Illinois attorney general in end run around Trump sues for court oversight of Chicago PD
CHICAGO — Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday to force court-monitored oversight for Chicago's ongoing effort to overhaul its police force.
The move by the state’s attorney general to sue the city of Chicago —with Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s blessing—comes as U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has expressed resistance to pursuing such oversight – known as consent decrees – of the Chicago Police Department and other law enforcement agencies. He argues such efforts are detrimental to police forces.
“As the state attorney general, we are essentially stepping into the shoes of the Department of Justice – shoes that the DOJ has abandoned at this point,” Madigan said in a news conference to announce the lawsuit.
In the final days of the Obama administration, the Justice Department issued a scathing report that detailed deep troubles in the Chicago department. Along with the report, the Justice Department and the city also issued “a statement of agreement” to find remedies to improve policing and to repair the public's trust in the department.
Soon after being sworn into office earlier this year, Sessions said the Obama administration’s reliance on the court-ordered reforms had “undermined respect for police and made – often times – their job more difficult.”
During the Obama administration, more than two dozen local law enforcement agencies – among them Ferguson, Mo., Baltimore and Chicago – were the subjects of federal investigations into misconduct. Those inquiries often resulted in the consent decrees which required a federal judge to oversee reforms to policing operations.
The debate over a consent decree for the Chicago force comes as the nation’s third-largest city has seen its murder rate skyrocket. The city has recorded more than 1,200 murders since the start of 2016 – more than New York and Los Angeles combined.
President Trump has repeatedly pilloried Chicago over the surge in murders, and questioned whether the city’s leaders are tying the hands of street cops charged with dealing with the crime.
"Local policing is first and foremost a matter of local responsibility,'' Justice spokesman Ian Prior said in response to the announcement of Madigan’s suit. "If the city and state can put in place policies and practices to ensure constitutional, proactive policing that actually serves to reduce Chicago's rampant violent crime problems, that would be a positive step.
"However, we have said repeatedly that we will not agree to or support any measure that will endanger the lives of Chicago's residents or law enforcement by eroding the rule of law or by failing to properly address violent crime in Chicago.”
The DOJ launched its investigation of the Chicago Police Department in late 2015 following the court-ordered release of police dashcam video that showed a white officer shoot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times as he appeared to be running away from police while holding a small knife. The officer, Jason Van Dyke, was charged with first-degree murder for the death of the black teen, and is awaiting trial.
Even before the release of the troubling McDonald video, Chicago Police faced mistrust in large swaths of Chicago’s black and Latino communities.
Chicago has paid more than $600 million in settlements and legal fees related to accusations of police misconduct since 2004. In the last two years, dozens of cases were filed by people alleging excessive use of force by Chicago Police.
The police department and American Civil Liberties Union in August 2015 entered an agreement to monitor how officers go about conducting street stops of citizens in the city. The agreement came after the ACLU published a study that showed black Chicagoans were subjected to 72% of stop-and-frisk searches even though they make up only about a third of the city's population.
In June, Emanuel administration officials said that they were in talks with the Justice Department about installing an independent monitor to oversee reform efforts by the police department. Chicago is in the midst of a multi-year effort that includes implementing a new field training officer program for new cops, revise the department’s use of force policy, equipping cops with body cameras and other changes meant to help improve the department.
Emanuel, however, said that the Justice Department abandoned the talks, and has forced the state’s attorney general into “stepping up…where the Justice Department under President Trump has stepped back.”
“It is better to work with the Justice Department than not,” Emanuel said. “We do not have a partner in the Trump administration Justice Department. We have a partner in the Illinois attorney general who has a vested interest in seeing this success here in Chicago take hold.”
Madigan said on Tuesday that she would not have supported an independent monitor if it had come to fruition.
“The memorandum of agreement that the Trump administration has since abandoned was not going to be good enough, because it was not going to be enforceable in court,” Madigan said. “We need to have enforcement if we’re going to have true and sustainable reform.”
