Opinion: Who Polices the Police?

By: Abigail Kogan

Serving tours in both South Korea and Vietnam, Jon Burge was a United States Army Veteran. During his military service, Burge earned a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, as well as two Army Commendation Medals for valor. After his service, he returned to the South Side of Chicago and began a career as a city police officer, eventually transitioning into his position as a commander.

Between 1972 and 1991, Burge "either directly participated in or implicitly approved the torture" of at least 118 individuals in police custody, although it is suspected that he tortured over 200 total people. Members of the Chicago Police Department (CPD) used electrical shockers meant for cattle, beat their victims with a multitude of objects and extremities, suffocated people with plastic bags, and burned them on radiators or with cigarette lighters. They even shoved guns into their victims’ mouths, often playing a game of “Russian Roulette” with a loaded gun. All to illegally coerce victims to confess to crimes they might not have even committed. Many of Burge’s victims were convicted and sentenced to years in prison, some even receiving life sentences or the death penalty. Not one of the 200 victims was white. Black men made up the majority of his victims, but Burge and his fellow officers also targeted Latino men.

His history of brutality brings up a greater question: was Jon Burge an example of a corrupt man in an even more corrupt system? Or a good guy, just hardened by his years of experience? To answer that question, it is important to delve behind the scenes of the Chicago Police Department, and the criminal justice system as a whole. In the Chicago Police Department, there are many problems that lead officers to disproportionately arrest people of color, specifically Black and Latino identifying individuals. One major reason comes from the concept of arrest quotas. Arrest quotas are “formal and informal measures that require police officers to issue a particular number of tickets or make a certain number of arrests,” often within a specific time frame. Today these expectations often fall under an unspoken understanding, but until August 2018, the Chicago police department actively required policemen to meet “activity goals,” AKA, arrest quotas. But why is this such a problem? Well, when tasked with a certain number that must be reached, officers often turn to make unconventional arrests based more on implicit biases than probable cause. The National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice defines implicit biases as “the automatic association people make between groups of people and stereotypes about those groups.” While we all may have internal, implicit biases, they become incredibly dangerous when left unchecked, especially in the hands of those with such force at their disposal in a major position of authority. For police, implicit biases often lead them to act on racial prejudices, and unfairly target minorities, despite their responsibility to serve and protect the entire public equally. Unnecessary interactions between police and POC can be the beginning of minorities' entrapment in the legal system or even the beginning of lethal police interaction. While arrest quotas as a concept may allow us to pinpoint one of the potential causes for the inequity we see within our justice system, it’s only amplified by the fact that in most police departments, the CPD being no exception, officers lack adequate training. The CPD lacks not only enough implicit and racial bias training but also sufficient de-escalation training. When the Police departments in the top 4 largest cities in Illinois were asked about their racial bias training programs, Aurora, Naperville, and Rockford PD’s all responded, saying they have some form of mandatory racial bias training as well mandatory de-escalation training. Chicago -the largest city in Illinois and the third city in America where people are most likely to be killed by police- did not. So, not only are Chicago police officers more violent than the other three largest cities in Illinois, but they also are the least trained on implicit biases and controlling stereotyping and excessive force.

“One of the things [the investigation done by the Department of Justice] looked at is what they called "threat perception failure." The officer believed that the person was armed and it turned out not to be the case. And these failures were more likely to occur when the subject was black [even if the officers were themselves black or Latino].” - Lorie Fridell is an Associate Professor of criminology at the University of South Florida and was director of research at the Police Executive Research Forum. (BBC)

The murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2014– which Chicago officials covered up— caused outrage among the public, and inspired protests. An investigation by the Department of Justice three years later concluded that the Chicago Police Department “has a pattern of racist harassment, civil rights violations, and ‘unreasonable killings’”. In response to the investigation report, the Chicago Police Department announced reforms to their training programs. The plan they released emphasized the installation of a “procedural justice” training program. The CPD went on to release very little information about this program, but it was said that one of the courses focuses on implicit biases. Although this may seem like progress, these programs are only as strong as their leaders themselves. Damningly, at the time of the program’s start in 2017, “all but one of the 17 officers who have provided training have received more than 100 misconduct complaints combined, including excessive use of force ‘often against people of color.’ Of more than 10 civil rights lawsuits lodged against some of those officers, more than 50 percent have ended with a payoff to the plaintiff.” (according to public information collected by the Citizens Police Data Project— a project of the journalism nonprofit Invisible Institute and the University of Chicago Law School’s Mandel Legal Aid Clinic.) This highlights yet another problem within the Chicago Police Department. The department’s “deficient accountability systems contribute to the CPD’s pattern or practice of unconstitutional conduct” as observed in the United States Department of Justice’s investigation of Chicago Police. Contributing to the lack of justice is, “The blue wall of silence, the informal code of silence among police officers to not report on a colleague's errors, misconducts, or crimes, including police brutality.” This is a large problem within police forces across the nation. In Chicago, this often looks like officers assisting another officer to get away with unjust actions. Falsifying conduct reports as well as acting as a bystander are ways in which policemen make sure that their colleagues aren‘t held accountable. Taking the widespread lack of accountability into consideration, one wonders how many more officers get away with unnecessary amounts of force, and how many of these abusers are enabled by positions of power.

