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* Heather Cherone at WTTW…
Chicago taxpayers spent $280 million to resolve lawsuits alleging Chicago police officers committed a wide range of misconduct — including false arrest and excessive force — from spring 2019 to spring 2023, according to an analysis of city data by WTTW News. […]
Inspector General Deborah Witzburg in September sounded the alarm about the escalating costs of police misconduct, releasing an audit that found the city does not collect enough data to “effectively manage the risk of expense to the city and harm to its residents arising out of CPD’s operations.”
That lack of detail means city officials rarely link settlements or verdicts — which can run into the millions of dollars — to specific complaints of misconduct, and do not analyze what led up to the incident in an effort to prevent similar cases by disciplining officers, retraining them or offering them counseling or other treatment, Witzburg said.
“We are writing enormous checks and leaving a tremendous opportunity for reform on the table,” Witzburg said. “It is a staggering amount of money.”
The ordinance that created the Civilian Office of Police Accountability calls for a representative of the agency, which is charged with investigating police misconduct, to be present while the City Council’s Finance Committee weighs whether to endorse recommendations from the city’s lawyers to settle a case. But they never are, Witzburg said.
That allows those discussions to “devolve into a shadow trial” about whether the officers committed misconduct, without all of the facts available to members of the committee.
posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 9:52 am
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Remind me again why qualified immunity covers LEOs for unlimited sums of money?
Comment by Jocko Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 10:15 am
I see our local journalists are going to carry on pretending that mayors or alderpeople have any control over what the Chicago Police Department does in practice. Not sure who this lie serves but it doesn’t help the public understand what’s happening in the world around it.
Comment by Larry Bowa Jr. Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 10:20 am
“… city officials have yet to comply with court-ordered reforms…That consent decree took effect in February 2019, less than three months before Lightfoot took office.”
Why don’t the courts force this?
Are they really interested in changing anything?
Or is this just the cost of doing business?
Comment by Bruce( no not him) Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 10:24 am
“What to make of that trend? Is it a sign that the city’s policing problems have gotten worse? Or evidence that more victims of police violence were moved to come forward? Or that the city has started to compensate people more generously for the harms they experienced? ”
For the past 10 years, Chicago is ranked #2 at
New York City $1,704,120,487
Chicago $467,586,464
Los Angeles $329,925,620
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/police-misconduct-costs-cities-millions-every-year-but-thats-where-the-accountability-ends/
Milwaukee is #7 at just over $40 million over 10 years
Comment by Lucky Pierre Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 10:24 am
“…wide range of misconduct.” that is vital to understanding just what is happening. both on the policing side and on the lawsuit side. I don’t believe that for every case filed there is an innocent police officer. but I also believe the opposite. way more cases filed now than in the past. why? actual behavior? cell phones? greater awareness? a couple of very high profile lawyers? people who are arrested do not always go willingly, nor do folks told not to do something always do it willingly. I’ve been around cops who are snarky and unhelpful too. but cellphone video goes both ways. that recent City Council vote tells you that settling is not always the way to indicate what is right.
Comment by Amalia Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 10:28 am
I went looking. easy to divide the cases by type and see what management may consider, improper search and seizure, excessive force (although that one could be in great dispute) 1 page of cases for death or serious bodily injury in custody, 13 pages of cases for verbal abuse (come on….) https://www.chicagocopa.org/data-cases/case-portal/
Comment by Amalia Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 10:43 am
=== I see our local journalists are going to carry on pretending that mayors or alderpeople have any control over what the Chicago Police Department does in practice. ===
Call me old-fashioned, but in a democracy elected officials should be held responsible for managing the agencies under their purview. If the police department’s misconduct is costing the city hundreds of millions of dollars, asking the Mayor and City Council about it seems like a reasonable thing to do.
Comment by vern Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 10:47 am
“If the police department’s misconduct is costing the city hundreds of millions of dollars, asking the Mayor and City Council about it seems like a reasonable thing to do.”
Sure, ask them about it if you want to, and report their responses. That’s some minimally instructive reporting.
What I’m asking is for journalists to report on how the Chicago police department actually responds to outside attempts to modify its officers’ behavior on the street. Put another way, stop treating readers like children who can’t handle the truth of where the actual power resides. This is far from the first time everyone involved has performed this theater.
Comment by Larry Bowa Jr. Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 11:02 am
If police officers had to carry their own insurance, bad cops would have to clean up their acts or they’d price themselves out of the market.
Comment by Suburban Mom Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 11:19 am
“”That lack of detail means city officials rarely link settlements or verdicts — which can run into the millions of dollars — to specific complaints of misconduct”"
Key to understanding, given Amalia’s quick and dirty count above
Comment by walker Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 11:20 am
==Remind me again why qualified immunity covers LEOs for unlimited sums of money?==
Because judges themselves (with the benefit of written briefs, oral argument, and a bevy of law clerks) can’t agree on what the boundaries of the constitution are (the constitution prohibits only the deprivation of life, liberty, or property without the “due process of law”). The rules are constantly changing. It would be unreasonable to expect police officers (operating in high-pressure, split second situations) to be better constitutional scholars than the judges.
