[Peace-discuss] Chicago police -- holding out until the lawsuits stop?

[Stuart Levy]

At yesterday's AWARE meeting I mentioned hearing, on NPR station WBEZ in Chicago,
a report that (a) the Chicago murder rate is up this year and (b) that may be
because (some?) Chicago police are unwilling to risk being sued/charged for
misconduct as a few have been recently.  (Also, "juries in 2008 are different,
they are much less inclined to just believe the police version of events.")
Therefore, the suggestion is, police are taking it easy on law enforcement,
declining to apprehend people that they would have pursued in the past.

One police officer is quoted ("a grim assessment") as saying that they would
just let the bodies pile up until there was enough pressure from the public,
and from the police officials, to let the police do their work
undisturbed by misconduct lawsuits.

Several appalling things about this, including the reporter's lack of
criticism in a couple of directions: 
  - of the police (if there's truth to this theory), and
  - of the theory itself.   When trying to find this story, I ran into
    various articles online about large-city murder rates, which are
    up in other cities as well.  So it could be happening for reasons other
    than this kind of hold-the-city-hostage behavior.

Here's the source:

    http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Content.aspx?audioID=26287

    We're now halfway through the year and the homicide rate is up more
    than 10 percent compared to last year. A police source says the
    unofficial tally is around 230 murders in 2008 compared to just over
    200 by this date last year. There are many theories as to what’s
    causing the rise. Chicago Public Radio’s criminal justice reporter
    Robert Wildeboer shares one of them—a theory that’s held by some
    of the officers themselves.

For the audio of the story (~6 min), follow the above page's
"Download" link to MP3 audio:
    http://audio.wbez.org/848/2008/07/848_20080702a.mp3


Also, a blogger (apparently a lawyer), outraged at hearing the same story, wrote about it:

   http://chicagocrimelaw.wordpress.com/2008/07/02/police-misconduct-and-the-increased-homicide-rate/