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Chicago: "The National Capital of Police Repression" - by Stephen Lendman
That's what Frank Donner called Chicago in his 1990 book, "Protectors of Privilege." As an ACLU attorney, he explained how city police and US intelligence agencies targeted alleged internal subversion, and while it operated "was the outstanding example of it its kind in the United States (in terms of) size, number, and range of targets or operational scope and diversity."
He referred to "wide-open, no-holds-barred style surveillance" (and vigilantism), unmatched anywhere in the country - (institutionalized) guerrilla warfare against substantial sectors of the city's population," using illegal, criminal methods, including intimidation, physical confrontation, and flagrant abuse, at times involving torture. That was then. What about now?
From 2002 - 2004 alone, over 10,000 complaints were made against police, many involving brutality, including beatings and torture. Yet only 18 resulted in disciplinary action, according to University of Chicago Law Professor Craig Futterman who uncovered the data.
He helped prepare a 2007 University of Chicago report titled, "The Chicago Police Department's Broken System," revealing damning evidence of systemic abuse, including brutality, illegal searches, false arrests, racial targeting, sexual assaults, shoddy investigations, a culture of silence, and apartheid justice mostly affecting the city's Blacks, Latinos, poor and disadvantaged.
The police were called a "regime of not knowing," letting cops get away with torture, even murder - because of "a deep commitment to the machinery of denial... encouraging a culture of silence in the face of abuse perpetrated by officers," Mayor Richard M. Daley and City Council aldermen as culpable as top police officials.
Among other findings, the study found:
-- compared to other large municipal police authorities, excessive force complaints are 94% less likely to be sustained by the Chicago Police Department (CPD);
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