CPD Officers Allowed to File Gun Charges Directly with Courts Under New Policy
Recently, Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke announced an expansion of a pilot program that allows Chicago Police Officers to file felony gun charges without getting approval from her office. Officers who capture an arrest of an individual for unlawful possession of a weapon, unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon, or aggravated unlawful possession of a weapon will be able to file the charges after a lieutenant signs off on the charges. O’Neil Burke referred to the pilot program, the Felony Review Bypass Pilot Program, as, “an unqualified success” when it was earlier implemented in two CPD police districts, with 122 out of the 123 cases reviewed that resulted in an indictment or finding of probable cause by an independent judge, according to the State’s Attorney’s Office. “The goal of this initiative is straightforward: to get police officers back on their beats, not tied down at their desk waiting on a phone call,” O’Neill Burke said in highlighting the goals of the program, namely allowing officers an expediated process that does not bog down the prosecutors office and allows her office to focus on “more complex cases.” Still, opponents to the program argue that the new process will allow for abuses, with Cook County Public Defender Sharone Mitchell Jr. highlighting that, “Chicago police have a long history of misconduct connected with the types of traffic stops that usually initiate these nonviolent possession charges, including racial profiling and conducting unconstitutional searches.” The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, the Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, the Better Government Association and the Rainbow PUSH Coalition all previously urged O’Neill Burke to halt the pilot program, obviously to no avail after the rollout across the city.
CPD Officers Allowed to Turn Off Cameras After a Shooting Under Consent Decree
Earlier this week, U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer ruled that Chicago Police Department (“CPD”) officers can turn their body-worn cameras off immediately after they are involved in a shooting of a member of the general public when questioned by their supervisors, but then must turn their camera back on if a deputy chief asks them to answer additional questions about the shooting. The ruling, the first intervention Judge Pallmeyer has had to make under the consent decree that was put in place in the aftermath of the murder of Laquan McDonald by Officer Jason Van Dyke and accusations of a coverup, will undoubtedly anger both sides somewhat, since it is a compromise of what both sides were arguing for. Immediately after a shooting, CPD officers are required to answer seven specific questions during a “public safety briefing” that Pallmeyer described as focusing “on immediate safety concerns,” including if the officer is aware of anyone who is “armed or present a public safety risk.” Pallmeyer sided with CPD leaders and city lawyers who argued that both the supervisor and officer involved in the shooting should be allowed to turn off their cameras during these questions, with the order likening this discussion to “an internal conversation between police officers” akin to “two police detectives tasked with solving an armed robbery sit down in a room at the police station and sift through all the physical evidence collected from the scene of the crime and re-read the written records of every statement given to police by witnesses.” However, after a shooting involving a CPD officer, CPD policy also requires a deputy chief to report to the scene and begin their own investigation, with the potential to conduct a “walkthrough” of the scene if they deem it necessary, which Pallmeyer said does need to be recorded. CPD Officers who refuse to participate in a walkthrough are subject to potential discipline, although nothing they say can be used against them in any criminal proceedings given their constitutional rights against self-incrimination. In differentiating between the two, Pallmeyer found that while the initial questions concern immediate threats and “time-sensitive matters” that any subsequent walkthrough “does not involve these same exigencies; the purpose is not simply to ensure that the scene is safe, but rather to begin collecting a record for an internal investigation” which the public would have an interest in. Policies set by the consent decree remain a hot topic of discussion in the Chicagoland legal and criminal justice communities, with frequent expansions and rulings that have real impacts on the way CPD polices the city.
