Civil Rights Violators: Chicago Police in Focus

The Chicago Police Force is the second largest police force in the United States. It has a total of 13,500 members, next to New York Police Force. However, the second largest police force in the United States has the highest average among the big police departments in terms of excessive use of force complaints. The police department has 40 percent more than the national average.

Statistics shows that from 1999 to 2004, the citizens of Illinois filed about 1,774 complaints involving police brutality. Only five percent of the department, however, was responsible for about half of the number of abuse complaints from 2001 to 2006.

In a study called “The Chicago Police Department’s Broken System” conducted by the University of Chicago led by law professor Craig B. Futterman and the Invisible Institute, a company devoted to protecting social justice in Chicago, more than 10,000 complaints of police abuse were made against Chicago police officers between 2002 and 2004. However, only 19 of these complaints resulted in significant disciplinary action or seven day suspension. In light of this alarming statistics, the study argues that the Chicago Police Department should not be permitted to ‘police itself’.

The study also advocates that an independent civilian oversight board should do the monitoring and investigation of police abuse reports. This would provide for more transparency and accountability in the conduct of police officers in Chicago.

Futterman accused the department of withholding information from the public as police officers declined to participate in the study. Further, he said that 85 percent of the involved police officers in police abused are not interviewed in person regarding the incident. In addition, what is noteworthy in the study is that only about ten percent of those who experienced police abuse filed a complaint against the department.

The Case of Diane Bond

The case of Diane Bond is an example of a notorious case of police abuse committed by police officers of the department. The story of this middle-aged single mother starts off with a group of Chicago police officers known as “the Skullcap Crew” approaching her in the hallway of the building where she lives. One police officer put a gun against her head, handcuffed her and then later ransacked her home and terrorized her.

This is not the end of her story. In the civil rights lawsuit she filed against the group of four police officers, she also mentioned that one of the police officers allegedly brought Bond inside the bathroom and coerced her to show her genitals. Another officer also threatened to plant drugs on her. Bond also stated that the police officers beat up her son and later coerced her son to beat another man whom they brought with them in her home. The police officers did not end with this incidence because they allegedly continued to terrorize Bond over the next year.

Concerned Citizens Help

Craig Futterman filed a civil rights lawsuit in behalf of Bond. He charged five individual officers of the notorious department, its police superintendent and the City of Chicago with violation of Bond’s civil and constitutional rights. Together with Invisible Institute, Futterman continues the fight against what police spokespeople said “bad apples” that give a bad name to the department.