In efforts to combat these problems, the Police Accountability Task Force was created in 2015. It worked on “developing comprehensive findings with specific recommendations for change in the short, interim and long-term within the Chicago Police Department.” One of its reports found that “the public has lost faith in the oversight system. Every stage of investigations and discipline is plagued by serious structural and procedural flaws that make real accountability nearly impossible. The collective bargaining agreements provide an unfair advantage to officers, and the investigating agencies—IPRA and the Chicago Police Department's Bureau of Internal Affairs—are under-resourced, lack true independence, and are not held accountable for their work. Even where misconduct is found to have occurred, officers are frequently able to avoid meaningful consequences due to an opaque, drawn-out, and unscrutinized disciplinary process.” Following the shame-inducing comments from the report, the Chicago Police Department claimed to have made reforms to its accountability system. However, when looking at the Citizens Police Data Project, from 1988 to current day, there have been 247,150 allegations, yet only seven percent of those accused have been disciplined. Especially in lower-income cities, many officers remain on patrol, even after racking up numerous complaints.

Looking at North Lawndale and Englewood, two neighborhoods in Chicago with some of the lowest incomes, it is clear that the accountability system within the Chicago Police Department is lacking. In North Lawndale, the median household income is $22,132, and there have been 3,041 allegations of police misconduct, and yet only 172 officers of those accused have been disciplined. Frank Sarabia, a Chicago police officer, has 32 allegations of acting against codes of conduct and was named in a misconduct lawsuit that cost Chicago $5,426. Despite his history, he is still on active duty today. In Englewood, the median income is $19,816, and there have been 2,506 allegations of police misbehavior, and only 96 of these accusations resulted in the offending officer being disciplined. Officer Donald Pittman of the Chicago Police Department, has 20 complaints of misconduct against him, with nine use of force reports, which is more than 81% of officers. Again, despite his history, he continues to patrol the streets today. The lack of accountability throughout the Chicago Police Department is why Jon Burge continued his brutal regime for two decades before being relieved of his position, and the exact reason why hundreds like him still remain in positions of power. Regardless of the numerous problems within the Chicago police department, there is an argument to be made about the emotional toll being a police officer takes on the men and women who are out on patrol daily. About one in five cops suffer from PTSD, and that’s only those with known diagnoses. An aura of toxic masculinity often surrounds the profession, so the emotional health of police officers often goes ignored, which is dangerous for a number of reasons. Outbursts of aggression, flashbacks, or traumatic episodes can be effects of PTSD. If they begin experiencing any of these while on the job, they are a danger not only to themselves but to others around them as well. According to Dr. John Violanti, a retired NYPD officer who conducts research on Officer Safety and Wellness Issues with the University of Buffalo, “the potential long-term effects of PTSD in police officers may lead to behavioral dysfunction such as substance abuse, aggression, and suicide.” Considering his service in the army in not one but two wars, where he was trained to be a part of the military police, it would not be a far-fetched statement to say that Jon Burge could’ve suffered from PTSD. With that assumption, if Jon Burge did suffer from PTSD, that could explain his violent tendencies and constant use of unnecessary and unconstitutional force. That being said, suffering from PTSD would only give a partial explanation of the crimes Jon, and so many like him committed. By no means would it excuse his behavior, or the behavior of any of the bystander officers who worked alongside him.

On February 10th, 1993, then-Commander Jon Burge was fired by the Chicago Police Board, on charges that he tortured one of his victims, Andrew Wilson, eleven years earlier. For Jon Burge, that was the beginning of the end. In the years that followed, Burge faced several lawsuits, reversed death penalty sentences of those he tortured, reduced prison sentences for his victims, a federal investigation, charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, convictions on all three counts of perjury and obstruction of justice, and a four and a half year-long prison sentence, with roughly four months of home confinement. Eventually, most of Burge’s victims received justice through lawsuits, resulting in reparations from Chicago’s city council. Consistent throughout all of the lawsuits and court cases Jon Burge was involved in, was the use of the fifth amendment. When asked questions regarding torture victim’s cases, Burge either claimed “not guilty” or to plead the fifth. All those years since he was relieved from duty and yet, Burge showed he had not changed one bit. He did not feel remorse for the actions he took, nor the innocent people he torture or the hundreds of lives he ruined. Jon Burge was never convicted for the brutality he normalized, only for lying under oath. In the end, the Burge scandal cost the city of Chicago a serious amount of money, with “$29 million paid to lawyers defending the city; $83 million was paid in individual settlements, judgments, and reparations.” As of 2018, up to 20 of Jon Burge’s victims were still in prison. The world may never know the extent of the emotional distress that Burge dealt with, but it is clear that the man’s corruption was only further enabled by the iniquitous Chicago Police Department. Although steps have been taken by the Chicago Police Department to reform their systems, there is still much work needed to be done. One can only hope that one day, those who are responsible for protecting the constitutional rights of the people, will perform their duties with respect for democratic values, human rights, and equality under the rule of law.

Sources

Violanti, John. PTSD among Police Officers: Impact on Critical Decision Making, May 2018, cops.usdoj.gov/html/dispatch/05-2018/PTSD.html.

Moore, Natalie Y. “How Chicago's Survivors of Police Torture Won Reparations.” The Marshall Project, The Marshall Project, 30 Oct. 2018, www.themarshallproject.org/2018/10/30/payback.

DE-ESCALATION, RESPONSE TO RESISTANCE, AND USE OF FORCE http://directives.chicagopolice.org/directives/data/a7a57be2-128ff3f0-ae912-8fff-44306f3da7b28a19.html