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Chicago Tribune - United State
20 July 2006

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Department is better now, poli

When the Chicago Police Board fired Jon Burge in 1993 for torturing suspects, its members recommended that detectives start recording confessions to protect the integrity of criminal investigations.

But it would be a dozen years before fallout from the Burge scandal pushed that practice into place--and it happened only after a state law went into effect in 2005 that required confessions to be recorded.

In the intervening years, police officials say their department had changed dramatically, leaving behind the sometimes-brutal practices of what veterans refer to as the "old days" and entering a new era of professionalism and accountability.

"The Chicago Police Department is a very different department today since that period of time," Supt. Philip Cline said Wednesday after a special prosecutor's report on torture allegations was released. "We have been taking very aggressive steps over the years to build upon the public trust."

Cline pointed to the video recordings of all formal interrogations in murder and sex-crime cases as the department's most important safeguard against repeating the sins of the past.

Technological advances and databases also are helping the department track and analyze its performance, Cline said.

The special prosecutors said Wednesday that they believe the abuses that occurred under Burge could not take place today. Cline echoed that assessment in his remarks.

"The fact that they said this couldn't happen today speaks volumes about the Chicago Police Department," he said.

Those reforms have improved the public's perception of police here and nationwide that had been tarnished by brutality scandals, experts say, but improvements such as videotaped interrogations shouldn't be seen as a panacea.

Current perceptions of Chicago police in mostly minority neighborhoods with high crimes rates are mixed, said Rev. Robin Hood, a staff community organizer with ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Hood works with ACORN in the North Lawndale neighborhood, and he also works for the anti-violence program CeaseFire in the Englewood neighborhood.

"You'll get two answers from people in the community. One answer would be that it hasn't much changed since Burge, because the police are more aggressive now [fighting street crime] ... and they have more leeway to violate people's civil rights," Hood said. "The second answer you would get is that the police now have tried to build relationships with the community, and it's succeeded somewhat, but they need to do more."

Since the Burge scandal, most big-city police departments have implemented systems to prevent systemic police brutality, said Allyson Collins, deputy director of the Police Assessment Resource Center in Los Angeles and co-author of a 1998 study on police brutality.

"But even with tracking systems, video and other mechanisms intended to thwart these kinds of abuses, the challenge for any police leader is to create an overall climate of accountability," Collins said. "The systems in place now can still be bypassed if the leaders at all levels aren't insisting on transparency and accountability."

The lack of strong leadership was the biggest reason why the Burge scandal developed, the special prosecutor's report found.

The report lays much of the blame for allowing Burge to remain on the force throughout the 1980s at the feet of former Supt. Richard Brzeczek, who it said was guilty of "dereliction of duty" in the Burge case.

Instead of finding out what happened during the interrogation in 1982 of accused cop-killer Andrew Wilson, the report suggests that Brzeczek gave lip service to an internal investigation before he resigned in 1983.

Brzeczek, who believes he's been unfairly singled out for blame, said Wednesday that some of his subordinates had more direct responsibility for supervising Burge. That group, he said, included LeRoy Martin, who became superintendent in 1987 and promoted Burge to commander.

Brzeczek, now a criminal defense lawyer in Chicago, called the report a sham. He also said special prosecutor Robert Boyle's assertion that torture could not happen in today's Police Department was laughable.

"There's a lot more now than there was then," he said, saying clients tell him frequently that they have been abused. And officers could find ways to intimidate and coerce suspects before the formal interrogations begin, he said.

"They don't turn those recordings on before they start the formal process, so what happens before that?"

Reports of police brutality have declined in recent years, according to department statistics. Cline also insists that the safeguards against brutality are part of an ongoing conversation with community leaders.

"I hold forums with the community on a regular basis. We bring in the faith-based leaders on a regular basis," he said. "So if there was something going on in the community, they'd bring it to our attention, and we would act on it."

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Article sourced from

Chicago Tribune - United State20 July 2006

Department is better now, poli

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Chicago Tribune - United State
20 July 2006