From Jeremy Richey at the East Central Illinois Criminal Law Blog, comes this AP story of unhappy police officers doing what unhappy police officers do when they become unhappy. Apparently, cops in Chicago don’t like their new chief. Why?
In addition to making fewer arrests, police are seizing fewer guns and frisking gang members less often than they did before Superintendent Jody Weis was brought in to clean up a department embarrassed by a string of brutality cases, according to interviews, statistics provided by police and an internal document obtained by The Associated Press.
Clean up the department? Now why would a cop be antagonistic to a clean department. Aren’t they all about law and order? They should be thrilled that a new Police Superintendent has been brought in to get rid of all those “one bad apples” and restore honor, dignity and integrity to the nation’s second largest police department. But apparently, the Chicago police are less than thrilled.
Since [an incident of beating a cuffed defendant shackled to a wheel chair], “guys feel the superintendent and the administration does not have their back,” said John Pallohusky, president of the police sergeants union.
The mistrust grew after the department announced recently that every police car would be equipped with electronic tracking devices and officers would be asked to submit DNA samples at crime scenes.
“If you don’t feel your bosses support you, are you going to stick your neck out?” Weisskopf asked.
What does it mean for the bosses to “have your back,” to give cops “support”? After all these are the expectations, or maybe the demands, of the cop on the street if his bosses expect him to “stick his neck out.”
No matter how hard I try, I can’t repress the smile that keeps popping up. I so enjoy it when cops feel so unloved, unsupported, that they express the words that they spend the rest of their time denying. They want bosses who will cover them, no matter what. They want bosses who will whitewash their beatings and perjury. They want bosses who will give them the nod and the wink when they “stick their neck out.”
They want to do whatever they do, and they want a boss who will stand up for them no matter what they do. Is that too much to ask?
The first outsider to run the department in decades, Weis replaced 21 of 25 district commanders. He created a new Bureau of Professional Standards, which oversees the Internal Affairs Division, the unit that investigates officers.
He also started talking about getting police officers in better shape and ordered those on desk duty to hit the streets.
In addition, he asked federal officials to investigate an officer who had already pleaded guilty to beating a handcuffed man shackled to a wheelchair and was serving a two-year suspension. That angered the rank-and-file.
Who wouldn’t be angered? I mean, really, sometimes you just have to beat those handcuffed perps shackled to wheelchairs. It happens, you know? Besides, he deserved it. I don’t even have to know why the cop beat the handcuffed wheelchair shackled guy, but there had to be a good reason or he wouldn’t have done it.
This is where the culture of law enforcement and efforts to reform corruption, violence and abuse, have a head-on collision. There are cops who believe in doing the right thing, but they are a distinct minority in a job where covering their own is predominant. Any wonder why the arrogance of police in their right to assert dominance over the rest of us remains intact, despite scandal after scandal, video after video, dead body after dead body?
I wish Superintendent Jody Weis the best. He doesn’t have an easy job.
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It’s interesting — from this remove — to watch some of the comments at http://www.secondcitycop.blogspot.com . If I understand the comments correctly, Chief Weis has managed to do absolutely nothing right since he took over the department. Either that, or he’s done far too much right.
My guess is that Windy’s initial take was right — he’s going to be out at the end of his initial contract, so he may as well do the best job he can, and let the chips — and the depolicing police — fall where they may.
A few more thoughts, taking on my (self-assumed) role as the defender of imperfect, decent cops (and I’m willing to bet that there are some of those in Chicago) . . .
People like to have their battles fought in buffer zones. I’d much rather have First Amendment fights be over the gynecological obsessions of Larry Flynt’s readers than my own use of a few choice words in my novels; much rather have issues of probable cause be over a to a search warrant that found where Alfredo “the Violinist” Pizzicato stashed the remains of Kid Lipsky in twenty-seven separate mason jars than be subject to a random doorkicking search in my home, etc.
Decent cops worry about what happens when they’re falsely accused — and that stuff does happen. I followed several instances of cops being accused of groping a woman in a traffic stop — which should be a career-end-by-reason-of-prosecution thing when it really happens — only to be saved when the squad tape shows that that just didn’t happen. And some worry that, as people get more aware of the tapes, that’ll just make for cleverer accusations.
