Sometime during this afternoon session of the 2^nd Peoples Hearing on Police Crimes, the voices of the speakers created a palpable cumulative effect that far exceeded any single voice.

James Daniels, whose brother Erwin Daniels was tortured and incarcerated by Chicago police, summarized the weight of emotion in the Hearing.

“Never before in my 50 years have I been in a room with such pain.”

For the Chicago Police, the children of these women were faceless, dehumanized targets. Their sons were young African-American and Latino boys from neighborhoods where the suspension of rights is the norm, where civil liberties and due process do not apply. Their children fit the metrics for potential deviance, making them permanent suspects, targets in a revanchist war waged against communities of color within the crumbling post-urban landscape of American cities.

The group of speakers was mostly made up of middle aged and senior women. Many had been engaged in a painful and taxing decades’ long struggle for the return of their wrongfully imprisoned sons, who signed confessions under the extraordinary duress of illegal torture methods. Chicago Police commander Jon Burge first practiced these techniques on the Vietnamese people as an interrogator during the US war in Vietnam. After returning home Burge implemented torture as a practice on young Chicagoans.

Bertha Escamilla spoke on behalf of her son, Chicago police torture victim Nick Escamilla. Escamilla continues to struggle with other mothers of torture victims, even after her own son was released from prison.

“We’re all sick. We’re all tired. But our sons are locked up,” said Escamilla. “We all need to get together. Please help. We all need to be with one another. We need to encourage people to come to this.”

Detectives working under infamous torture ringleader Jon Burge detained Nick Escamilla and beat him at the police command known as the “House of Screams.” Cops threatened to harm his family and his young child. Officers told Escamilla that they had worked on the case for 48 hours and were determined to close it.

“Officers know how to get confessions. They wanted to close the case,” said Escamilla.

In raising their voices, the Mothers exhibited strength and perseverance reminiscent of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who have publicly mobilized for the return of thousands of children tortured and disappeared by the Argentine state during the Dirty War, which lasted from 1975 until 1983.

Like the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, the mothers of the mostly teenaged boys who were kidnapped, tortured, and disappeared from public life by the Chicago police brought their experiences out from hiding, and made their stories visible.

In seeking freedom for their sons, the Mothers of Chicago Police torture victims had been forced to engage in a fight against coercive state power that had functioned to eliminate their voices from public discourse.

The voices of these Mothers stand in sharp relief to the silences of the police and the state, which have employed a variety of tactics to protect the authors of these crimes behind an ironclad code of silence.

Amanda Shackleford spoke on behalf of her son Gerald Reed, who in 1990 was tortured by Jon Burge’s detectives for hours until he signed a confession for a murder he did not commit. He remains imprisoned today.

“We are the family members of men that were tortured. And believe me, it is not a nice feeling,” said Shackelford.

“The officers who did this to my son… nothing ever happened to them. My son is one of the 5 who were proven to be tortured,” said Shackleford, referencing the recently defunded Illinois Torture Commission.

Though the Torture Commission reached the conclusion that Gerald Reed was tortured, he remains imprisoned where he is being denied necessary medical care due to prohibitive costs.

Jeanette Plummer spoke on behalf of her son Johnny Plummer, who has been imprisoned for 22 years since Chicago police extracted a false-confession through horrendous torture methods.

Johnny Plummer was 15 years old at the time of his torture. Jeanette Plummer said she still vividly recalls her son’s call to her from jail. He cried into the phone, “They beat me mom! They beat me!”

Jeanette Plummer remains hopeful that her son will return one day. “Our babies are coming home. They can’t hide it like they used to. Too many eyes are on them.”

Carolyn Johnson spoke on behalf of her son Marcus Wiggins. Wiggins was 13 years old when he was arrested, beaten, and tortured with an electric-shock device by Chicago Police detectives.

“They shocked him so much his jaw was locking,” said Johnson.

After Wiggins was freed, Johnson sued the officers who tortured her 13-year-old son. In revenge for the lawsuit, the very same officers who tortured Wiggins targeted him for arrest and attached a murder charge to him. While in custody, officers teased Wiggins about being tortured in their custody. Wiggins has since been in prison for 15 years of a life sentence.

These Mothers were making their voices heard as a call to political action for sweeping reforms that would institute democratic community control of the Chicago police and hold criminal police officers accountable for their actions.