We purposely drop police officers into legally ambiguous situations. In a plaintiffphilic state like Illinois, this is the result that you’d expect to see. There may be management and training opportunities tied in with settlements, but that would depend on the nature of the settlements. If a frivolous claim is settled for nuisance value, then there’s less opportunity.
It is unclear from the write up whether that $280 million is only verdicts and settlements or whether it includes other defense and litigation costs.
Comment by duck duck goose Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 11:33 am
Not all misconduct is equal. the huge numbers need to be considered by what the allegation is. search down the worst. root out the offenders. figure out better policing tactics and apply new techniques across the board. AND maybe fight against ridiculous claims. it’s rare that someone convicted says they did it. it’s also becoming rare for lawbreakers to comply with police. someday I want to add up how much a couple of attorneys have raked in around these cases.
Comment by Amalia Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 12:06 pm
A lot of police misconduct cases push the envelop. For instance, one case that the US supreme court rejected last year on qualified immunity grounds was where a police officer took a single step in the general direction of a home-invasion suspect (who committed suicide at the scene). They turn on things like whether the high-speed chase should have been called off after 20 seconds instead of 30 seconds or whether a five-second taser burst (as opposed to a three-second burst) violates the constitution.
This is not to excuse bad behavior, but most of these cases are not the George-Floyd variety.
Comment by duck duck goose Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 12:43 pm
duck duck goose…..ding ding ding. yep. not all misconduct is created equal…or awful
Comment by Amalia Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 1:11 pm
==
I went looking. easy to divide the cases by type and see what management may consider, improper search and seizure, excessive force (although that one could be in great dispute) 1 page of cases for death or serious bodily injury in custody, 13 pages of cases for verbal abuse (come on….)==
I’m sure you know that your link is a list of people who filed a complaint with COPA, not people who filed a case in court, much less settlements vetted by City lawyers.
Of course verbal abuse is significantly more common than injury/deaths in custody. It would be even more concerning if it weren’t. So I don’t know what you mean by “come on…” but from context it seems as though you’re implying that it’s not a big deal and that someone’s employer should not be told when they are disrespecting and using slurs on people.
Comment by Stephanie Kollmann Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 1:33 pm
It’s interesting to see, as with the recent City Council meeting, who thinks they are in a better position than the Law Department to judge the merits of settlements.
Everyone’s circles are different but not one person in mine believes that the lawyers there are at all likely to shove money at plaintiffs (unless it is to prevent something even worse from coming out, e.g. Laquan McDonald).
Comment by Stephanie Kollmann Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 1:38 pm
@Stephanie Kollmann, we don’t know, do we? misconduct gets lumped into one category. and we know that the cases are not all the same. clarity is needed. and no, I would not think every case of verbal abuse is ok, nor would I think every case is a case. there’s no clarity at all on this issue and the screaming that there is tons of misconduct misses how we need to clarify so management can happen. the system is a mess.
Comment by Amalia Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 1:50 pm
=misconduct gets lumped into one category=
What are you talking about?
You seem very invested in some kind of “we don’t know what’s happening/both sides are to blame” narrative but there is plenty we do know for sure:
-there is a huge amount of misconduct
-only a small portion of it is discovered/reported
-most COPA investigations go nowhere
-lawsuits (which because of contingency-fee risks tend to be filed in only a small number of the most egregious/documented cases) cost the city a ton of money
-the city is not meaningfully tracking those settlements in order to try to decrease misconduct
-CPD is resistant to reform
This is not plausibly a both sides story.
Comment by Stephanie Kollmann Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 2:08 pm
yes, it gets lumped into one category. and for management purposes, we need better understanding of what happens.clarity. what happens. how to change things. what is legitimate. and are some things not appropriate as misconduct. for example, in a very random search I found a case of verbal abuse between one officer and another. what is that doing in a misconduct list? it is better served as hr. the city needs to do better. you are saying I am calling it a both sides story. I’m calling it a both/and. I don’t work in this field. I don’t have a vested interest, except that it affects all of the Chicago area. and there has to be better management.
Comment by Amalia Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 2:57 pm
- …in a very random search I found a case of verbal abuse between one officer and another. -
Are you sure you weren’t looking…for exceptions.
Comment by Dotnonymous x Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 3:30 pm
So much of the money involves reversed convictions from the notorious officers — Burge, Guevara, Watts, ect. No risk manager or data scientist is going to be able to reverse time and change the past.
Comment by Three Dimensional Checkers Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 3:47 pm
== I found a case of verbal abuse between one officer and another. what is that doing in a misconduct list? it is better served as hr.==
Per COPA:
==COPA investigates all allegations of excessive force, domestic violence, verbal abuse including bias, and coercion involving violence, involving members of the Chicago Police Department. COPA documents complaints of other forms of misconduct and refers them to the Chicago Police Department’s Bureau of Internal Affairs.==
Comment by Stephanie Kollmann Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 6:16 pm
Dotnonymous x no I was not. I picked three cases randomly in 2016…got tired of scrolling to the present. hit one found a racial slur, hit another one content that escapes me now, and then the cop on cop one. that was surprising. so I stopped. because this is not my work. it’s just interesting and everyone should want clarity in how they handle the cases. the multi level system for looking at police misconduct cases is not clear. it is not understandable for the public, it moves slowly. I think the only people it helps are union reps and lawyers.
Comment by Amalia Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 7:10 pm