Progress Illinois

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Gettleman was not a happy camper in court this morning. In a brief hearing, Gettleman reamed Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis -- and, by extension, the Daley administration -- for initially refusing a court order to hand over a list of officers with five or more citizen complaints filed against them since 2000.

With Weis before him, Gettleman asserted that the city’s intransigence “flies in the face of everything this court stands for” and sends the wrong message to citizens as well as the officers who look to the police chief for leadership. Before pondering aloud why this hearing had to take place at all, Gettleman quoted U.S. Appellate Judge Ann Williams, who said during the Robert Sorich trial that “Robin Hood may have been a noble criminal, but he’s still a criminal.”

Gettleman also emphasized that the court was not ruling for wholesale disclosure. As we highlighted last week, the judge only asked the city to disclose the list to the plaintiff’s counsel under protective order, something the city has agreed to in countless other civil rights case. After Gettleman held Weis in contempt of court, the police chief handed over the list late Friday.

Ald. Ed Smith (28th Ward), a vocal critic of Weis’ conduct, said he was surprised the police chief took the position he did, arguing that it sends the wrong message to the community. The plaintiff in the underlying case, Donna Moore, was equally frustrated: “It’s my expectation that [Weis’] paramount responsibility is to the millions of citizens of Chicago, not 1,000 so-called repeat offenders.”

Speaking to reporters following the hearing, Weis offered a weak justification for his actions, calling it “one of the most difficult decisions” he’s made in his life and apologizing for offending Gettleman. He said that while he has total confidence in the court’s ability to protect the listed officers’ identities, he is concerned that lawyers or third-parties may seek the release of the document at a later juncture.

Weis is right to believe that such a sequence of events could occur. After a separate lawsuit involving police misconduct was settled by the city several years ago (Bond v. Utreras), local journalist Jamie Kalven -- along with 28 aldermen -- intervened seeking the release of a list that had surfaced in the case including those officers with 10 or more citizen complaints. A federal judge granted their motion, but the city appealed and the matter is currently being considered by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Referring to the prospect of these “repeat offender” lists ultimately being made public, Weis rolled out the same, tired rationale he and Daley have repeatedly used to justify their secrecy: In a job that often calls for split-second aggresive action, officers can’t be worried about whether their name will later be dragged through the mud.

But as Bond lead attorney Craig Futterman explained to the Community Media Workshop’s Curtis Black in 2007, it’s crucial that this information be made available to lawmakers and government watchdogs:

The documents show “an utterly broken system,” Futterman said. While only 5 percent of officers have over ten complaints (85 percent had between zero and three over five years), the department does little or nothing to track rogue officers, and they are extremely unlikely to be punished for misconduct, he said. Out of over 10,000 complaints filed between 2002 and 2004, only 18 officers received “meaningful discipline,” he said.

Only 89 of the 662 officers with ten or more complaints were flagged for monitoring or supervision, and there were officers with over 50 complaints who hadn’t been identified by the department’s early warning system, he said.

In short: It’s hard to fix a "broken system" if you can’t get a close look at its past failures.

Full Disclosure: Jamie Kalven is the father of Progress Illinois editor Josh Kalven.