Bertha Escamilla voiced frustration with the current process of holding criminal police officers accountable.

“These police officers have been investigated for years. Years! Nothing ever happens to them. They just send more men to prison,” said Escamilla. “We do not need to get these police officers investigated. We’ve done that. We need to put them in jail.”

I had the opportunity of meeting Bryan Stevenson at Northwestern University School of Law as he explained his possible hearing before the United States Supreme Court in the Graham case, which rendered sentencing kids to natural life for non-murders unconstitutional.

Wrongful conviction in this country is common and in most cases caused because attorneys are ineffective with their legal representation of a client.

I have had the opportunity of visiting many different public defender offices all across this country. In the State of Georgia some of my activist friends are currently public defenders and they agree that the public defender system is unfair toward poor people charged with serious crimes. Juveniles and the mentally ill that are charged with serious offenses are commonly the victims of poor legal representation.

What does wrongful conviction look like?

• A group of officers in California framing innocent people with crimes.
• A cop in Chicago that creates a racist ring of all white detectives that torture confessions from criminal suspects that are all African American or Latino.
• A Cook County State’s Attorney that believes that a confession made under duress has more weight in a court of law than DNA testing.
• A pathologist in the State of Mississippi that provided false testimony to gain hundreds of criminal convictions.
• Rodney Reed in the State of Texas who is on death row because of ineffective assistance of counsel and fabricated evidence by a police officer to cover up the fact that he committed the crime.
• Sara Kruzan in the State of California, who was coached into a lifestyle of prostitution as a 13 year old kid. At age 16 when she wanted to end the lifestyle she was forced by her attacker to continue. Sara was beaten and scared. She did what any one would have done, including the judges that have heard her case: she killed her pimp to get out of prostitution. Sara was sentenced to natural life.
• Louis Taylor, released from prison after spending 42 years behind prison walls for a crime he did not commit, was however forced to accept a plea deal at age 59 to win his freedom. Taylor was sixteen years old when he was incarcerated.
• Tyrone Hood is a Chicago Police torture victim that remains behind prison walls despite evidence that has surfaced showing he did not commit the crime and that a serial killer did so to collect from a insurance policy he had out on his own son. This serial killer, Marshall Morgan Sr., had taken out life insurance policies against several people. In each case the person was found murdered. Currently Morgan is inside an Illinois State prison serving 75 years for killing his girlfriend whom he also had a life insurance policy against.
• Oily Thomas sits inside the Stateville prison in the State of Illinois, charged with a murder. Police and prosecutors openly fabricated evidence and coerced witnesses. A 14 year old boy was provided compensation for lying on Thomas, who serves 75 years.

What does wrongful conviction look like?

• Could it be the conviction of Daniel Taylor in the State of Illinois? A juvenile that was arrested for a double murder. The kid confessed to the murder, however the confession is proven to be false because Taylor was in police custody inside a police station lock-up when the double murder occurred. Taylor has a bond slip to show that he was in police custody. A Circuit Court judge in Cook County allowed the Cook County State’s attorney office to allege that police officer falsified Taylor’s bond slip because they released him early from police custody the night of the double murder and did not want to get in trouble for breaking policy. Taylor has been incarcerated for over two decades serving a natural life sentence without parole.
• Stanley Wrice was taken to the Chicago Police Area Two violent crime unit in Chicago in connection with a possible rape. Wrice has for more than two decades had evidence to show that he had been tortured by Chicago police subordinates of Jon Burge. Court after Court has rejected Wrice. He spent 28 years behind prison walls before winning a evidentiary hearing on his claim of torture in 2010. Today Wrice remains incarcerated and still has not had the hearing.

I think that on this weekend, it would be worthy to take about thirty minutes of your time to listen to what attorney Stevenson had to say about the criminal justice system in an interview with Bill Moyers (featured below).

Take time to learn what the criminal justice system looks like.

Mark Clements, pictured above (front), was wrongfully convicted for murder as a 16 year old after Chicago police subjected him to physical and emotional torture under the command of torture ring-leader Jon Burge. Mark was finally freed in 2009 after having served 28 years in prison.

One must start to wonder what’s going on at the Menard Correctional Center located downstate in Southern Illinois. There have been three murders to occur individually within the past two months. Two of the deaths occurred inside the Segregation Unit where inmates are housed for allegedly breaking prison rules and the third death was to a 64 year old man who allegedly had altercations with another inmate weeks before his February 25th death. Menard is dangerously overcrowded with lots of racial and street gang conflicts.

