Chicago's Police Are Racist, Corrupt Says Report (and Everybody Else)

Unions, lack of independent accountability get part of the blame.

Credit: TonyTheTiger

Chicago's police is racist and corrupt and protects its own officers against misconduct charges rather than holding them accountable.

So … tell us something we don't know.

This latest analysis comes from the Police Accountability Task Force, which was put together by Mayor Rahm Emmanuel after all the outrage over the police officer who was caught on video pretty much executing Laquan McDonald. That officer, Jason Van Dyke, has been charged with murder, but it's not clear that even that would have happened had the shooting not been captured on film, particularly since the city resisted as much as possible releasing it.

The Chicago Tribune got its hands on the summary of the task force's report, which is supposed to be delivered to the mayor this week. There is a certain amount of diversity buzzword posturing that may push some folks away, but lay the blame for that on collegiate outrage performance artistry. We've gotten so used to sheltered college students calling everything racism that when we see the language used in its actual proper context it will take a minute for the natural inclination to resist it to wane:

The 18-page executive summary recommends abolishing the Independent Police Review Authority, which investigates allegations of officer misconduct, and implementing a citywide reconciliation process beginning with the "superintendent publicly acknowledging CPD's history of racial disparity and discrimination."

Don't let the call for a "deputy chief of diversity" at the Chicago police and a "reconciliation process" put you off. There are substantive complaints about the policies that are in place that allow the Chicago police to lie, protect each other, and avoid accountability. The report takes direct aim at police unions and how collective bargaining has broken the system:

The police union contract contributes to the problem because it values officer protections above public accountability. The contract, as well as state law, prohibits anonymous complaints, requires affidavits from people wishing to file complaints and provides accused officers with the complainant's name early in the process. The contract also makes it "easy for officers to lie" by giving them 24 hours to provide a statement after a shooting, allowing them to confer with other officers and permitting them to amend statements after reviewing audio or video evidence.

"The collective bargaining agreements between the police unions and the city have essentially turned the code of silence into official policy," the report states.

The head of the police sergeant's union told the AP that this was all just "due process in disciplinary procedures," ignoring that it's a form of due process that doesn't apply to anybody who is not a police officer who is suspected of a crime. It's also telling that he seems to think possible crimes by police officers are matters of "discipline."

In the meantime, The Guardian continues to report on exactly how the operations of the Chicago police as a whole (not just a bad cop or two) have contributed to its absolutely terrible relationship with its citizens with its ongoing coverage of the Homan Square detention facility. The Guardian reported in 2015 that the police essentially has a "black site" of its own, an unpublicized detention center where it holds suspects for interrogations off the books, without charging them with crimes or providing them access to lawyers.

And sometimes they beat them:

Police used punches, knee strikes, elbow strikes, slaps, wrist twists, baton blows and Tasers at Homan Square, according to documents released to the Guardian in the course of its transparency lawsuit about the warehouse. The new information contradicts an official denial about treatment of prisoners at the facility.

The injured men are among at least 7,351 people – more than 6,000 of them black– who, police documents show, have been detained and interrogated at Homan Square without a public notice of their whereabouts or access to an attorney.

None of the men identified in these newest documents had fled custody or were injured in the course of a lawful arrest. All were subject to force by Chicago police officers after they were already in custody at Homan Square. According to depositions with officers and more than two dozen first-hand accounts, handcuffing is standard. Police applied force to some arrestees sufficient enough to warrant hospitalization.

Some of those injured by police inside Homan Square told the Guardian they had experienced chronic pain or impairment years later. One said he was instructed by police to lie about his strangulation, which police claimed on an official form resulted from the already handcuffed man "manag[ing] to put another flex cuff around his neck".

And at least one person has died while in police custody at Homan Square in suspicious circumstances.

Read about the task force's additional recommendations, like abolishing and replacing its Independent Police Review Authority (which is anything but independent) and replacing it with a civilian police investigating agency, here.

Reason insights Chicago's many, many, many problems with police and city management as a whole can be viewed here.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it.

[Spencer]

Ever heard of a rain dance?

[Scarecrow & WoodChipper Repair]

Cops twerk in the public’s face all the time. Nothing else happens.

[sarcasmic]

And nothing else happened.

[mad.casual]

IMO, Emmanuel’s comments on the matter very much came across as rather somewhere between “It’s a problem, but what are you gonna do?” and “What are *you* gonna fucking do about it?” in tone deafness and I’m not even in the target/victim demographic.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Talk about under playing the war on cops.

[Suell]

The police is racist.

[Sevo]

I agrees!

