Operation Smoke and Mirrors: In the Chicago Police Department, If the Bosses Say It Didn’t Happen, It Didn’t Happen

We recommend this article from theintercept.com: Operation Smoke and Mirrors: In the Chicago Police Department, If the Bosses Say It Didn’t Happen, It Didn’t Happen

This in-depth article is worth reading; it describes serious police corruption in Chicago, where officers were extorting money from drug dealers while allowing them to continue their business. The evidence shows that officers charged drug dealers a “tax” to sell drugs in Chicago’s housing projects, ran their own drug lines, planted drugs, and even murdered rival drug dealers. In addition to this large-scale corruption, racist remarks and excessive force were tolerated in the daily policing of public housing buildings. It is a true story of corruption and the system that allowed it to continue.

The honest police officers who reported the corruption were ostracized and attacked by their police department. The retaliation intensified when they filed a whistleblower lawsuit, which settled in May 2016 for $2 million.

This story is a striking example of how police departments use a ‘code of silence’ to protect officers’ misconduct and control the narrative about police activity. The themes illuminated by this scandal are not unique to Chicago. Our firm’s cases in Massachusetts reveal similar issues including routine police brutality, misuse of confidential informants, planted drugs, and officers’ unwillingness to cross the ‘thin blue line’ and tell the truth about other officers’ misconduct. Police brutality and other abuses of power will continue until police departments protect whistle-blowing police officers from retaliation and discipline officers who violate civil rights. Police bosses should be concerned with doing justice, not protecting their jobs and bad police officers.