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| NEWS > 05 January 2008 |
Other related articles:
The dark side of the force
Sad to say tha 14 policemen have been killed this year, some citizens (even decent, law-abiding and highly educated ones) remain devoid of sympathy, trust and respect for the constabulary. Over the years, the behaviour of a few cops has caused this.
Police corruption, excesses, reckless abandon, unprofessional behaviour, extrajudicial killings and extortion alienate civilians, compromise the efficiency of the force, serve to entrench and even promulgate criminality. Some inner-city residents exist symbiotically with gangsters because they discern very little difference between them... Read more
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 Article sourced from
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Chicago Tribune - United State
05 January 2008
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.
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Chicago Police Department, IL
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Chicago: 5th cop in drug ring
Former Chicago police Officer Corey Flagg blamed anger and greed for his role in shakedowns of drug dealers, admitting Friday to a judge that he had become just as bad, if not worse, than common criminals.
Flagg, the last of five corrupt South Side cops to be sentenced in the case, was given a 9 1/2 -year prison term by U.S. District Judge Ronald Guzman.
It represented the final chapter for a ring of rogue cops who did their illegal work in the Englewood neighborhood, in some instances putting the drugs they had stolen right back on the street for more cash.
Since the mid-1990s, at least three other groups of corrupt Chicago cops have been accused of similarly robbing drug dealers.
"It's fair to say these offenses rip at the entire fabric of our city," said Assistant U.S. Atty. John Lausch, who prosecuted Flagg and his co-defendants.
On Thursday, Guzman sentenced Broderick Jones, the ringleader, to 25 years in prison; Eural Black, the only officer to be convicted at trial, to 40 years; and Darek Haynes to 19 years. The fifth former officer, Erik Johnson, was sentenced in October to 6 years in prison.
In the courtroom this week, the former officers were portrayed as good guys -- husbands and fathers and churchgoers who had wanted to be cops for as long as they could remember.
It was an "almost schizophrenic" turn from the personas that the officers took on the street, said Guzman, comparing their actions on undercover recordings to common thugs.
"I have no idea how that happens," said Guzman, who agreed to the sentence for Flagg called for in his plea agreement with prosecutors. Flagg, 37, pleaded guilty early in the prosecution and cooperated against his fellow officers.
Authorities said Jones gathered information on drug deals that were about to go down from gang members and other players in the city's narcotics trade.
He then used the intelligence to plot shakedowns, recruiting on-duty officers to carry out "rip-offs" that were supposed to appear to be legitimate traffic stops.
Flagg was Jones' "go-to guy," Lausch said Friday.
The undercover tapes suggest the officers had a virtually insatiable appetite for rip-offs.
Even after he had been shelved from street duty and assigned to the city's 311 center, Jones continued to call tactical officers to run the scams, authorities said.
Authorities caught on when Jones pulled up to a drug meeting that a police surveillance team happened to be watching. The FBI soon began watching Jones and tapping his phone calls.
In recorded conversations in November 2004, Black said he was off work for several days but wanted to be involved in a new rip-off, saying, "Hook me up something for Christmas."
Investigations of police corruption take months to put together and rely on officers willing to break the code of silence and cooperate, Lausch said.
Guzman said the prosecution showed that police corruption persists, but he agreed it can be dealt with if officers are willing to blow the whistle.
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