Housing two inmates in small, closet-size prison cells was never a smart choice!

But it shows just how inhumane the State of Illinois and prison officials are willing to go to not spend appropriate money toward reform and meaningful makeover of its prison system.

Inmates that are locked in segregation are allowed out of their cells eight hours a week, which is a combination of yard-time, hospital appointments, and library visits. One shower a week, and two one hour visits a month. Many that are placed in segregation in the State of Illinois have mental illness and were originally placed in segregation for minor prison rule violations, such as disobeying a direct order, walking too slow, inability to fill out appropriate paperwork when arriving at the prison they were assigned too, or because they were doing something strange which a Correctional officer found to be offensive.

The State of Illinois policy pertaining to double cells in Illinois prison segregation must be re-visited by Illinois Governor Patrick Quinn and Illinois Prison Director S.A. Godinez.

Often inmates who are placed in segregation and experience difficulties with a cellmate request a cell change. Guards often ignore the inmate’s request for a cell change, leaving a vulnerable person to be victimized because guards are understaffed and not able to make appropriate rounds on the wings where these inmates are housed. Prison guards are so ineffective today that each year in Illinois prisons in segregation units much as 100 inmates are raped by other inmates. According to guards at Stateville Correctional Center, they believe that over 100 inmates housed inside the Northern Classification Center yearly are raped inside the unit.

Illinois prisons have gone greatly neglected for decades. The conditions have disastrously decayed.

Menard is a prison that is known throughout the State as racist, less then thirty-five staff members are African American throughout the entire prison.

Lawrence Correctional Center which is located in Sumner, Illinois has six African American guards.

Human beings who are caged and treated under Slavery laws are forced to reside in these inhumane conditions day in and day out.

Continuing to double cell inmates that are housed inside segregation units is equal to additional murders and rapes toward weaker inmates. Three deaths at Menard prison cannot go down as ignored. These are our love one’s and friends that are placed into dangerous situations by the State of Illinois, who is responsible to protect them while they are housed inside of their prisons. The lllinois Department of Corrections has clearly shown within the past sixty days that it cannot maintain adequate security at the Menard Correctional Center. Warehousing without rehabilitation was the wrong direction by government.

Changes must be made at the Menard Correctional Center.

Stop-and-frisk proponents argue that the aggressive police tactic is necessary for “crime prevention.”

But rather than deterring crime, do aggressive policing tactics like stop-and-frisk paradoxically generate crime by creating the conditions in which “criminals” are made?

Jim Dwyer, writing for the New York Times, addresses the “manufactured misdemeanor” phenomenon where poor, inner city African-American and Latino men are disproportionately arrested for possession of small amounts of marijuana, most notably because they are the targets of stop-and-frisk, and therefore have much more frequent interactions with authorities:

More interactions with authorities because of one’s placement within a hierarchy constituted by race, class, age, gender, and place means more opportunities for individuals of the targeted demographic to get busted for minor infractions that occur broadly across the social spectrum.

Thus, stop-and-frisk produces “criminals” by targeting African-American and Latino youth for popular infractions that are overlooked in the United States at large. The tactic increases arrests for petty offenders, and targets society’s already highly-expendable, marginalized populations, the proverbial “low-hanging fruit.”

All of this is to say that individuals targeted by stop-and-frisk have a far greater chance of ending up as one of the 12 million bodies processed each year by the carceral state – which has experienced an explosion in population in the United States since 1975 on the backs of the very targets of stop-and-frisk.

The rise of hyper-aggressive policing in the United States over the last 40 years, of which stop-and-frisk is one critical example, reproduces the conditions that lead to violence and criminality in the first place.

The intensification of police aggression in poor communities also increases another form of criminality, state criminality, with stop-and-frisk a pivotal exercise in excess police power, leading to myriad extrajudicial police crimes and police abuses in targeted communities.

More interactions with police officers create more chances for state crime and violence and further generates helplessness, insecurity, and fear – the types of things that lead poor youth to join gangs for protection – which only fuels the cycle toward greater incarceration and criminality.

