Chicago Police Department accountability coverage

Updated September 21, 2015

Video of a police raid on a tanning salon in 2013 shows Chicago Police officers engaging in potentially criminal activity. Some of that activity was reviewed by the Independent Police Review Authority, but other potential crimes by cops were ignored by the agency tasked with rooting out police misconduct in Chicago. It raises serious questions about IPRA and its commitment to police accountability, questions that IPRA has refused to answer.

Updated September 14, 2015

In a 2013 police raid caught on video, an officer makes racists comments to an Asian- American woman he’s arresting, and then he threatens her and her family with death. IPRA has recommended a 25-day suspension for the officer.

Andy Kang with Asian Americans Advancing Justice said Scott Ando defended that decision in a meeting Monday.

“For those that engage in police brutality, I think the message unfortunately, what it tells us is that those officers will get a slap on the wrist,” said Kang.

The police allegedly approached Roberts’ vehicle with their guns drawn, ordered him to exit it, and then pushed him to the ground.

Roberts says one of the officers said to him, “Don’t make me fucking shoot you!” even though he had done nothing but comply with the officers’ orders.

One of the officers pulled Roberts’ wallet from his pocket, and discovered Roberts’ identification as a supervising investigator with the authority.

“Moments later, Defendant Ellison ran back to his vehicle and turned off his vehicle’s video recording equipment,” Roberts claims. Police assert that there is no video or audio recording of what next conspired even though two other police cars were present.

The complaint states that Roberts, “who was approximately 315 pounds at the time, was placed in a single set of handcuffs that were clearly too tight.”

He says he pleaded with the officers to loosen the cuffs, but they refused.

Update August, 17, 2015

Update July 27, 2015

Update July 24, 2015, allegations by ex-IPRA investigators of pressure to change findings

Update July 19, 2015, more stories

A few weeks ago, the Trib published a story about the review of complaints against Chicago Police Department officers to which I contributed data analysis. This week, a couple of stories about Chicago’s Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) came across my radar, so I wanted to share them here: