Federal probe finds pattern of abuse by Chicago Police
January 13, 2017
Chicago police routinely violated the civil rights of people, the US justice department says in a report.
The report released by US Department of Justice confirms that that Chicago police disproportionately target blacks and Hispanics. [Jim Young/Reuters]
The Chicago Police department shows a pattern of using excessive force and civil rights violations, according to the year-long report released by the US Department of Justice.
The investigation found that the police department violated the constitutional rights of residents for years, permitting racial bias against blacks and killing people who did not pose a threat.
The use of unreasonable force “falls heaviest on predominantly black and Latino neighbourhoods,” the justice department said in a statement accompanying the release of a 164-page report.
Also, officers often maintained a “code of silence” to thwart investigations into misconduct.
The investigation was spurred by a dashcam video showing an officer shooting Laquan McDonald 16 times as he was running away. A video that authorities waited more than a year to make public, sparking a wave of anger.
“The failures we identified in our findings have deeply eroded community trust,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Civil Rights Division.
Chicago police officers shot people who did not pose an immediate threat and used stun guns on people for no other reason than they did not obey the officers’ verbal commands, Gupta said in a press conference on Friday.