More interactions between intrusive, aggressive officers and targets under siege means a greater likelihood of testy exchanges, particularly in instances of invasive and unconstitutional stop-and-frisks, and allows vengeful police officers to make arbitrary arrests that originate with responses to the unconstitutional stop and search in the first place.

Proponents of stop-and-frisk fail to grasp how Draconian policing leads to real forms of social stigmatization, diminishes life opportunities, limits basic rights, creates mass joblessness, and leaves individuals with few alternatives to the informal economy.

Meanwhile, targeted arrest of people of color for things like petty drug possession, though drugs are statistically used equally by all populations, recreates the aura of criminality attached to black and brown skin and fuels the incarceration of these targeted populations.

Proponents of stop-and-frisk also fail to take into account how the increase in state aggression on targeted communities can transform police officers on the beat into petty criminals and thugs who operate in the gray areas of laws that protect them from the fate of their targets.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s concentrated regime of stop-and-frisk received international attention this week as a landmark class-action federal civil rights lawsuit challenging the draconian police tactic got underway.

One of the more important pieces of evidence revealed in court this week came from NYPD officer and heroic whistleblower Pedro Serrano, who secretly recorded NYPD Deputy Inspector Christopher McCormach ordering him to make “male blacks 14 to 21” the target of stop-and-frisk.

Rania Khalek transcribed the recording on her website Dispatches from the Underclass:

The recording reveals in a determinant form what had already been made manifest by years of stop-and-frisk statistics, affidavits, and the voices of those who experience it: the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk tactic almost wholly targets youth of color as a matter of fact.

Targeting of minority youth was always at the core of the tactic.

Proponents of stop-and-frisk, typically individuals of a more authoritarian persuasion, contend that the tactic is necessary for “crime prevention.” Yet statistics show that the effect of stop-and-frisk as a crime prevention measure is negligible at best.

Hero police officer Pedro Serrano testified in court this week that he was called a “rat” and faced taunting and threats from his fellow police officers for speaking out against the NYPD stop-and-frisk policy. (Joe Marino/New York Daily News)

But as I contend here, stop-and-frisk has never truly been about crime reduction. Stop-and-frisk is a psychological tactic applied to people of color, quite often in gentrifying areas on the cusp of materially disadvantaged communities.

Police stops, street interrogations, and frisks are in essence humiliating public spectacles designed to mark the black or brown body as criminal.

Stop-and-frisk recreates the signification of criminality attached to black and brown skin and creates real forms of social stigmatization, diminishes life opportunities, limits basic rights, and reproduces mass joblessness.

Race-based policing thus contributes to cycles of violence, both state violence and violence between people, and reinforces the very practice of race-based policing while allowing the social conditions that lead to crime in the first place to go ignored.

In this way, the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk tactic is a case of what Loïc Wacquant calls the “racialized penalization of poverty” in the United States, with state-sanctioned violence used to subdue marginalized populations of highly-expendable surplus humanity, a population whose labor is no longer needed, all the while blaming the individual for social conditions far out of their control.

Rather than breaking the cycle of violence and deterring crime, tactics like stop-and-frisk recreate the conditions that produce violence and criminality, thus further contributing to their existence.

CHICAGO—Undeterred by subfreezing temperatures, 25 family members, friends, and activists held a candlelight vigil at 1 a.m. this morning to commemorate the life of twenty-two year old Rekia Boyd and demand that her murderer be brought to justice.

The Nite Vigil was held at the precise place and time that Rekia Boyd was killed one year ago.

One year has passed, and Rekia’s family is still seeking justice.

Curiously, Rekia’s murderer is known. He has publicly confessed to the shooting. His whereabouts are known. The handgun that he used to kill Rekia was state-issued, as were the bullets.

In fact, the candlelight vigil for Rekia was held right in front of the killer’s home.

The individual who took Rekia’s life one year ago is however a Chicago police detective. For that reason, and that reason alone, Dante Servin has yet to be charged with any crime.

One-year ago today, Rekia and three friends were outside enjoying an unseasonably warm evening in Douglas Park on Chicago’s west side. Off-duty Chicago police detective Dante Servin called 9-1-1 to report that the group was making excessive noise in front of his home. Rather than await the arrival of on-duty Chicago police officers to handle the minor disturbance, Servin left his residence alone, in civilian clothes and with his service weapon. He then got into his Mercedes-Benz and drove up on the group of four.

