© The Free Thought Projects
With protesters thronging the streets of Chicago
demanding police accountability and clamoring for the resignation of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the city's police union is
frantically trying to destroy decades of records documenting police misconduct. As is always the case, the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) sees "officer safety" as the highest priority - including protection from legal accountability.
"I protect all my members, and I will continue to do that," Dean Angelo, president of the Chicago FOP,
explained to CNN.
An injunction filed by the FOP insists that preserving those records violates Section 8.4 of its bargaining agreement with the City of Chicago. That provision specifies that all files of misconduct investigations and officer disciplinary histories "will be destroyed five (5) years after the date of the incident or the date upon which the violation is discovered, whichever is longer, except that not sustained files alleging criminal conduct or excessive force shall be retained for a period of seven (7) years after the date of the incident or the date upon which the violation is discovered, whichever is longer...."
Once that deadline passes, the episode of excessive force or other misconduct "cannot be used against the Officer in any future proceedings in any other forum" unless it deals with a matter subject to litigation during the five year period or "unless a pattern of sustained infractions exists." This element of the bargaining agreement creates an incentive for the police department to delay, obstruct, and obfuscate investigations of misconduct and abuse complaints until the deadline expires - and to keep the process opaque to the public."Basically, they bargained away transparency and accountability," points out
Chicago University Law Professor Craig Futterman, who is fighting in court to prevent the destruction of the officer misconduct records. "In a world where an incident like [the fatal police shooting of Laquan McDonald] happens and the public statements are 'Deny, deny, deny,' and then close off and circle the wagons, and then a code of silence and an exoneration at the end of the day - in that system, you cannot create public trust,"
Futterman explained to the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin.
Comment: Even if the vast majority of police have no affiliations to organizations like the infamous KKK, it is clear that there is an institutionalized racism that permeates the police forces in the US that are sworn to 'serve and protect'. As the video above suggests, and as articles such as this one make clear, the very foundations of US society seem to rest on the subjugation and abuse of African-Americans. It is just that now, as the most pathological elements of our society (which have always existed to some extent or another) have been nurtured in service to the US's worst drives and modes of operation - that we see more clearly what's always been a very disturbing problem.