[Heroic Mulatto]

Let’s not get too cavalier. American English usually treats collective nouns in the singular (e.g., The team is winning); whereas, British English allows for number of a collective noun do be determined by pragmatic information (“pragmatic” being used here in the sense that linguists use to refer to how context influences meaning). That having been said, “police” remains a notable exception in American English as it is treated as a plural noun (e.g., Merriam-Webster). I’m wondering if the usage of “police” is undergoing a shift in AE to comport to the dialect’s usual treatment of collective nouns, as would be expected as language tends to, over time, hammer down nails that stick out.

[commodious spittoon]

Oh, oh, oh, now explain why Brits say “to hospital” or “to university.”

[Heroic Mulatto]

For whatever reason, BE drops the article for those nouns just like we usually say “he’s in prison” as opposed to “he’s in the prison”.

[Rhywun]

The explanation I got in one class is that these set constructions came about because schools, hospitals, and prisons (!) were such an important feature of everyday life.

[Heroic Mulatto]

It makes sense. IMO, you seem to put an invisible “system” after each noun. If I say he’s in school, it really doesn’t matter what particular school he’s in.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Just putting on my linguist hat, do you mind if I ask you, if you’re from the U.S., and if so, what region?

[Free Market Socialist $park?]

While you have your linguist hat on, what do you think of idiolects?

[Heroic Mulatto]

An idiolect is a dialect without a dictionary.

[Free Market Socialist $park?]

I stumbled across the topic while doing some reading and thought you might have some actual practical insight. I’m guessing by your response that you don’t put much stock in it.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I’m guessing by your response that you don’t put much stock in it.

I was just making a joke, actually. Idiolects are a thing; just from the mere fact that our lexicons differ in that I know words you don’t and vice versa. An idiolect is just a term that refers to how a particular individual speaks and writes. Just as we all have our unique genetic code, we also share genetic characteristics with a larger community of people who have similar, but not exactly the same, DNA with us. So idiolect:dialect as individual DNA:race/ethnicity.

[Free Market Socialist $park?]

I got it, I wasn’t being flippant in my reply. The article I was reading about it pointed out that it’s not an idea that has found much traction. Of course, it also addressed it from a philosophy standpoint rather than linguistics or cognitive science. I just found it mildly interesting in describing just how much our brains need to compensate for just to have a meaningful conversation with someone who speaks the same language.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I just found it mildly interesting in describing just how much our brains need to compensate for just to have a meaningful conversation with someone who speaks the same language.

Some folks call that “Negotiation of Meaning”, and you can see examples of it on here, and other places on the Internet, everyday when such negotiations break down.

[Free Market Socialist $park?]

Thanks, I’ll check that out more when I get home.

[Rufus The Monocled Derp Slayer]

Damn, and here I was, because this is what immature people do, ready to use it as an insult.

[Rhywun]

I’ve never heard that particular construction but if words like “team” and “family” can be used with either singular or plural verbs, why not “police”.

[Scarecrow & WoodChipper Repair]

What about deer, and what about fish, fish, and fishes, or person, persons, people, and peoples?

I personally favor peoplios.

[BigT]

I was told you favor sheep.

[Doctor Whom]

Does this shocked face make my shoulders look broad?

[Citizen X]

Yeah, but it pairs well with the bright orange fez.

[Libertarian]

Would have been a good year for one of the major parties to hold their convention in Chicago. What could go wrong?

[John]

Wouldn’t a Democrat Convention in Chicago have been made for TV entertainment? The BLM and the public employees’ unions could have finally had it out and beaten one another like baby seals all over national TV.

[John]

Funny how it is the Republicans who are supposed to be racists, yet the police forces in cities like Chicago and Baltimore where there hasn’t been a Republican elected in decades are all systematically racist. Democrats are the ones who care and are not racist yet every place they are put in charge of a police force those police forces turn out to be completely racist.

Just bad luck I guess.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

And the universities they run turn out to be rape factories. Maybe they shouldn’t be trusted.

[John]

Yeah. The universities are so inherently racist that there has to be a strict quota given to minority applicants or the admissions officials will systematically exclude them. And the administrations apparently tolerate 20% of their female students being raped.

Progressives own nearly every position in academia yet somehow are not responsible for it being by their own admission cess pools of rape and racism. The cognitive dissonance of that never seems to occur to them.

[Rhywun]

Maybe rapists are responsible for rapes, not college administrators.

[John]

Individually sure. But if you run an institution were the rape rate is so high that it has a “rape culture” by your own admission, aren’t you in some measure responsible? Not criminally. No one is saying the administrators should go to jail for rape. But they are certainly responsible for this “rape culture” they claim exists. They run the universities. How are they not to some measure responsible if the universities they administer have a culture that tolerates and condones rape?

[Rhywun]

You’re putting a faith in the power of administrators that I certainly don’t share.

[John]

Don’t you see the problem with people who run an institution and have for decades claiming those institutions are racist and have a rape culture and then acting like they bear no responsibility for such?

[BigT]

In loco parentis. The emphasis is on loco.

[Rhywun]

I hate most cops and Democrats too but this is just silly. Do you honestly think the situation, whatever it is – and I think the charges of “racism” are overblown – will change if only they put some Republicans in charge?

[Idle Hands]

no, but it def. couldn’t get worse. At least there would be some competition, ergo some kind change could occur.

[Hamster of Doom]

ut it def. couldn’t get worse

Citation required.

[Idle Hands]

the current level of corruption in Chicago politics isn’t enough? Look I’m not saying putting republicans in charge would amount to rainbows and gumdrops falling from the sky, just that they probably couldn’t lower the bar.

[Hamster of Doom]

You misunderstood me. I should have been more clear. It was an ironic reference to the notion that it can indeed get worse than this. We’ve barely begun to plump the depths of humanity’s grubby, corrupt little soul, if historical record can be indicative of future performance.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Get a load of Debbie Downer here!

[lafe.long]

plump the depths

Sounds naughty.

[Mainer2]

The looser the waistband the deeper the quicksand
So I have read.

[John]

It is not Silly at all. Suppose the situation would be the same if the Republicans were in charge. That still renders the claim that Republicans are racist and the Democrats somehow better false. The bottom line is the Democrats run these cites and the police forces are completely racist. Why do you think it is silly to point to that fact as evidence of what a shame the Democrats’ claimed concern about black people is?

If Democrats care so much more about black people than Republicans, why is every police force they run so racist?

That is a valid point. I don’t see why you think it is silly.

[mad.casual]

That is a valid point. I don’t see why you think it is silly.

More relevantly in the current political climate; standing up and calling for the deportation of people who objectively broke the law makes you racist but passively supporting/allowing the shooting of a disproportionate number of minorities dead in the street on the premise that the officers are all just doing their job is just good citizenship.

Remember when racism and discrimination weren’t intrinsically evil things? Neither do I.

[Rhywun]

That still renders the claim that Republicans are racist and the Democrats somehow better false.

In the context of the Chicago police, who is making that claim? I haven’t seen it anywhere.

[Brett L]

Yes. If nothing else there will be higher political cost for sweeping these things under the rug.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

hate most cops and Democrats too but this is just silly. Do you honestly think the situation, whatever it is – and I think the charges of “racism” are overblown – will change if only they put some Republicans in charge?

Democrats are the ones who claim they go to bat for women and minorities, yet the cities they run are shitholes in which minorities are murdered by the hundreds and the universities they run are, by their own admission, hotbeds of rape culture. If this is going to bat for those factions, it’s failing pretty spectacularly.

This isn’t about whether Republicans would be better. It’s about the results of the policies the Democrats want and implement and it’s about the people who reflexively vote for them despite terrible results over the course of decades.

[R C Dean]

From what I have seen, the longer you have one-party control, the more corrupt and inept the government is. At least when control switches periodically the new bosses have to build up new crony networks, there’s some new blood at the top in departments, etc.

In short, the only thing worse than a duopoly, is a monopoly.

[Michael S. Langston]

Yeah, it’s like giving individuals free things or an always accepted excuse based upon membership in certain groups, then you start incenting people to be group members and incenting victim-hood.

This is a similar problem: If any given region in the nation, always selects one party, regardless which, they have effectively removed any form of punishment, thereby incenting bad behaviors by removing a powerful signal of failure.

Additionally keep in mind, in say some district in CA where D always wins, then essentially the primary ejects the candidates.

And candidates typically try to provide benefits to those who ejected them.

But since primary voters are both a very small percentage of overall voters and the vast majority of them are the fanatic believers in their party, then after the election, instead of the elected working to provide new/better benefits to at least 50.1 of all voters, they instead cater directly to 8% of voters who’s beliefs are extreme to the point they are not shared with even most members of their party.

IE – some districts, over decades, have effectively given up their influence on those elected, by doing nothing more than refusing to hold those hired accountable.

[retiredfire]

Look at who runs these cities and how those people fit into one of the most perfect explanations, that has been published, of what has happened to the “black community”, by the renowned black economist, Dr. Thomas Sowell:

“You cannot take any people, of any color, and exempt them from the requirements of civilization ? including work, behavioral standards, personal responsibility, and all the other basic things that the clever intelligentsia disdain ? without ruinous consequences to them and to society at large.”

This is the fault of the ubiquitous “guilty white liberal/progressive”.

[PBR Streetgang]

If only a Democrat could elected mayor, then maybe they could put an end to this sort of systemic Teathuglican racism.

[John]

This is what happens when you let racist Republicans run a major city.

[commodious spittoon]

Don’t let the call for a “deputy chief of diversity” at the Chicago police and a “reconciliation process” put you off.

The beatings will continue until we’ve reached racial parity.

[John]

Where the cops charged with murdering the guy in Baltimore mostly black?

[commodious spittoon]

Parity in beatings, not in beaters.

[R C Dean]

Why not? It won’t change a damn thing, so why shouldn’t I be put off by it.

What I wouldn’t be put off by is a new division of the state AGs office, charged solely with investigating and prosecuting Chicago cops. Nothing short of jailing the criminals will get them to stop criminaling, so lets stop wasting our time.

[The Late P Brooks]

They’re here to preserve disorder, and don’t you forget it, Hippy!

[commodious spittoon]

I thought they’re here to disserve order.

[Rhywun]

I’m seeing a lot more evidence of the corruption than the racism, but whatever grabs people’s attention I guess.

[Irish ?s Lauren Southern]

I’m going to light the Sugarfree signal and point out that the stats show the cops are violent psychopaths but don’t prove they’re *racist* violent psychopaths. For example, the report shows that 75% of those shot by cops are black, but neglects to mention that 70.5% of shootings in Chicago are carried out by African Americans. If you look at overall violent crime stats in Chicago people are shot by cops pretty much in direct ratio to the percentage of crimes that group commits.

Now, a large number of those people are *wrongly shot* such as Laquan McDonald. However, even in McDonald’s case, the only reason the cops were after him was because he was running around with a knife slashing tires. That doesn’t change the fact he was a murder victim and the cop who killed him should fucking fry, but I don’t know why we have to racialize these arguments when the evidence suggests that cops are trigger happy/violent in direct proportion to the number of violent crimes a given group actually commits, rather than just going out and hunting black people.

I’m willing to bet 90%+ of cop shooting and torture victims are men, so does this mean the cops are sexist or that men come into contact with cops more frequently because they’re more likely to commit crimes?

[commodious spittoon]

So you’re saying men are all criminals? Misandrist!

[Irish ?s Lauren Southern]

The reason this matters to me is because I think racializing these issues causes strife between white and black people for no reason. As a result, instead of everyone saying ‘cops are behaving terribly’ black and white people bicker about racial bullshit that is completely irrelevant to the issue of police brutality. You don’t have to be an angel to be a victim of such brutality and we shouldn’t be okay with cops shooting someone in the back just because the guy actually was a petty criminal.

Cops suck in this country, they open fire too often, they beat and oppress people, often for things that shouldn’t even be crimes. That’s an issue no matter the racial makeup of cop victims, and the evidence just isn’t there to prove that police shootings are racially motivated when it’s equally likely people just get shot in direct proportion to the frequency with which they come into contact with cops. One of the reasons for the differences in frequency is differences in violent crime rates between different groups.

We should be talking about police brutality rather than dividing people into racial tribes based on bad evidence.

[commodious spittoon]

Why was Brown a cause celebre for black activists, but Rice, not so much? Because getting people on the right nice and tetchy fuels the fire and funds the effort.

[Gojira]

…we shouldn’t be okay with cops shooting someone in the back just because the guy actually was a petty criminal.

The problem is, I don’t think a lot of people really believe that. I think they may say that, when being forced to think logically, but deep down in the cockles of their hearts, the fact that cops aren’t generally just running up and murdering completely 100% innocent victims is a strong mitigating factor. The Papaya, “Oh well, if they hadn’t been a thug, this tragedy could have been avoided” mentality.

I don’t know this for a fact, of course, because unlike many of my fellow Reason commenters, I cannot read minds. But I suspect it, as it would explain a lot of the inertia around this issue.

[Idle Hands]

I think your right. Too often in the fight to secure our rights we are saddled with the bottom of the barrel to defend, it puts libertarians on an unfair playing field as we are the only ones who are absolute on the issues.

[GILMORE?]

The reason this matters to me is because …..

We know.

But seriously, you’re not going to get people to stop racializing everything by pointing out the facts. They don’t do it so they can convince anyone that “racism is like, bad, really” – as though that were somehow news. – … they do it so they can get a little moral-superiority buzz.

The fact that the whole “militarization of police/excessive use of force” issue which Balko covered here for years has been overshadowed and subsumed by a bullshit “institutional racism” narrative has been a gigantic disappointment.

(*i don’t mean any change in Reason’s coverage – tho there has also been some of that -… but rather that as soon as the topic gained traction in the media that it was changed to be about “Race”. If you talk to anyone about it that’s what it ‘means to them’)

The thousands of no-knock raids and doggy shootings and SWAT-enforcement of summons etc. has basically been turned into something that morons think should be addressed by “racial sensitivity training” or the like.

[sarcasmic]

It must be framed as a racial issue, because the alternative, the truth, is that cops don’t serve or protect anyone except each other. To admit that every police department in this country is staffed almost entirely by psychopaths who seek out the job so they can do violence without consequence would be an extremely harsh blow to the public trust. Rule of law would break down. Society would unravel. Dogs would sleep with cats. Fire would rain from the sky. In short, the world would end. So it must be framed as racist cops, and not a systemic issue that comes as a result of zero tolerance for noncompliance, regardless of if the commands are lawful or not, combined with zero tolerance for anything that could jeopardize officer safety. That toxic mix has taken a once noble profession and turned it into the greatest single danger to the safety of individual members of society.

[Mainer2]

Exactly right. This is why every incident of brutality or murder must be defended until it can’t be, then dismissed with the “few bad apples” excuse. If you ask why the 99% don’t get rid of the bad apples, they explain how the cops must depend on each other and anyone outing a bad cop won’t have the trust of his brothers. I find it bizarre that people accurately describe the problem as a way to excuse the problem. Such are the mental gymnastics people will perform to avoid the truth as you’ve described it.

[BigT]

“every police department in this country is staffed almost entirely by psychopaths who seek out the job so they can do violence without consequence ”

Gross exaggerations like this don’t help the credibility of those of us who decry police brutality.

[R C Dean]

The “almost entirely” is a bit of a stretch. Better to say every police department in the country employs violent psychopaths, and those who tolerate and facilitate them. The percentages of each don’t matter that much, really. But the sum of “psychos” and “psycho-enablers” will be 100%, as near as I can tell.

[Flemur]

You’re quite right. Steven Pinker referenced an article (which I can’t find now, sigh) with stats showing that the ratio of shootings to police interactions were about the same for whites and blacks – but blacks just had more interactions because they commit more crimes.

Still, I wonder why Asians are rarely mentioned and why the racist police prefer Asians to everyone else….it’s a mystery!

[retiredfire]

Maybe, if we started from a position of honesty, a lot of this would not be causing the panty-bunching you “libertine-arians” are experiencing.
Here’s an example, from the article:
‘The head of the police sergeant’s union told the AP that this was all just “due process in disciplinary procedures,” ignoring that it’s a form of due process that doesn’t apply to anybody who is not a police officer who is suspected of a crime.’
You see, that is a complete falsehood, since every non-police officer, accused of a crime, has the absolute, Constitutional right to never say a word to the police, or to the courts, or to anybody they don’t want to.
See: Amendment 5 to the U.S. Constitution.
The simple fact that the police are required to make statements/reports of their activities, even if they can delay it for a while, puts them at a disadvantage in the “due process” realm.

[Citizen X]

It means you’re a racist, dude.

[Scarecrow & WoodChipper Repair]

So when a study showed whites and blacks using mj equally (per capita) in DC, yet arrests predominately blacks, is that not racism? Or is that irishism?

[Hamster of Doom]

It means you’re a stupid fucking SJW and should shut up.

[Gojira]

Somebody had to say it.

[Idle Hands]

This x10000

[Idle Hands]

Can’t we just agree that drug war and over regulation is completely reprehensible and a scourge on our modern society. And agree to disagree on meaningless arguments about the minor differences between describing various crime syndicates that enforce these rules evil racists or just plain evil?

[GILMORE?]

way to deny people’s lived experiences “bro”. Ugh.

[Hamster of Doom]

the minor differences between describing various crime syndicates that enforce these rules evil racists or just plain evil?

That wasn’t even the issue. The issue was whether government statistics about racial crime disparities were trustworthy. Ascribing to the notion that they were not – that the statistics are such a load of massaged horseshit, in fact, that the information is meaningless as presented – turns out to be Not Allowed.

Examining this collected horseshit and determining that, at best, race is being used by the statistics as a psychological advantage against an unsuspecting public makes one a moron.

Pointing out that untrustworthy statistics presented to the public, who must then overcome their instinct to wish wrongdoers see justice in order to care about what was being dispensed in the name of justice, are distorting the entire process; divisive as the #BLM crowd; and serve the same purpose is proof of your bad faith.

This is how the argument that race has nothing to do with the corruption gets painted as a progtard SJW bleeding-heart race apologist.

[GILMORE?]

a study showed whites and blacks using mj equally (per capita) in DC

Do you have a source for that?

Because “use” is one thing, “Use in public” is what you actually get arrested for. If they’re not distinguishing between those things in their survey then the statistic is being intentionally misleading.

[Ken Shultz]

When you deal with the general public in high stress situations, you become increasingly desensitized. It’s like a defense mechanism. You can even start dehumanizing the people you’re helping. It happens to hospital workers, especially in the ER. It happens to cops in bad neighborhoods, too.

If you come from a white, middle class background, and you end up responding to heartbreaking calls in a predominantly African-American neighborhood, five days a week for eight hour shifts, the subconscious temptation to use racist rationalizations through that desensitizing process may become irresistible to average people.

Same kind of thing happens to soldiers sent into combat, too. We don’t like to think about what we’re doing to other people. Much easier to think of them as “gooks”, “Charlie”, “Japs”, “Krauts”, etc.

[Ken Shultz]

I see racism and police work in inner cities as being like the Stanford Prison Experiment. What do you call that, “situational attribution”?

http://tinyurl.com/hy3ket9

I don’t think you can give police of one race that kind of arbitrary authority over people of another race and not expect a large amount of racism. Even non-racists in that situation will tend to start behaving like racists over time–because of the situation. Just like it’s not enough to give prison guards a rule book–you have to actively discourage prisoner abuse in that situation because that situation actively encourages prisoner abuse. So you have to actively discourage racism when white, middle class cops are patrolling in a poor black neighborhood and seeing heartbreak on an hourly basis. That situation actively encourages racism.

[retiredfire]

Another situation that “encourages racism” is listening to a police radio for eight hours, or more, per work day where the descriptions of perpetrators, directly from the reports of the victims, is overwhelmingly of young, black men.
Whenever a crime is responded to, a report is taken and the description of the criminal is broadcast, so that other officers can be on the lookout. Those descriptions are so massively weighted to that, particular demographic that it is inevitable, even among black officers, that a predisposition creeps into the psyche.

[Ken Shultz]

The solution is for the people of Chicago to keep voting for the Democrat machine–because Democrats care about people.

[commodious spittoon]

Democrats are the only ones standing in between them and those racist conservatives. Let those people into power and cops will be shooting young black men in the street with no repercussions.

[GILMORE?]

well i never

[GILMORE?]

Also, neither here nor there, but the website http://heyjackass.com is a treasure, re: Chicago crime, cops, shootings, etc.

the commentary is pretty sharp too, aside from the handy-dandy stats compilation.

[Notorious UGCC]

“That’s so unfair – to be accused of being racist against black people, after all the effort we put into beating up white people.”

/police union spokesperson

[widget]

I live in Los Angeles (named by Spanish conquistadors ), not Chicago (an American Indian name) , so take my comment with appropriate distain. People of northern European decent generally provide responsible governance. Yes, this is filled with caveats. When chased away, the only people left are legacy northern Europeans who are are on public sector gravy train and a hodgepodge of people who strive to be just like them. I’m a horrible person. Give me an example that shows my ignorance.

[Ken Shultz]

Daryl Gates was a fascist shithead.

I was living/working on the edge of SouthCentral during the riots. The way Daryl Gates’ LAPD was operating, those riots were inevitable.

And there was no way to get rid of him. They could only beg him to resign.

[widget]

Daryl Gates was a fascist shithead.

the Los Angeles district attorney charged officers Koon, Powell, Briseno and Wind with use of excessive force on March 14, 1991.

Powell was guilty, Koon was complicit as the commanding officer. Briseno and Wind tried to pull Powell off of Rodney King. Gates pulled some political strings so that all four officers were tried together

[Ken Shultz]

Gates initiated what we call SWAT. He served warrants by knocking over houses with an LAPD tank.

The riots weren’t about one or two incidents. They were about systematic abuse by Daryl Gates’ LAPD going back for years.

Rodney King just brought it to a head because it became so painfully obvious to the black people of Los Angeles that they had no recourse against Daryl Gates’ LAPD–not even when the brutality was caught on video.

I’ve long argued that the riots wouldn’t have been as bad as they were if it hadn’t been for Gates’ obnoxious gloating on camera in interviews with local news after the verdict. Fuck Daryl Gates with an elephant dick.

[Heroic Mulatto]

the only people left are legacy northern Europeans who are are on public sector gravy train and a hodgepodge of people who strive to be just like them.

Someone else has read Thomas Sowell’s Black Rednecks and White Liberals I see.

[GILMORE?]

what does that have to do with policing or crime?

[widget]

Staffing people to fill role of cop or night-watchman is important.

[GILMORE?]

I stil don’t really get how “better-brands of white people” in certain roles was supposed to do anything about their crime levels. Cops respond to crime, they don’t prevent it before it happens (mostly).

As far as asking for “proof you’re wrong”…

Why is it that NYC has the lowest crime rate of any even-remotely-large city in the US (or the planet) despite being at least as mongrelfied & socialist (if not more) than all the others?

