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

[C. G. Estabrook]

After the Chicago police riot at he Democratic party convention 40 years ago, 
Mayor Daley I explained the matter succinctly:

"Gentlemen," he told his first press conference after the battle of Chicago, 
"get this thing straight for once and for all. The policeman isn't there to 
create disorder. The policeman is there to preserve disorder."

(A Chicago friend says that, given the local accent, the mayor may have said 
"...preserve THIS order.")  --CGE


E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
> Actually I am a bit skeptical that Police have all that much to do with 
> stopping murders.
> I would suppose that the Police actually get called to the scene after 
> the event, and that Police are
> actually doing very little to prevent murders since they would have no 
> way of knowing whether or
> not one is about to occur.  I think the Chicago Police is trying to pull 
> the wool over the people's eyes.
> On the other hand such a confession to a deliberate dereliction of duty 
> should lead to immediate dismissal of those
> so motivated as to "let the bodies pile up".
> 
> A 10% change could just be a chaotic fluctuation in the data or it might 
> be a reflection of the declining economy
> leading to an increase in urban misery showing up as  increased homicide 
> rate.
> 
> Stuart Levy 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.
>>
>> 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/ 
>>
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>>   
> 
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