Chicago police show ‘pattern of excessive force’ against city residents, finds Justice Department review
‘Society has fallen short’ of protecting citizens, attorney general Loretta Lynch said
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Your support makes all the difference.The Chicago police department showed a “pattern of excessive force” against residents, according to a 13-month-long review from the Department of Justice.
Attorney general Loretta Lynch announced that “society has fallen short” in its protection of its citizens.
Residents did not trust the police, while officers are “disillusioned, discouraged” and improperly trained.
The report comes two years after the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald, a black teenager whose death sparked the Black Lives Matter movement and a national discussion about police violence.
“[…] there is is reasonable cause to believe that Chicago is engaged in a pattern of excessive force,” said Ms Lynch.
“We found that this pattern is in no small part due to lack of training and accountability systems,” she added.
The report found the police failed to properly collect and analyse data, including data on misconduct complaints – and all of those issues are “compounded by issues of oversight”, she said.
“The department found that CPD officers’ practises unnecessarily endanger themselves and result in unnecessary and avoidable uses of force,” it read.
“The pattern or practise results from systemic deficiencies in training and accountability, including the failure to train officers in de-escalation and the failure to conduct meaningful investigations of uses of force.”
“[We found that police are] shooting people who present no immediate threat and taser people who do not follow verbal threats,” said Vanita Gupta, leader of the Justice Department’s civil rights division.
The damning report, which involved surveying officers on the job, interviewing officers and citizens, urged the need for serious reform.
De-escalation training, body cameras and new policies on the release of police footage has also been recommended by the DoJ.
Chicago city has signed an agreement in principle to work with the department to carry out these reforms.
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