[Los Doyers]

Filthy hipsters?

[GILMORE?]

an interesting theory, but they don’t really make up as significant a proportion of the 8m or so people in the city as you might think

[Ken Shultz]

Well, we might start with this explanation:

http://www.reuters.com/article…..8620120309

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12……html?_r=0

I mean, according to official government reports during the Great Leap Forward, they were having bumper harvests because of collectivized farming.

It wasn’t until later that we heard 43 million people starved to death because of collectivized farming.

[GILMORE?]

Ken, forgive me, but that seems to be an incredibly stupid claim

I don’t doubt a certain percentage of crime-stats in any city are messed-with. a variability of 10% differences might be waved away as ‘noise’.

That basically says nothing when the murder rate in NY is less than 1/4 that of Chicago.

[GILMORE?]

*correction = ‘about’ 1/4, not less-than

[Ken Shultz]

We’re talking about a couple hundred homicides a year in both New York and Chicago. If NYC downgrades 10 of them a year, that’s a significant difference.

On Chicago’s side, ten more gangbangers die in Chicago next year because of a turf war, and it looks even worse than it is because Chicago’s population is smaller than New York’s–but that’s not a big difference in absolute numbers over the course of a year.

If Chicago’s murder rate dropped by 10% next year, it only means there were 20 fewer murders. 20 may be one especially bad summer weekend in Chicago.

Meanwhile, if there were 20 additional murders in New York–becasue of population–the increase in the crime rate would be relatively insignificant.

Additionally, I’m reading that because a larger portion of NYC’s population is Asian, that tends to skew their statistics. Apparently, that demographic is associated with lower violent crime rates.

[GILMORE?]

Look, the argument we were responding to was this.

“”People of northern European decent generally provide responsible governance. Yes, this is filled with caveats. When chased away, the only people left are legacy northern Europeans who are are on public sector gravy train and a hodgepodge of people who strive to be just like them””

My point was that NYC is run by the same types of urban machine scumbags, and is just as ethnically & economically diverse (more so).

Yet it suffers crime on a far, far lower scale.

waffling about potential flexibility of the base stats is completely besides the point. (and also pretty weak-sauce by itself). The differences are enormous.

No, marginal changes of 10 or 20 deaths in either place don’t much affect the fact that the murder rate is 4X+ higher in Chicago vs. NY

———————–

2015 Murders Population Rate per 100,000
NY 350 8,400,000 4.2
Chicago 480 2,700,000 17.8

——————-

Your argument doesn’t get much more interesting when you start talking about ‘Asians’. The crime/murder rates in NY compared to other large & diverse cities use to be fairly similar.

the point here is simply that claims about ‘white flight’ as an explanation for Chicago’s problems don’t really add up.

[Ken Shultz]

“No, marginal changes of 10 or 20 deaths in either place don’t much affect the fact that the murder rate is 4X+ higher in Chicago vs. NY”

I’d really like to make sure we’re on the same page here.

8.5 million people in NYC. They have about 200 murders per year. If murder were a truly random occurrence that could happen to anyone, we’re talking about a 2.35 x 10^-5 chance of being murdered.

Chicago’s population is 2.8 million. They have about 200 murders per year. If murder were a truly random occurrence that could happen to anyone, we’re talking about a 7.14 x 10^-5 chance of being murdered.

Four times the insignificant chance of being murdered in New York is still pretty insignificant.

If the murder rate doubled or quadrupled in New York City next year, that would make big headlines, I’m sure. I might look at that murder rate and still say the absolute number of murders is relatively insignificant.

Either way, I wouldn’t attribute the difference in such a small number to anything one batch of urban machine scumbags are doing differently than another batch of urban machine scumbags–not even if the murder rate of one is four times the murder rate of the other.

[Ken Shultz]

For Chicago’s murder rate to plummet dramatically, they’d need one less person out of 2.8 million to be murdered per week. That requires such a small change in rate! If it happened next year, I’d be reluctant to attribute it to any change in policy by the urban machine scumbags. Local hiccups in the economy, local gang wars over turf because a kingpin got knocked off, etc. could account for that. Regardless, because one rate is four times bigger than another rate doesn’t mean the bigger rate is especially significant.

If the rate of Muslims moving to Lost Holler, WV has gone up 300% this year, it may be because a the lone Muslim in town sent for his wife and daughters. In that case, 300% is a pretty insignificant number.

[Ken Shultz]

“Your argument doesn’t get much more interesting when you start talking about ‘Asians’. The crime/murder rates in NY compared to other large & diverse cities use to be fairly similar.”