By definition, no decent excuse for a human being would do to anybody what was done to Abner Louima, but in my city, we had two cops accused of doing exactly the same thing. (They didn’t do it, as it didn’t happen; the accuser was pretty clumsy, and the false accusation was exposed at a press conference where even the local reporters noticed that he walked in apparent agony only when he thought people were noticing; the doctor’s report concluded that the mild irritation in his rectal area was consistent with, say, hiding a few balloons filled with crack in that indelicate place — and by no coincidence at all, he had been charged with crack-in-the-crack, so to speak).
Which is why cops — both good and bad — worry about what happens when they might be accused of something horrible. Some worry that the accusation, alone, can ruin their careers and lives because, well, it can, and they’ve got a legitimate concern when it appears that their top bosses are not interested in clearing cops from false accusations, but only hanging those who can’t prove their innocence out to dry.
The comments over at http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com tend toward the ugly, but I’m pretty confident (if you want to call that confidence the Dunning-Kruger Effect I won’t argue, but that doesn’t mean that I’m wrong) that some of it comes from bad cops afraid of being caught and hung out to dry when their brutality and corruption is exposed, and some of it comes from decent — albeit imperfect — ones who really worry that if they do something proper but ugly, or get accused of something they didn’t do, they’ll be hung out to dry.
Which is, to drop the defense for a moment and be as cynical as usual, Weis won’t win there, because to be effective, a leader really does need the support of at least a good number of the decent folks he leads, and it sounds like Weis doesn’t have that.
So is there a scorecard so we can tell the good (but imperfect) ones from the truly venal?
Sure. Just give me a hour with each of them, and I’ll sort it out.
More seriously, if the Powers On High can — and do — start protecting the decent if imperfect ones who rat out the venal (and worse), things will improve. Particularly if they also charge the silent for the omerta.
I won’t be holding my breath; in the Chicago “Bad Cop Gone Wild” beating that got Cozzi first suspended, then prosecuted for the felony (by the Feds, you’ve noticed; he pled out on a misdemeanor for the assault), if (and it’s an if; I doubt it) he got told on by any of his fellow cops, no word of that has come to light.
Which is, by the way, one clear incident where Wies failed: he didn’t even give the ones who stood by and did nothing a one-day rip.
All sarcasm aside: how do you feel about the double jeopardy issue? Cozzi already got charged, and pled out, was sentenced, and did his probation on the misdemeanor battery, and now he’s facing the Federal charge of violating his human punching bag’s civil rights.
I find the double jeopardy issue is atrocious. As badly as state courts may handle some of these cases, the rationale behind allowing a second federal prosecution for the same set of facts is fundamentally wrong. While they may involve technically different laws, I believe double jeopardy prohibits a person from being twice tried for the same conduct. They get one try, and that’s that.
Chicago cops also complain that the police disciplinary system, especially the new Independent Police Review Authority, is little more than a tool for the Mayor to protect his friends and punish his enemies in the department.
I’m sure there’s a lot of truth to this. I’ve heard stories of protected cops who hold onto cushy desk jobs despite screw-up after screw-up (or crime after crime) while other cops are being punished for things like leaving their patrol area.
I’m torn between my natural anger over the unjust enforcement of unjust rules, and my astonishment at the self-righteousness of rule enforcers who don’t like playing by the rules.
I’m sure they’d love the Minneapolis version: the Civilian Police Review Authority has the complete power to, after a thorough investigation and determination by a preponderance of the evidence, make a recommendation to the “Chief of Police who will decide whether or not to impose discipline.”
It’s a pretty tough authority; out of the 75 complaints filed with the agency in 2007 (the year they agreed that the CRA would not take a look at complaints filed with MPD IA) resulted in a grand total of four disciplinary actions: two cops got 38 hours of suspension (between them), one got a written letter of reprimand, and one got an oral reprimand.
That’s gotta sting.
I agree with you, I think.
But the cynic in me wonders if — this time or another time — a less-than-on-the-up-and-up local prosecutor’s office will, say, quickly charge a very bad cop who did a provably very bad thing — say, thumping a cripple handcuffed into a wheelchair — have him plead out on the misdemeanor and get him sentenced to, oh, eighteen months of probation and “anger management” counseling to protect him against the real consequences.
I guess the solution, in such cases (if such a thing is possible; I wouldn’t know) would be for the grownups/Feds to step in early, and take over the prosecution of the conduct before, but …
I can beat that. The old Chicago civilian review board’s only power was to review disciplinary recommendations from the Police Superintendent’s office and either approve or reduce them. The obvious reason for such an arrangement is to protect police officers who had political connections in City Hall.
You win. Which is to say, I think, I don’t lose by as much as you should wish I lose.