Progress Illinois

Some call it grandstanding. Others point to pre-election politicking. Whatever is behind the latest push to get state officials to reconsider the moratorium on the death penalty, it's short-sighted, says Jane Bohman, director of the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

The state's House Judiciary Committee took up the topic of repealing the moratorium at a hearing in Chicago last week that seemed to come out of left field. For eight years, lawmakers have been studying flaws in our criminal justice system that, in recent years, sentenced 18 innocent people to death. Next year, a legislative panel, will release their findings through the Capital Punishment Reform Study. Until then, Blagojevich has vowed to keep the moratorium in place.

So why the public pressure to repeal it now?

Enter Rep. Dennis Reboletti, of Elmhurst.

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Rep. Mark Kirk got a special visit from Republican heavyweight Rudy Giuliani on Friday, who stormed through Winnetka to meet with local police officers and headline a fundraiser:

"We've got three hours with him," Kirk said as he headed out the door behind the man he described as "the voice of America's law enforcement" following a brief public appearance at Waukegan Regional Airport.

The "voice of America's law enforcement"? Tell that to the firefighters who lost their lives on September 11th because Giuliani wasn't able or interested in resolving the communication problems between the city's police and firefighters. Or tell that to "thousands of cash-strapped cops, firemen and city workers involved with the cleanup at the World Trade Center," who, as Matt Taibbi writes, "were developing cancers and infections and mysterious respiratory ailments like the 'WTC cough.' "

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It goes without saying that many Chicagoans -- particulary from low-income brackets -- are distrustful of a city police force that repeatedly abused citizens over the past few decades with little repercussion. The most notorious example is the widespread torture of suspects under Commander Jon Burge (pictured right). In a well-reported article published on AlterNet today, Chicago-based journalist Jessica Pupovac shines a light on the two dozen men still behind bars for crimes to which they confessed only after hours of abuse by Burge-led officers:

[Michael] Tillman is one of at least 24 African-American men that the People's Law Office in Chicago claims are still serving sentences for crimes they say they confessed to only after enduring hours of torture at the hands of Chicago police officers under Commander Jon Burge between 1972 and 1992. Although 10 of Burge's victims have been pardoned or given new trials after their illegally obtained confessions were exposed, the vast majority of the 100-plus cases have yet to be reviewed by the state of Illinois. Those men have either served out their sentences, died in custody or, like Tillman, continue to live their lives behind bars, hoping that one day they will have a fair trial.

And what about the officers who elicited the false confessions? Were they brought to justice for their abuses? Not really, says Pupovac:

Nevertheless, almost 20 years later, not a single police officer has been made to face charges in the massive scandal. They were all let off the hook, first by a succession of judges and legal professionals who looked the other way, and later by a statute of limitations that expired before the Illinois state attorney considered filing charges. According to Taylor, there is no state or federal law criminalizing torture by law enforcement officers. While possible offenses for torture can include attempted murder, aggravated battery, battery, assault, assault with a dangerous weapon or hate crimes, the statute on these crimes is generally five years for federal prosecution and three years in the state of Illinois.

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During his marathon session before a City Council committee yesterday, Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis suggested that many of his officers were not doing their jobs properly in part because of intimidation:

"I have heard from many officers that there is a degree of timidness -- that people are not maybe as engaged as they should be because of fears of lawsuits, fears of [complaints registered] being put against them by criminals and by other folks who are just trying to impugn their integrity," the superintendent said.

Mayor Richard Daley came to Weis' defense today, unleashing a nasty rant directed at local media for sensationalizing poor police conduct. Here's an excerpt:

“Remember how long you kept beating the police? That affects them. They’re human beings. They can’t take it." [...]

“This is a very difficult, challenging job and they’re always afraid of beefs because, once they get a beef, you [reporters] write about it. [You say], ‘He has 25 C.R. numbers [complaints registered], all unfounded.’ You say, ‘Why? This fella must be a problem’. And you find out most of them are gangbangers and dope dealers [who] filed charges. And they didn't show up in court or adminstrative hearings. [Yet] you write about it….You beat em up pretty good. Now, you want to be their friend.”

But while Daley's remarks suggest that reporters have ready access to the "C.R. numbers," this isn't the case at all. In fact, the only way the press or citizens can gain access to a specific officer's record of complaints is if a case works its way through the criminal courts and this information is offered as evidence. That is the entire point of the effort by 29 aldermen to gain access to a list of 662 officers with over 10 citizen complaints, which the city is fighting to keep private.

So Daley appears to be railing against a level of transparency that doesn't actually exist.

But that's not to say it shouldn't exist. Indeed, this ongoing lack of oversight sends an awful signal to Chicago citizens that the CPD and other leading city officials don't have their backs, particularly after years of neglecting to address the humans rights abuses taking place right under their noses.

UPDATE: WBEZ has the audio of Daley's press conference. 

Today, Amnesty International used Chicago's standing as a possible host for the 2016 Summer Olympics to shine a light on the city’s “flawed approach” to probing incidents of police brutality. The Sun-Times' Fran Spielman has the details:

At a news conference outside the mayor’s office, civil rights activists reiterated arguments they made last summer, when the City Council approved Daley’s plan to sever the Office of Professional Standards from the Police Department.

They argued that the landmark ordinance is undermined by a union contract tailor-made to protect rogue officers.

The contract bars the agency now known as the Independent Police Review Authority from investigating anonymous complaints about “anything short of criminal conduct”—even though many victims “fear retaliation” from police—and limits the use of past complaints needed to establish a “pattern of conduct, said Wendy Park, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union.

“These … contract provisions and others tie IPRA’s hands … which may allow officers to escape discipline in many cases. We demand that the city drop these provisions from the next FOP contract, currently under negotiation,” Park said.

The activists highlighted several individual cases of brutality and Mayor Daley responded by "highlighting the changes he has already made to restore public confidence in investigations of police wrongdoing," including: "the appointments of career FBI agent Jody Weis as police superintendent and Los Angeles attorney Ilana Rosenzweig to head an OPS [Office of Professional Standards] that now has subpoena power and a six-month deadline to complete investigations."

Of course, despite these reforms, the city still refuses to make public the list of 662 police officers who amassed more than 10 citizen complaints between May 2001 and May 2006. A group of 27 aldermen requested that the list be furnished to them last year, but were rebuffed by the city's corporation counsel. A lengthy court battle has ensued.

As Ald. Toni Preckwinkle wrote in a Progress Illinois column on the matter back in April: "The reestablishment of trust will come only after the department accepts its responsibilities and begins to discipline, rather than shelter, officers who abuse the citizens they are sworn to protect."