After exchanging words with one of the males in the group, Servin began to wildly fire his service weapon from behind the wheel of his car, striking Rekia Boyd with a bullet in the head. Rekia never regained consciousness and later died in the hospital.

Reclaiming Spaces: From Aggression and Death to Love, Laughter, and Life

This morning at 1 a.m., the official temperature in Douglas Park, Chicago was 17 degrees Fahrenheit, compounded by a wind chill that made it feel like six degrees.

In spite of the cold, people came out to support Rekia’s family and to create new significance, to reclaim that place and that time with unity and love, after it was abandoned one-year ago to the regressive forces that seek to destroy life.

Family and supporters of Rekia Boyd have a vigil at the place and time she was murdered by an off-duty Chicago police detective one year ago (photos by Gregory Malandrucco)

Friends and family members of Rekia spoke one by one, saying prayers for Rekia, telling stories and memories of their time with her, and speaking about the pain and the loss that they have come to share over the last year.

Rekia’s brother Martinez Sutton spoke about the struggle to bring his sister’s killer to justice, and about the pain his family has endured in the year since her life was taken.

He also shared funny anecdotes.

“You knew [Rekia] was around if she did her laugh, she had a signature laugh.  It wasn’t ‘ha-haha-ha’ it was ‘ha-HAH!’” said Martinez, laughing along with the crowd, but with tears still in his eyes.

Supporter Red Schulte captured the mood of the crowd at the Candlelight Vigil with this Facebook post:

Rekia’s family and supporters are pressing on with their demands that Servin be fired from his position as a Chicago police detective, without pension. They are also demanding that the State’s Attorney file charges against Servin, or announce that no charges will be filed so that the Department of Justice can begin the process of pursuing federal charges.

Kimani Gray and his mother. Photo Credit: Todd Maisel/New York Daily News

The two NYPD plainclothes detectives who shot and killed Kimani Gray in Brooklyn on March 9 have a documented history of lawsuits related to the use of extrajudicial violence and other civil rights abuses, according to reports by several news outlets.

The two officers, finally identified as Sergeant Mourad Mourad and Officer Jovaniel Cordova, had been named as defendants in a total of five lawsuits prior to the March 9 slaying of Kimani Gray.

The information raises specific questions about why the officers were able to continue serving in high-stress roles as plainclothes New York City police detectives, and more general questions about the capacity of police oversight agencies nationwide to hold the police accountable.

Attorney Brett Klein, who filed four of the five lawsuits, told the New York Daily News that “our clients’ interactions with Sergeant Mourad and Officer Cordova expose a disturbing pattern of unconstitutional and aggressive stop-and-frisk practices.”

Perhaps even more disturbing in light of the officers’ now disputed claims that Kimani Gray brandished a firearm is that “in each case,” according to Klein, “Mourad and Cordova attempted to cover up their misconduct by falsifying and fabricating evidence.”

Given the reticence of state and police institutions nationwide to prosecute police officers for criminal misconduct in criminal court, brave victims seeking redress for injustices are typically turned into litigants in civil court.

With a few notable exceptions, it is normally the only way that victims or surviving family members can publicly document police abuses and bring perpetrators of crimes who are also police officers to public account for their actions.

The city settled the five cases against officers Mourad and Cordova, resulting in no admission of wrongdoing by the city. The suits do not appear to have lead to disciplinary action. (It might in fact be interesting to see how their promotions have been affected by or even coincided with these lawsuits).

Rather than analyzing the lawsuits as a vital document trail informing the public about a greater pattern of abuse, one that is more than likely representative of myriad abuses that went unreported, it appears that it was “business as usual” for the detectives… right up until March 9.

A woman is dragged during a protest against the shooting of Kimani Gray, March 13, 2013 in the East Flatbush neighborhood of the Brooklyn, New York City. (Photo by AP)

On the heels of three nights of protests over the police slaying of 16 year old Kimani Gray, the NYPD has turned the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn into a State of Exception, claiming emergency powers to suspend the constitutional guarantees of the citizenry.

The people regularly targeted by police harassment and violence, overwhelmingly the city’s poor and minority populations, have taken to the streets to speak out against the NYPD’s draconian tactics. The police have in turn responded with even further harsh measures by suppressing the right of the people to voice dissatisfaction with that very same police force.

Cops kettled protesters at Wednesday night’s candlelight vigil, resulting in 46 arrests. Police even arrested Kimani Gray’s distraught sister, Mahnefeh.

The NYPD euphemistically calls the public spaces in which the Constitutional rights of the people are suspended “frozen zones.”

Allison Kilkenny wrote about the NYPD’s so-called “frozen zones” in December 2011:

According to FIERCE, the “frozen zone” in East Flatbush is being used to prevent media from covering the protests and arrests. Meanwhile, people inside the “frozen zone” can be subjected to arrest merely by exercising their constitutional rights.

“It basically means the area is under temporary martial law,” writes FIERCE. “The last times the NYPD declared a Frozen Zone was on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and during the beginning of OWS.”

An arbitrary dictate that arrests protest and free speech, set forth by the institution that is itself the target of the protests, creates a potentially dangerous precedent of placing the NYPD beyond reproach.

Occupy Austin reposted this poignant summary of events by Jen Roesch as they were unfolding in Brooklyn last night:

Kimani Gray’s parents are scheduled to hold a press conference this evening to address the March 9 police slaying of their young son.

Saturday, February 23
11 am – 5 pm
University of Chicago
Ida Noyes Hall
1212 E 59th St

By the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression Organizing Committee to 
Stop Police Crimes, and the Human Rights Program at the University of Chicago

The Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, numerous organizations, and victims of police crimes call upon all of our sisters and brothers from all strands of the people’s movement to join us in calling the 2nd People’s Hearing on Police Crimes.

The 2nd People’s Hearing on Police Crimes will focus on the problem of police crimes, exploring how police crimes affect violence in the community, and encourage distrust and violence between the community and the police. The Hearing is also a call to action where we will discuss solutions to hold criminal police accountable for their actions, and for ending the absolute police impunity that currently exists.

[For more on the 1st People's Hearing on Police Crimes, click here and here. For a full video, click here]

The Hearing will provide a public forum where the victims of police crimes and community organizations can present their cases and demands for justice. Victims will share stories of police abuses, such as murder, assaults, frame-ups, harassment, drunken driving, and drunken shootings. Due to the absolute unwillingness of Chicago institutions to discipline criminal cops, the People’s Hearing is for many victims their only chance to be heard. We will also discuss the proven police “code of silence,” which encourages and protects criminal police, allowing police crimes to become the norm and not the exception to the rule.

Without a mechanism in place to destroy the police code of silence and protect moral, law-abiding police, the distrust between our communities and the police only grows. As long as criminal police are protected by the system, our communities will only become more violent and our citizens will only become less cooperative with police investigations.

We believe that a Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC) is essential in the effort to repair the broken relationship between the police department and the communities they are supposed to protect. We hold that an institution that can truly discipline and prosecute criminal police, and encourage and uplift moral, law-abiding police, can transform the untenable police lawlessness that currently exists.

The 2nd People’s Hearing will provide the people with the tools to free their community from police crimes. Along with the typically silenced voices of police crime victims, we will discuss the following:

• What is CPAC and how can we ensure its enactment
• A comprehensive victim’s plan of action
• Where to find and how to develop, a police crimes victims support group
• How to demand action from the proper politicians or public servants, or how to replace them
• How to file a complaint if you have been a victim of a police crime
• Details and explanation of your human rights and civil rights

It is time for the people to demand that the City Council pass and implement legislation that creates an elected Civilian Police Accountability Council, one with the power to end the reign of terror in Black and Latino communities, and requires that the police truly serve and protect the people of Chicago.

Sponsors and endorsers:

• Khalid Abdullah, National Jericho Movement, Chicago Chapter
• Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression
• Arab American Action Network
• Jeff Baker, Committee for  Better Chicago
• Marissa Brown, Occupy the South Side
• Rosemary Cade, mother of Antonio Porter, a Chicago Police torture victim
• The Campaign  to End the New Jim Crow
• Isannah Challinor
• Frank Chapman, CAARPR
• Chicago Area Peace Action
• Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights
• Citizens Alert
• Matthew Clark, Chicago Police beating victim
• Elois Clayton, sister of David Poole, wrongfully convicted
• Mark Clements, Chicago Police Torture victim
• Curley Cohen, Affordable Power and Justice
• Ibi Cole, Vigil for True Justice
• Mrs. William Crosby
• Gladys Daniel, mother of Ewrin Daniel, Chicago Police torture victim
• James Daniel, father of Ewrin Daniel, Chicago Police torture victim
• Liz Deligio
• Aaron Dellutri, Chicago Area Peace Action
• Curtistine Delony, mother of Chicago Police torture victim Javan Deloney
• Clarice Durham, CAARPR
• Mike Elliott, Chair, UAW Local 551 Union Solidarity Committee, CAARPR, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists
• Bertha Escamilla, mother of Nick Escamilla, Chicago Police torture victim
• Emmett Farmer, father of Flint Farmer, murdered by Chicago Police
• Linda Flores, mother of John Galvin, Chicago Police torture victim
• Maxine Franklin, mother of Jerry Gillespie, Chicago Police torture victim
• Dickey Gaines, wrongfully convicted
• Peggy Griffin
• Eldon Grossman
• Dylan Hayworth-Weste, NATO 5 Defense Committee
• Mildred Henry, mother of Kilroy Watkins, Chicago Police torture victim
• Pat Hill, African American Police League
• Kamm Howard, N’COBRA, Chicago Chapter Co-Chair
• Human Rights Program, University of Chicago
• Illinois Coalition Against Torture
• Joe Iosbaker, Committee to Stop FBI Repression
• Bishop Edgar Jackson, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Coalition
• National Jericho Movement/Chicago Chapter
• Carolyn Johnson, mother of Marcus Wiggins, a torture victim
• Mary L. Johnson, mother of Michael Johnson, police torture victim
• Robin Kaufman
• Attorney Larry Kennon
• Gregory Malandrucco, Chicago Police beating victim
• Cathy McMillan
• Mrs. Rosalind Morgan, wife of Howard Morgan, victim of attempted murder by Chicago Police (shot 28 times), serving 40 years in prison falsely convicted
• Rev. Dr. Otis B. Moss III, Senior Pastor, Trinity United Church of Christ
• Ronelle Mustin, Vice President, 22nd Ward IPO
• Attorney Lewis Myers
• NATO 5 Defense Committee
• EvAngel Mama Dee Nubian, YHWH Nation of Obedience
• Occupy Chicago
• Aidali Oquendo, father of Carlos Santos, Chicago Police torture victim
• Ted Pearson, CAARPR
• Annabel Perez, mother of Jaime Haude, Chicago Police torture victim
• Jeanette Plummer, mother of Johnnie Plummer, Chicago Police torture victim
• Kenyatta M. Rosemond, sister of Rekia Boyd who was murdered by Chicago Police
• Randy Ryder, Keepin’ It Real Law Project
• Laurie Samuels
• A. J. Segneri, Foundation for a United Front
• Mrs. Armanda Shakleford, mother of Gerald Reed, Chicago Police torture victim
• Martinez Sutton, brother of Rekia Bouyd, murdered by Chicago Police
• Lydia Taylor
• Michael Tidemore
• Gayle Tuliman, Stateville Speaks
• Kevin Tyson, Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago
• Enrique Valdez, Chicago Police torture victim
• Aida Valencia, sister of Carlos Santos, Chicago Police torture victim
• Joseph Watkins
• Danalene Powel-Watts, mother of Stephon Watts, murdered in his home by Calumet City Police
• Steven Watts, father of Stephon Watts, murdered in his home by Calumet City Police
• Stephanie Weiner
• Cherese Williams, CAARPR, Cabrini-Green Legal Aid
• Mary Williams, mother of William Ephraim, Chicago Police Torture victim
• Attorney Standish Willis
• Jonathon Winbush, Occupy the South Side
• Women’s All-Points Bulletin
• Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., Pastor Emeritus, Trinity United Church of Christ
• Josephine Wyatt, CAARPR

CHICAGO—

On December 3^rd, the city agreed to quickly pay Obrycka the $850,000 in damages awarded by a federal jury, reversing its earlier impassioned vows to appeal the November 13^th ruling. In exchange for quick payment, the city obligated Obrycka to request that a federal judge erase the jury’s landmark finding that the City of Chicago “had a widespread custom or practice of failing to adequately investigate and discipline its officers and a police code of silence.”

The importance of the jury’s November 13^th verdict acknowledging the code of silence is not to be overlooked.

