Chicago Mayor Wants New Oversight Agency for Troubled Police Department
Aamer Madhani, USA TODAY
9:09 p.m. EDT May 13, 2016
CHICAGO — Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Friday announced plans for a major overhaul of how oversight of the troubled Chicago Police Department should be conducted.
Emanuel wrote the broad outlines of his proposal in an op-ed piece in the Chicago Sun-Times, touting his plan as one that will “fundamentally reshape our system of police accountability”
The most significant change in his proposal is scrapping the controversial Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA), which is tasked with investigating police-involved shootings and allegations of major police conduct, and replacing it with a new civilian agency.
IPRA has conducted more than 400 investigations of police-involved shootings since 2008, but only found wrongdoing in two instances. Chicago’s city council created IPRA in 2007 over earlier controversies about how allegations of police misconduct were being investigated by the Office of Professional Standards, an agency within the police department that had been in charge of reviewing major misconduct complaints.
“It is clear that a totally new agency is required to rebuild trust in investigations of officer-involved shootings and the most serious allegations of police misconduct,” Emanuel writes.
The mayor did not offer details about how the new proposed civilian authority would differ from IPRA, but said the framework for his proposal reflected the task force’s recommendations.
Emanuel announced his decision as he faces stiff political headwinds more than five months after the court-ordered release of a video showing a white police officer pumping 16 shots into a black teen, Laquan McDonald, touched off weeks of protests in the city.
The angry backlash from the release of the video led to Emanuel firing his police superintendent Garry McCarthy and played big role in Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez losing her March primary.
The officer, Jason Van Dyke, was charged with first degree murder on the same day as the video’s release — 400 days after the incident. The Justice Department also launched a civil rights investigation of the police department’s practices in the aftermath of the video’s release.
The political pressure has not subsided for Emanuel. Sixty-two percent of Chicagoans disapprove of Emanuel’s job performance, while 25% approved, according a Kaiser Family Foundation/New York Times poll published last week.
Emanuel appointed a task force on policing soon after the video’s release. That task force last month issued more than 100 recommendations that it said the department needed to take to help win back the public trust. The mayor’s handpicked task force also concluded that the city’s police department is beset my systemic racism.
Soon after the task force issued its report, the mayor say he would move to immediately implement about a third of the recommendations, but did not immediately embrace the task force’s call most significant recommendations on overhauling oversight of the police department.
Emanuel also announced that he was backing the task force’s recommendations to appoint an inspector general to monitor policing and create a community safety oversight board – comprised of Chicago city residents – that will be charged with overseeing the city’s entire policy accountability system.
The mayor said his proposal will be formally introduced to the city council on June 22.
Follow USA TODAY Chicago correspondent Aamer Madhani on Twitter: @AamerISmad
9:09 p.m. EDT May 13, 2016
CHICAGO — Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Friday announced plans for a major overhaul of how oversight of the troubled Chicago Police Department should be conducted.
Emanuel wrote the broad outlines of his proposal in an op-ed piece in the Chicago Sun-Times, touting his plan as one that will “fundamentally reshape our system of police accountability”
The most significant change in his proposal is scrapping the controversial Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA), which is tasked with investigating police-involved shootings and allegations of major police conduct, and replacing it with a new civilian agency.
IPRA has conducted more than 400 investigations of police-involved shootings since 2008, but only found wrongdoing in two instances. Chicago’s city council created IPRA in 2007 over earlier controversies about how allegations of police misconduct were being investigated by the Office of Professional Standards, an agency within the police department that had been in charge of reviewing major misconduct complaints.
“It is clear that a totally new agency is required to rebuild trust in investigations of officer-involved shootings and the most serious allegations of police misconduct,” Emanuel writes.
The mayor did not offer details about how the new proposed civilian authority would differ from IPRA, but said the framework for his proposal reflected the task force’s recommendations.
Emanuel announced his decision as he faces stiff political headwinds more than five months after the court-ordered release of a video showing a white police officer pumping 16 shots into a black teen, Laquan McDonald, touched off weeks of protests in the city.
The angry backlash from the release of the video led to Emanuel firing his police superintendent Garry McCarthy and played big role in Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez losing her March primary.
The officer, Jason Van Dyke, was charged with first degree murder on the same day as the video’s release — 400 days after the incident. The Justice Department also launched a civil rights investigation of the police department’s practices in the aftermath of the video’s release.
The political pressure has not subsided for Emanuel. Sixty-two percent of Chicagoans disapprove of Emanuel’s job performance, while 25% approved, according a Kaiser Family Foundation/New York Times poll published last week.
Emanuel appointed a task force on policing soon after the video’s release. That task force last month issued more than 100 recommendations that it said the department needed to take to help win back the public trust. The mayor’s handpicked task force also concluded that the city’s police department is beset my systemic racism.
Soon after the task force issued its report, the mayor say he would move to immediately implement about a third of the recommendations, but did not immediately embrace the task force’s call most significant recommendations on overhauling oversight of the police department.
Emanuel also announced that he was backing the task force’s recommendations to appoint an inspector general to monitor policing and create a community safety oversight board – comprised of Chicago city residents – that will be charged with overseeing the city’s entire policy accountability system.
The mayor said his proposal will be formally introduced to the city council on June 22.
Follow USA TODAY Chicago correspondent Aamer Madhani on Twitter: @AamerISmad
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