How disappointed are you that former Mayor Rahm Emanuel won't be testifying about the Chicago Police Department's notorious "code of silence" in federal court? At least not during a civil trial that starts Monday, stemming from cops bursting into the wrong home in 2018 and driving a woman, her four children and half-naked grandmother outside at gunpoint?
Yeah, me neither.
God bless Rahm — his tenure looks better every day. Emanuel didn't give away big chunks of city infrastructure in spectacularly disastrous deals that cost Chicago billions, like his mentor, Rich Daley. Nor did he flounder around in endless paroxysms of maddening, can't-anyone-work-this-crazy-contraption confusion, like his two successors. He should take his eyes off the White House and settle for the consolation prize of being mayor of Chicago, again. All is forgiven.
But spilling the beans on the CPD code of silence in a speech in 2015 doesn't make him privy to some big state secret. Any cop stuck on the stand could say the same thing, in theory.
Heck, they could subpoena me. I'd tell 'em. A week after Emanuel revealed the cop “tendency to ignore, deny or, in some cases, cover up the bad actions of a colleague,” I tapped Craig B. Futterman, a law professor at the University of Chicago, a national expert in police ethics and the guy whose legal clinic got a tip about the existence of dashcam video showing Jason Van Dyke pumping 16 shots into Laquan McDonald.
Futterman didn't mince words.
"Chicago is the capital of the code of silence," he said. "If you break with that code, you get crushed."
Cops will claim they must have each other's backs because no one else will. Thin blue line, yadda yadda, cue the heroic music. You have to count on your partner in that dark alley; your life depends on it. If the public only understood how incredibly difficult being a police officer is, they'd overlook any innocent, in-the-heat-of-the-moment mistake, or years of unchecked sadistic and racist abuse.
The results speak for themselves. Chicago police shoot more citizens than almost any other department in the U.S., some years grabbing the No. 1 spot, and payouts for wrongful death lawsuits are staggering in a city circling the financial drain: $1.11 billion from 2008 to 2024, according to the Chicago Reporter, with another $300 million piled on in 2025.
Not only are they expensive, but bad apples make police work harder — solving crimes takes the cooperation of neighborhood residents, who tend to become skittish and quiet if their only experience with police is being abused by them.
I have to admit my bias here. Forty years of trying to pry anything out the department yap has taught me: The CPD doesn't just have a code of silence about misdeeds. It has a code of silence about everything.
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What the code of silence creates is that while 95% of cops are honest & not violent maniacs, that keeping quiet makes them all accomplices to the rotten to the core 5%!
ReplyDeleteOf course now we have the ICE Gestapo around where 99% are violent lunatics & the 1% are useless!
Nice, you got a fat pitch and hit it out of the park Clark St.
DeleteNotorious enough that Chuck Norris had named and filmed the movie Code Of Silence in chicago.
ReplyDeleteThe LAPD was, and I don't doubt is, exactly the same. Back in 1970 the LAPD fire-bombed a bar where Latino journalist Ruben Salazar was having a beer in. They claimed they thought a bank robber was in there hiding - but Salazar had been investigating corruption in the LAPD... Salazar and a few other people died in that. A riot ensued. Nobody on the LAPD was ever prosecuted.
ReplyDeletenever forget that in May 1985, the Philadelphia cops, under the command of the utterly insane, violent & racist lunatic Frank Rizzo, bombed a house there & managed to burn down an entire block of homes!
DeleteIt was quite a bit more than that. Ever been to the Pullman neighborhood? Mostly attached brick rowhouses, the only Chicago neighborhood that has a lot of them, unlike Baltimore, Boston, Pittsburgh, Philly, and other cities in the East.
DeleteOn May 13, 1985, the aerial bombing of a Philadelphia rowhouse, resulted in the destruction of 61 more units by fire. Members of a black liberation organization shot at Philadelphia police who had come to evict them from their headquarters. Two explosive devices were dropped from a helicopter and onto the roof of the occupied rowhouse.
Philadelphia police then allowed the resulting fire to burn out of control, destroying 61 neighboring rowhouses covering two city blocks, and leaving 250 people homeless. Eleven occupants of the bombed rowhouse were killed in the attack. Two others survived. A lawsuit in Federal court found that the city used excessive force and violated constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure. [Wikipedia]
Yep, the MOVE Movement.
DeleteMy experience with Chicago coppers over the past 60 years. I have OFTEN seen them with their hands out. Not for the speeding ticket bribes. But gosh they love to flash their badges for FREE anything. It goes beyond donuts and pizza slices. Add movie theaters and sporting events and concerts. Restaurant meals, etc. It's still pretty brazen. This past summer we hired a retired Chicago police officer to work as a "Ranger" at the suburban golf course where I have my own retirement job. All of his copper buddies started coming out from the city looking for cheap (or free!) golf. Flashing their badges. EXPECTING not to pay or to at least get the MUCH cheaper Resident Senior rate. Mooches! Freeloaders!!! It never changes. It never will. Fat guys looking for freebies. Always!
