The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/policing/police-misconduct/)
A city official calls “ludicrous” the prosecutor’s claims that police mishandled potential evidence of drugs or alcohol and rushed to label as accidental one officer’s fatal shooting of another in what police say was a game of Russian roulette.
The new attorney general, former state Sen. Kwame Raoul, reportedly plans to review the seven-year sentence given former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke in the killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.
Public defenders have called for an investigation of what they say is a widespread practice by the Baltimore Police Department of wrongly expunging internal affairs files of officers accused of misconduct.
A federal indictment charged that three officers beat a 22-year police veteran and a fourth officer lied to a grand jury about the incident. It happened last year amid protests after another officer was acquitted of murder charges in a fatal shooting.
New Jersey cops were ordered by state officials almost two decades ago to document all incidents when police used force. A team of reporters built a database after locating the reports and found what they called a “monument to failure.”
An investigation of Eddie Johnson’s record as a supervisor in the Chicago Police Department before he was named superintendent uncovered what it calls a pattern of whitewashing questionable behavior by police officers, raising questions about the future of police reform in Chicago.
Prosecutors dropped the charges after finishing their review of arrests involving Zachary Wester, a former Jackson County deputy accused of planting drugs on motorists. The charges involved everything from traffic offenses to felonies, including possession of methamphetamine. Wester was fired Sept. 10.
The 18 vacated convictions announced Monday bring to 42 the total number of cases overturned that involved Sgt. Ronald Watts. All of new cases vacated were connected to convictions after narcotics arrests.
A draft consent decree aimed at curbing abuse of force and racial bias in the Chicago police department is now circulating for comment. But it may not solve the underlying issues, writes a Boston attorney.