There are a million Asian-Americans living in New York City, and if the rate of violent crime among Asian-Americans is significantly lower than it is among other Americans, then that will be statistically significant–especially if you’re talking about 200 homicides per year.

Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders make up 5% of the U.S. population, and, according to this table from the FBI, they only account for only 1.2% of the homicides.

http://tinyurl.com/omypcph

If a significant chunk of your population is committing homicides at less than a quarter of their proportion of the population, then your homicide rate is going to be disproportionately low–especially if we’re only talking about 200 homicides per year.

[invisible finger]

Chicago is and has been a distribution hub for all of its existence. NYC less so. This is almost entirely due to geography, rather than any specific human talent that exists in one place versus the other.

Being a distribution hub includes being a hub for items such as alcohol, as during the Capone days, or meth, cocaine, heroin, etc.

So as long as Chicago’s geography remains as it is, AND the federal government keeps declaring more and more physical items as “illegal”, Chicago will always have a murder rate higher than NYC’s.

Chicago’s murder rate can’t be because Chicago police are sitting around doing nothing. They are enforcing federal drug crime laws with extreme prejudice. The extreme policing, the extreme legislation, and geography all together create the murder rate. Only two of those three can be changed.

[GILMORE?]

that’s a nice, if separate theory.

the argument made was, “X-racial qualities make for better-run cites – prove me wrong”

my point was that NYC is a much-bigger city, run by exactly the same kind of slimy-crooks, yet has – comparatively – nearly Zero Crime by contrast.

If its “who’s in charge” that matters, then that’s a problematic example

as to your argument =

I’m pretty sure the Drug War laws are just as active in NY as they are in Chi town. and we have as large (if not larger) a population of ‘underclass minorities’. In your formula, the only real discernible difference is geography. Which i think is interesting, but not by itself any slam-dunk point explaining why one is so violent and the other not.

[Ken Shultz]

Also, whether there are 200 or 400 people murdered per year, the chances of them happening near anyone middle class is probably pretty far out there. Domestic violence, maybe.

If you come to Los Angeles and don’t want to get shot, I strongly suggest staying out of Whittier, Watts, Wilmington or . . . just anywhere starting with a “W”.

But there’s no reason why average middle class people would go to those places under normal circumstances anyway.

[Ken Shultz]

Did you read any of the articles? The pressure to downgrade crimes and lose crime reports was coming from the top.

Anyway, it may not be the entire explanation in NYC, but they have been caught playing funny with the crime statistics–and that might be a contributing factor.

[widget]

I don’t know either, GILMORE.

I just look at the statistics with an arched eyebrow. In that regard, Bill Clinton was correct.

[GILMORE?]

Why do the mongrels city-managers in NY manage to succeed while the mongrel-city-managers in Chicago fail?

Your theory was that its “the people in charge” that matter. The people in charge in NYC are certainly no less scummy or institutionalized. But the crime differences are wildly different.

[ant1sthenes]

I’m guessing that if you go hard after people that are i) lower class and ii) commit minor crimes, you also tend to sweep up a lot of the people that would commit more serious crimes. Whether it’s just or efficient, is another question.

[swillfredo pareto]

The contract…allow[s] them to confer with other officers and permit[s] them to amend statements after reviewing audio or video evidence…

The head of the police sergeant’s union told the AP that this was all just “due process in disciplinary procedures”

It had never occurred to me that conspiracy to commit perjury was an element of due process but I learn something new every day from union thugs.

[Notorious UGCC]

SUSPECT: “Officer, I recently signed a confession to a burglary, but on reviewing the video evidence I realize that the security camera didn’t really get a good picture of me.”

COP: “Oh, OK then, let’s tear up your statement and you can provide another.”

SUSPECT: “I was somewhere else at the time.”

COP: “Thank you for the correction, you’re free to go.”

[jocuhe]

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[BigT]

“”The collective bargaining agreements between the police unions and the city have essentially turned the code of silence into official policy,” the report states.”

That’s pretty damning, and offers a good solution.

If only there were some person who could influence or coerce all these criminal union pigs.

[Reflections]

There is deeply entrenched generational racism, sexism, intolerance, hypocrisy and
bulling in police departments nationwide. The police unions and FOP have contracts that grant officers special privileges that protect officers from accountability and transparency. No one is forced to be a police officer but what job allows you to kill with no consequences. The police unions have are in charge and taxpayers are stuck paying out massive amounts in damages from police misconduct along with continuing to pay officers salaries and benefits. Police unions are devoted to self preservation and will stop at nothing to continue there criminal enterprises. Police unions nationwide are the violent extremist armed militias. Politicians of both parties are afraid of police unions and the FOP these are both criminal organizations with unlimited power.