The five officers who conducted the traffic stop that led to the death of Dexter Reed and the wounding of one officer had been the subject of 36 complaints that they were improperly stopping Chicagoans driving through the city’s West Side, according to records provided to WTTW News by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
Consent Decree
Superintendent Larry Snelling’s remarks come nearly two months after the first sign of deep tension between CPD and COPA emerged, and reflect a widening breach between the two agencies, sources told WTTW News.
Chicago Police Continued to Target Black, Latino Drivers With Flood of Traffic Stops in 2023: Report
The vast majority of the more than 537,000 traffic stops made by Chicago police in 2023 were based on dubious evidence of minor violations that took direct aim at Black and Latino Chicagoans but spared White Chicagoans, according to a new report from Impact for Equity, a nonprofit advocacy and research organization that has helped lead the push to reform the Chicago Police Department.
Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling blasted Civilian Office of Police Accountability Chief Administrator Andrea Kersten for treating Chicago Police officers so unfairly that he says they are at risk of suicide and compromise public safety.
The Illinois Department of Corrections has awarded a new contract to the controversial Wexford Health Sources, the same private health care provider that’s been handling medical care in the state’s prison system since 2011.
Inspector General Deborah Witzburg on Wednesday said the court overseeing the federal consent decree has found that her office and its public safety section are in “full and effective compliance” with all applicable requirements.
The Chicago Police Department has reached full compliance on just 6% of its consent decree requirements. Independent monitor Maggie Hickey expressed a belief that additional transparency will help bring police in line with necessary reforms.
The independent monitoring team that oversees the CPD’s consent decree implementation published its eighth semi-annual report this week, which found that although the department has reached some level of compliance with 85% of paragraphs, it has only fully complied with 33 out of 552 paragraphs.
The 39-page report from the independent monitoring team, led by attorney Maggie Hickey, compiled the results of the feedback gathered from more than 400 Chicagoans at 17 community engagement sessions in February, March and April.
The Chicago Police Department must implement an early-warning system under the terms of the consent decree, the federal court order designed to compel the department to change the way it trains, supervises and disciplines officers. CPD is in full compliance with just 5% of that 2019 court order, city data shows.
The court-mandated oversight was prompted by the 2014 murder of teenager Laquan McDonald by a Chicago police officer. Almost five years later, the department is in full compliance with just over 5% of the requirements.
The size of the Chicago Police Department is essentially unchanged since Mayor Brandon Johnson took office 100 days ago. There are 12,363 employees, including 11,722 sworn officers.
The city of Chicago and the Illinois Attorney General’s Office negotiated an agreement to shift oversight of CPD’s stop-and-frisk practices into a consent decree governing the department.
The number of people shot in Chicago dropped more than 10% in the first six months of this year, as compared with the same period last year, according to police data. The number of shootings is down 6.4%, according to police data.
The lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois accuses the Chicago Police Department of making more than 1 million traffic stops between 2016 and 2022 based on dubious evidence of minor violations that took direct aim at Black and Latino Chicagoans but spared White Chicagoans.
The seventh semiannual report from the team led by attorney Maggie Hickey urges police brass and city leaders to “urgently address” staffing shortages, a lack of supervision for officers and poor data collection, analysis and management.