ReplyDeleteThe history of Chicago cops on the take probably goes back as far as Chicago itself, long before the days of Prohibition and Capone. Your early mention of the speeding ticket shakedowns reminded me of my teens. In the early Sixties, I was instructed to keep a Jackson clipped to my license, and to look the officer in the eye and keep a straight face. Never tried it but knew people who did.
DeleteBy the time I was of driving age, though, that racket had mostly become history. A reformer had been brought in from California, in an attempt to stem Chicago's widespread police corruption. A major police scandal in 1960 had brought shame to Chicago and the department.
Eight officers based in the Summerdale police district conspired with a thief to burglarize local businesses, brazenly acting as lookouts and using police vehicles to cart away loot. The thief eventually ratted them out, to save his own skin, and the hoo-ha was so loud that the district had to be renamed for its location on Foster Ave. That was the biggest police scandal of my kid days. There have since been far bigger ones.
A number of years ago, a black Chicago cop was found dead, shot to death in his squad car on a lonely stretch of South lake Shore Drive. It turned out he was known for shaking down black drivers in the middle of the night after stopping them for either legit or made up reasons. They never investigated his death, because it would've turned into a real shitshow of embarrassment for the department. The brass was happy to see him gone! They even refused to put his star in the case at HQ where the stars of killed cops go, until his family sued them & they were forced to put it in there.
DeleteSolid management training could address many of the more glaring issues in the CPD. If I recall correctly, it was Superintendent Brown who brought in management training from the University of Chicago. This was done in select precincts and the results were very positive. Browns' crime stats were exemplary. Changing the Code of Silence can be done if the "95%" receive support and the "5%" receive early and decisive intervention.
ReplyDeleteMore likely it was temporary superintendent Charlie Beck from LA who did that!
DeleteHe had already gone through the rampart Division scandal out there, so he knew what had to be done to clean up an entire department. He should've been made permanent superintendent to finish the job here!
There is a part of me who believes that as much consensus building is needed to run a city like Chicago, much of it needs to be run by an altruistic asshole. Someone who quite literally says "fuck you, you'll get X or nothing" to both sides and forces the issue.
ReplyDeleteRahm has a lot of terrible qualities. A lot of what he did i couldn't stand. Sometimes i referred to him as a shonda, because he was. But truth be told, both he and Daley did (mostly) what was best for the city despite or in spite of everything.
Parking meters being sold? dumb.
The handling of the Laquan McDonnel issue? dumb.
The city needs a ball busting iron fist who makes the city work for all. i don't think Mayro Johnson is that. Former Mayor Lightfoot certainly wasn't. I'm willing to bet the next few mayors in chicago aren't either. but i've been wrong before.
Some of the cops I know are about my age they're in their 60s. Old school
ReplyDeleteSome of the cops I know are much younger friends of my sons
I know a couple in between I played baseball with them. Their somewhere in between like in their r 40s
The thing that I hear from all of them is how hard the job is. Stressful and very taxing. often dangerous and emotionally and psychologically damaging.
Then the public , politicians and the media dumps on them .
There are around 11,700 sworn officers while the city budgets and once employed more than 13000.
The vast majority of whom have exemplary personnel files.
Some cops are absolute savages , brutal and dangerous.
Would you tattle on someone like that?
They already are often risking their lives
You think they should make the situation more dangerous?
Who's going to protect you from the cops?
Nobody
It’s strange. CPD does have a community outreach liaison for each district. I’m sent emails weekly about neighborhood events. I was out on this list because I attended the Citizens Police Academy. Trying to find out how to join the Citizen’s Academy was an accident and a pain to find out about. I don’t know why all of this isn’t on their website.
ReplyDeleteYou always here how dangerous a job it is being a police officer. It is but it isn't in the top 25 of most dangerous jobs. This is from 2023. I am guessing it hasn't changed much. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/03/02/most-dangerous-jobs-america-database/11264064002/ From what I have read and it may not be true, but most officers rarely shoot their weapons and that the most dangerous part of their job is handling domestic disputes. Police are probably not the only group that has a code of silence. With any large groups it is rare that some one will rat out another person in the group. I would include sports, teachers, airline industry, weather it is pilots or those that build the planes, FBI, CIA. I am probably missing a few other groups. I have no doubt that there are a lot of good officers and good people in other groups.
ReplyDeleteDoctors huddle around their own, too. It's the nurses who know and perhaps even tell what's really going on.
Deletesanford
Deleteyou pointed to a list of private sector occupations in which a public sector job like police officer would not be included.
the job of police officer can have a much higher level of danger depending on where you work
What's a shonda?
ReplyDeleteYiddish: an embarrassment in front of the gentiles.
Delete