Evidence presented during the high-profile two and half week trial revealed not only that the Chicago code of silence directly supported Abbate’s confidence in being able to assault Obrycka without consequence, but that Chicago police brass and police brethren concealed evidence and obstructed legitimate investigation into the assault. Such actions, the jury ruled, were characteristic of more general, systematic practices within the department to conceal police crimes through an organizational code of silence that aims to protect criminals within its ranks, akin to what the mafia commonly refers to as “omertà.”

The city has in essence cynically maneuvered to”silence” the ruling as a likely avenue for hundreds of police brutality victims to receive some modicum of justice.

The potential deal between Obrycka and the City of Chicago is now in the hands of U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve, who on Friday morning December 7^th allowed legal scholars to file an amicus brief where they will argue why the jury decision on the code of silence should not be vacated. The judge is expected to make a final ruling in two weeks.

Criticism of not only the city’s deal, but also their prior legal maneuverings related to the incident, came from all sides.

The Chicago Tribune wrote this week that the city was “essentially agreeing to pay the woman $850,000 now in return for erasing the jury’s finding that a police ‘code of silence’ protected the cop.”

University of Chicago law professor Craig Futterman, who investigates issues of police accountability in Chicago and is one of the legal scholars filing the amicus brief in the case, likened the maneuver to seeking a “code of silence on the code of silence.”

Even police officer blog “Second City Cop” was highly critical of the city’s tactics.

The criticism should come as no surprise, as the decision to cut a deal with Obrycka was an about-face for the city. Its decision to pay up rather than appeal came suddenly after waging a protracted five year legal war in which the city spent an estimated $5 million, and came long after rejecting Obrycka’s initial request of $400,000 in damages. For five years, the city in fact offered Obrycka nothing – not a penny – for her ordeal: assault, police intimidation, and attempted cover-up of the CPD’s actions and inaction.

Interestingly, the city claimed that the battle was being fought on “principle” – that principle however remains a bit of a mystery. Even after the jury’s November 13^th ruling, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration promised to continue the battle through the extensive appeals process, even while contradictorily vowing to fight the code of silence wherever it existed within police ranks.

All of that was before Rahm Emanuel’s administration filed its motion on Monday, where it contended that the Abbate assault happened several years ago and that things had since changed. It is not without irony that one of their primary arguments for why the case is no longer relevant is the amount of time passed since the city began to wage its costly legal battle against Obrycka some years ago.

In the intervening period, the Office of Professional Standards, which investigated the Abbate case, was rebranded as the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA), now with subpoena power and the pretense of independence and greater transparency. City lawyers even tried to contend that the new mayor brought change.

But the city’s own statistics tell a completely different story.

Based on the available data regarding IPRA, it is clear that the city’s arguments that change has taken place amount to little more than double-speak.

In the 2009-10 fiscal year, IPRA sustained a mere 47 of the 3,067 investigations it opened into police misconduct and brutality allegations, or 1.5%. It was hardly more successful in its first two years. In all, IPRA sustained only 1.7% of its own investigations over its first 3 years. In comparison, under the Office of Professional Standards, the City of Chicago in 2004 sustained 4% percent of the complaints brought against police officers for the use of excessive force.

The City of Chicago’s attempt to vacate the jury decision is part of its long history of concealing systemic CPD crimes and torture, and its more recent attempt to prosecute those who record Chicago police officer misconduct with the vigor law enforcement agencies normally reserve for its most violent criminals.

The city’s latest attempt to silence the vital ruling on its “code of silence” shows that the Chicago police omertà has been and remains central operating procedure in the city, and one for which legal acknowledgement is too much to handle.

In her final decision, expected within two weeks, Judge St. Eve “will have to weigh the interests of the parties involved in the lawsuit against the interest of the public in having the record of the jury’s verdict stand,” writes the Tribune.

There is federal precedent for the court to reject motions where cases of misconduct have wider importance to the general public. The Tribune writes that a judge presiding over a similar motion in a Virginia police brutality case in 2000 gave an opinion that, “the public’s interest in judicial economy, finality of judgment and the integrity of the courts outweighs the parties’ interest in having the verdict vacated.”

In the absence of civil proceedings, the prospect for holding officers accountable for incidences of police brutality in the City of Chicago is statistically next-to-impossible.

Should Judge St. Eve allow the landmark jury decision in Obrycka v Chicago to be vacated, she would effectively snatch the precedent away from other police brutality victims, leaving victims of police crimes in the city with even fewer avenues for justice.