Friday, April 15, 2016

Chicago police aren't plagued by racism: we are.




     Sigh.
     You know what’s happening. I know what’s happening. Do I have to say it? I guess so. It’s my job.
     OK. Here goes.
     Of course the very fact that there was a police task force is part of the well-oiled machinery of doing nothing with flair. Crisis 101 teaches you to appoint a task force, buy time, create the illusion that change is occurring, when what you are really doing is kicking the can down the road, again.
     The can tumbled to earth with a bang Wednesday in the scathing “Recommendations for Reforms” report, documenting what everybody knows, including the kind of succinct assessment that makes good headlines. “Chicago police ‘have no regard’ for lives of black people, report says” is how the Washington Post put it. And Napoleon escaped from Elba. Sorry if I’m the one to tell you.
     The Sun-Times online headline was “Racism, lack of accountability plague Chicago Police Department"...

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8 comments:

  1. You're wrong Neil!
    I'm white, on the North Side & middle of the road in politics.
    I'm sick & tired of this worthless & useless police force of criminals!
    Watch how they drive. They break every traffic law on the books, even though they're not on an emergency call. Why? Because they can.
    I was once hit by a police car, right out front of the station while in a marked crosswalk, with a stop sign, it wasn't serious & I wasn't hurt, but that fucking asshole cop just drove away as if nothing had happened!
    They're totally incompetent when it comes to solving crimes.
    The solutions are easy.
    Fire any cop that lies on a police report, as it's perjury.
    Which brings us to that pile of shit Anita Alvarez, who has yet to indict even one cop that signed a false police report regarding the Laquan McDonald murder. Not one, even though at least six have been outed as doing so!
    Ban anyone from being a cop, who has a relative that's already a cop.
    Not only go back to requiring a four year college degree, require a Masters in just about anything, as we have some really stupid cops. They stupid because most are the products of the worst public school system in the country, CPS!
    Fire any cop that causes the city to pay out more than $250,000 in any trial or settlement.
    Get rid of the corrupt police board which is just a rubber stamp for the unions of cops.
    If a cop is charged with a crime & chooses a bench trial, require that the judge come from at least 150 miles away, to end the cronyism of judges who need cops to testify in trials.
    There's so much more & the report had most of the needed reforms, but not all.

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    Replies
    1. I'm following you, except for the "wrong" part. I'm wrong how? If you're correct, and "the solutions are easy" then how come we're not going to 'em? Or if we do, the cops will find a way around them? That's how it's always been done in the past. What has changed?

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    2. "We're" meaning the politicians are not doing them, due solely to political cowardice.
      The pols are terrified of the police unions.
      As for cops finding ways around new rules, then fire them if they do.
      As I wrote, raise the educational standards & a lot of the problems will disappear, as the dumb ones will go away.

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  2. Do you see Rahm's lips move when Superintendent Johnson speaks?

    john

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  3. I don't live in Chicago and so have little opportunity to observe the city's finest in action, but am a little uneasy with all the cop bashing. Much of the complaint has to do with "attitude," but it's easy to be "officer friendly" working with a compliant, cooperative population. Chicago has communities where young assasins emerge from alleyways or drive their vans down the street with guns blazing. And where cooperating with the police can put you and yours in peril. I'm sure "racism" is a part of the problem, but am inclined to believe that a force of all-Black PhD's would face the same circumstances and come up with not dissimilar results.

    And I'm inclined to believe the meme that nothing will ever change is unhistorical. Bad as things are now, this is not Jon Burge's CPD. And with all the attention given the problem there will be new reforms, a few of which may even work. Even ones introduced by His Honor the Mayor.

    Tom Evans

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    Replies
    1. "Bashing" is a loaded word, spoken by those immune to the idea they could do things better. Nobody suggests cops don't have a tough job. Which they make tougher. Other cities have crime, too, but don't have the problems we have. It's a national embarrassment. "Bashing" is a kiss off for somebody who feels ill used. The cops are ill used, they're ill-using.

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    2. Tom, Agree that the police aren't always wrong and have to put up with a lot. The shooting from last week was of a known gangbanger that was holding a weapon. As John Fountain says (African American writer) it's the lack of family guidance, decent parenting,absent fathers, etc.) Not all poor people in the past or present turned to gangbanging and made excuses.

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    3. I didn't know my use of that word would label me immune to the notion of better policing, and will delete it from my operational vocabulary. I did think my second paragraph might have absolved me of that particular sin.

      Chicago no doubt deserved it's week in the the police misconduct spotlight, but it's a national problem, most evident in large cities with good press coverage. I don't know if Chicago cops are worse than the norm, but I can think of many urban ghetto's and a good number of poor rural districts, particularly in the south, that might give them a run for their money. In that respect I thought some of the national media coverage, particularly the New York Times editorial and the Washington Post piece, smacked of pots calling kettles black.

      TE

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