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police officers, detectives, sergeants, lieutenants, etc., we regularly lectured on what it means to be credible. In a nut- shell; one cannot be credible on page one, lose that credi- bility on page two and then regain the credibility on page three. Once your credibility lost, it is lost. When you incor- porate your bias in a report, your report is biased.
What the Task Force failed at:
Not a single active, rank-and-file, real Chicago police offi- cer or detective - not even a sergeant, lieutenant or captain – was approached with an offer to participate with the lawyers, academics, community organizers, politicians or clergy. But the Task Force claimed no bias in its findings.
In retrospect, the bias put forward in the Task Force report and the false assertions of racism became the narra- tive. Any remaining legitimacy was overshadowed and buried deeply into the recessed pages behind baseless claims of racism against the entire CPD and every CPD Offi- cer.
Not a single mention of the 87,647 gun recoveries or the 37,408 UUW/Gun arrests or the 13,039 Assaults/Batteries committed against CPD Officers during the past eight years. The Task Force decided only to include the 402 police-involved shootings, and claimed no bias.
Not a single mention of the strategic deployment (and saturation) of personnel to areas of the city that are regularly inundated with shootings, narcotics, gangs and homicides; but the Task Force reported the CPD is absent of accountability and systematically discriminatory.
Release of Videos
Not a single mention that in 2015, 81.5 percent of all homicides, 74.9 percent of all gun arrests and 83.5 percent of all narcotics arrests occurred in communities that are reported to be at least 80-percent minority. But the Task Force claimed no bias.
The Task Farce, the Mayor’s Office, the City Council, the ACLU, the Better Government Association and several other groups that have never had anything to do with enforcing the law have the opinion that every police-related video must now be released for public consumption. The common thread behind this brainstorm appears to have something to do with their rampant attempt at being more transparent. We see this as another reactionary approach to “get ahead of the Department of Justice (DOJ),” which is the new tag line we have heard over and over in response to the policy changes that have been implemented as of late.
Finally (but not really, we could go on, but as mentioned earlier our space is limited), out of the 39 members of the Task Force, 30 were lawyers, some of which co-exist as aca- demics thus bringing the academic number to nine, three were politicians and three were ex-police. With all of these efforts, hours of interviews, attempts at research, data-col- lecting and less-than-accurate reporting, it only took the Chicago Police Accountability Task Force four months to conclude that the Department, and the women and men of the CPD are racist. Really?
Clearly, due to the infancy of similar attempts of this nature, there is nothing available for us to be able to exam- ine findings, studies or reported history about whether an approach of this nature offers measurable results on its intended impact (positive or negative) toward the commu- nity trust factor in relationship to the local police. Even without the necessary supportive data, City Hall, the Department and others have decided to buy into this trend with the reasoning that other jurisdictions are already doing so, but certainly not all.
Final words
We want to avoid being overwhelmingly pessimistic. If we paint the entire report with the same brush of unfettered bias, it equates us to those we took issue with. We have clearly identified the areas where we had concerns. We have carefully identified the specific areas where the report failed to fully examine the cited data. We have justified our position and supported it with hard and actual data, not with bias. Therefore we want to admit that there are aspects of the report we welcome.
Earlier this year, North Jersey Media Group, the ACLU of New Jersey and several other groups filed a Friend of the Court action to demonstrate that since all police records are required by law to be maintained, they then are considered to be public. The subsequent court fight was to gain access to reports and Dash Cam video. Although the release of these types of documents and videos are now something of a political motivation for some, a recent decision in New Jersey supported the principle that a criminal case should be tried in court and not in the media.
We welcome suggestion that the CPD needs more train- ing. We mentioned the need for more training when we first spoke about what the Department of Justice (DOJ) final rec- ommendations might include. We welcome the recognition that the CPD needs more supervisors. We discussed this need with DOJ representatives during our first meeting in Washington, D.C., and at a subsequent meeting at the Lodge. We welcome the recommendation that we need more, and better, equipment. Better equipment was also part of previous DOJ-related articles. We welcome the need to revamp the FTO program. During a meeting with the Task Force, we literally sketched out and discussed a new plan designed to expose recruits to several districts and sev- eral FTOs before completing probation.
The New Jersey Attorney General’s office reported that under the New Jersey Open Public Records Act standard, the court's ruling preserved and protected the integrity of judicial proceedings. It went on to share that law enforce- ment agencies must be able to conduct a thorough and effective investigation unhindered by the premature public release of investigative materials. This case is presently in front of the New Jersey Supreme Court and we will continue to follow and report on any and all movement.
Throughout a 22-year career in higher education, coupled with extensive experience instructing recruits,
As with everything else in play right now, we continue to keep all eyes on governmental movements within the City Council, Springfield and other jurisdictions, whether in Illi- nois or in other states. A common and traceable thread of every governmental arena is one that continues to
6 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ MAY 2016
Over-Legislating Tendencies