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

[Stuart Levy]

On Mon, Jul 07, 2008 at 11:21:25AM -0500, John W. wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 11:02 AM, Stuart Levy <slevy at ncsa.uiuc.edu> wrote:
> 
> 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.
> 
> 
> It seems to me to be a very tenuous correlation at best.  Police generally
> don't PREVENT murders.  They generally solve them, or try to solve them,
> after they've already occurred.
> 
> About the only argument I can think of is an indirect one:  If police are
> taking fewer potential murderers off the streets on other pretexts (such as
> gang members for selling drugs, etc.), then that could conceivably account
> for the (relatively slight) increase in the murder rate.

Yes, if you listen to the report that's the kind of mechanism they seem to suggest.
In particular, they mention removing guns from the street.

No matter how you read this, it's ugly:

   - If (some) police are actually holding the city hostage (whether it's having
	a measurable effect on murder rates or not), it's dereliction of duty.

   - If they're just using an unrelated rise in murders to try to
	stop scrutiny of police misbehavior, it amounts to
	extortion on a grand scale by whoever is promoting this story.

   - Police who aren't involved in either of the above should be furious.