Video: Chicago cop opens fire on black teens in car
A dashboard camera video obtained by The Chicago Reporter shows a police officer firing more than a dozen shots into a car filled with black teenagers in apparent violation of Chicago Police...
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Police shooting video highlights importance of accountability
Editor and Publisher Susan Smith Richardson It happened in less than 10 seconds. A Chicago police officer fired more than a dozen shots into a car of unarmed black teenagers. Footage from the dashboard...
View ArticleActivists seek civilian oversight to improve police accountability
In the year since protests rocked Ferguson, Missouri, after the police killing of an unarmed black man named Michael Brown, a lot has happened around the issue of police accountability in Chicago....
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Police reform law doesn’t fill all accountability gaps
Infographic by Sarah TurbinA police reform bill signed into law by Gov. Bruce Rauner this week implements a range of new requirements for police. Illinois has become one of the first states to...
View ArticleIPRA should release names of cops in closed investigations of...
In June, the Chicago Reporter made public a video of police officer Marco Proano opening fire on a moving car containing six unarmed black teenagers at 95th and LaSalle streets. On July 29, the City...
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New police reform task force triggers feeling of déjà vu
Chicago has been here before. In November 1997, Chicago police Superintendent Matt Rodriguez resigned. That same month, a blue-ribbon commission on police reform released its recommendation on how to...
View ArticleThe spotlight on McCarthy should turn to IPRA
When I heard that Mayor Rahm Emanuel was firing Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, my first thought was, what about Scott Ando? McCarthy certainly merited replacement. He defended Dante...
View ArticleEmanuel needs to address police code of silence — and racism
Mayor Rahm Emanuel faces what may well be the central crisis of his administration in the continuing outrage over the police killing of Laquan McDonald. It’s an outrage decades in the making, with...
View Article16 shots: the aftermath of the Laquan McDonald shooting (video)
It has been three weeks since the release of a police dash-cam video showing a Chicago police officer shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times. Photographers for The Chicago Reporter documented...
View ArticleActing on the ‘hard truths’ of racism in the Chicago Police Department
A police accountability task force confirmed what communities of color live with daily. A report by Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s hand-picked group called out the nation’s third-largest police department for...
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On police reform, it’s back to business as usual for the mayor
It looks like Mayor Rahm Emanuel thinks he’s gotten past the political crisis of the past few months – at least judging from his response to the recommendations of his own Police Accountability Task...
View ArticleOne Change Police Can Make to Show They’re Serious About Reform
Very few police misconduct complaints see the light of day. Only about 7 percent are sustained, and only 2 percent result in officer discipline, according to the City of Chicago's own data. What most...
View ArticlePolice reforms should make the right to legal representation real
“You have the right to remain silent....You have the right to have a lawyer present during questioning....” We’ve all heard it a thousand times from TV cops. In fact, the right to counsel is a...
View ArticlePolice reform hearings decried as a “farce” by advocates
The Chicago City Council held hearings on police reform this week at Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s behest, and most of the people who testified criticized the proceedings. “These hearings are a farce,” said...
View ArticleRubber stamp politics won’t cut it for police reform
When Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced his latest timetable for a police reform ordinance, the first question was “What will happen next to derail his plans?” The bigger issue is whether Emanuel’s new...
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Philip Coleman case shows IPRA being tougher on police misconduct
Two years after the 2012 death of Philip Coleman while in police custody, the Independent Police Review Authority found no wrongdoing by the officers involved. But the city released a graphic video...
View ArticlePublic deserves to see Mayor Emanuel’s police oversight proposal
Despite all Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s talk of transparency, despite all the admonitions that police reform be shaped through an open process, a series of City Council hearings closed without any public look...
View ArticleTransparency compromised in Emanuel’s police oversight plan
As Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson moved to fire five officers who were involved in the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald, the Police Department quietly refused this week to release the...
View ArticleOfficer seen in shooting video indicted on federal civil rights charges
For the first time in decades, a Chicago police officer has been indicted on federal civil rights charges for shooting a civilian. Officer Marco Proano, 41, was charged with two counts of deprivation...
View ArticleJustice Department report on Chicago police, annotated
To anyone who has been paying attention to policing in Chicago, it came as no surprise when the U.S. Department of Justice announced on January 13 that it had found the Chicago Police Department...
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