Shah found Evans’ allegation was “not credible.” Evans had alleged that an IPRA investigator — a former CPD employee whom Evans had charged with insubordination 15 years earlier — leaked DNA results that found a suspect’s DNA on Evans’ gun. Evans was acquitted in 2015 on criminal charges that he shoved his gun down Rickey Williams’ throat and pressed a Taser to his groin during questioning. WBEZ and a reporter who revealed the DNA results were previously dropped from Evans’ lawsuit.

Evans’ lawsuit charged that after he complained about the alleged leak, IPRA reopened an investigation into a complaint that Evans broke another suspect’s nose while forcing her to be fingerprinted in 2011. Shah pointed out that there was no criminal prosecution in that case. IPRA recommended firing Evans in 2016, but the recommendation came after the statute of limitations had passed.

Evans’ attorney held open the possibility of filing a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court.

Evans served as tactical lieutenant when Supt. Eddie Johnson was commander of the 6th District in 2011; was promoted to commander the next year by then-Supt. Garry McCarthy (who called him “the favorite among my favorites”); was suspended in 2014 after being charged in the Williams case; and was reinstated as lieutenant last May. He was named in at least 50 civilian complaints since 2001 and was the subject of several lawsuits, some involving payouts totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars.

CPD watch list

Supt. Eddie Johnson has referred to “1,400 individuals that drive this gun violence in this city,” saying CPD was keeping tabs on them. But the department’s Strategic Subject List is “far broader and more extensive,”including more than 398,000 names, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. “Nearly half the people at the top of the list have never been arrested for illegal gun possession,” and 20 of those deemed most at risk to be involved in a violent crime “have never been arrested either for guns or violence,” according to the report.

The ACLU urged greater transparency around the algorithm used to create the database, a call joined by Yale sociologist Andrew Papachristos, whose work “inspired” the list, according to the report. Papachristos “now distances himself from the way the police are using the Strategic Subject List in Chicago,” the Sun-Times reports.

Stephanie Kollman of Northwestern’s Children and Justice Family Center digs into the numbers ­– of 700,000 males between ages 15 and 49 in Chicago, over 200,000 are on the list — and asks how the list is used, how its accuracy is assured, and with whom is it shared. She notes that the list is “often used in service of blame-shifting, get-tough rhetoric” by politicians who reduce social services and advocate increased incarceration. Public funds should be used “to build up the people of Chicago, not the systems that surveil them,” she writes.

Escalating the war on drugs

Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a directive overriding a 2013 memo that sought to limit the use of mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenders, directing federal prosecutors to seek “the most serious” charges available — a reversal for bipartisan efforts to reduce incarceration levels. At the same time, the Trump administration is proposing cutting funding by 95 percent for the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the agency that directs drug prevention efforts.

A Texas case

A Texas jury last week rejected charges by the state bar association that a former prosecutor made false statements, concealed evidence and obstructed justice in a 1992 death penalty trial. Maurice Possley reports at the Marshall Project on a story he began covering years ago for the Chicago Tribune — in which the case against a father convicted of arson and murder in the death of his three daughters fell apart after his execution.

Kalven wins Watchdog Award

Jamie Kalven last week won the Chicago Headline Club’s Watchdog Awardfor the second year in a row. The local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists recognized Kalven for “The Code of Silence,” a four-part series in the Intercept.

Vol. 2, Issue 42: Chicago’s Criminal Justice Playbook