According to an article in the USA Today, "Chicago's homicide clearance rate – the percentage of cases in which police arrest or identify a suspect – fell from 17.1 percent in 2017 to 15.4 percent during the first six months of 2018. If that rate holds through the end of the year, it would be the sixth consecutive annual decline." These stats, in my opinion, are clear testament to the lack of trust community members have in the police. It might not be the only factor, but it would be foolish to dismiss it as an insignificant one.
One Monday in August of 2018, Chicago was coming off a torrid weekend of gun-violence marked by 12 homicides and 66 shootings. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CPD Superintendent Eddie Johnson both called on community members to come forward to help get shooters off the streets. I don’t know about you, but I can’t help but see the irony in these types of appeals where police try to cajole community members into trusting them, in one breath, and then castigate those same community members in the next, calling them part of the problem.
Since we're asking for help, who's going to help stop police shootings of unarmed Black men? *crickets*
As it is, I can't think of any group that has held as tightly to the "No Snitching" policy as have our nation’s police. It’s not enough that residents of communities are forced to endure police violence, perpetrated against them by “rogue” officers, but then they have to deal with the betrayal of police silence by those officers who know that their silence continues to put communities at risk.
Silence is the mortar holding the bricks of the blue wall together, and an obstruction separating the police from the communities they serve. Because of this separation, police have little (if any) credibility in communities of color, other than what they carry with them as individuals-- and that character currency often only extends to those who know these men and women on a personal basis.
More often than not, the woman or man of integrity donning the uniform sees their conscience muted, their moral imperative to speak truth to power forgone, and realizes they are not part of a force for justice. They are here to maintain the status-quo, through their (mis)use of power. The 2014 murder of 17 year old African American Laquan McDonald by former Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke put the Chicago Police Department's no-snitching policy on full display for not only Chicago, but for the world to see. The footage that sparked outrage in Chicago, and across the nation, was almost never seen.
Freelance journalist Brandon Smith filed a suit in Cook County Circuit Court against the Chicago Police department after they denied his Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request; Cook County Judge Franklin Valderrama ordered that the video be released and what followed afterwards was a clear indictment of the no-snitching culture embedded in the CPD.
Not only did the video footage show McDonald walking away from police when Van Dyke arrived on the scene, but it also showed him being shot 16 times. Some of those shots riddled his body as he lay on the ground, already dying. Van Dyke claimed Laquan lunged at him, and three other officers corroborated this fiction; the footage proved otherwise. But, I won’t rehash every “i” that wasn’t dotted, or “t” that wasn’t crossed; that’s been done enough already. My point here is simple: The people who were supposed to be upholding the law stood by and did nothing, said nothing, as a young man was senselessly murdered. And to send a clear message to the Black and Brown communities impacted by Police violence (and to all people of conscience-- in general) that justice will not consider them as her patrons, a lenient 7 year sentence was given to Van Dyke, and the three officers who tried to protect his (Van Dyke’s) lies were all acquitted.
"some, just turn a blind eye..."Some officers, don’t go as far as writing false reports; some, just turn a blind-eye to the bigot, the thief, the abuser, the murderer beside them, simply because that individual wears a badge. I’d venture to say that is the reality of most of our “good police” and because of their silence they resign themselves to a vacuous existence devoid of moral power and will continue to exercise the only power available to those who subvert justice: the hated power of tyrants. To those police officers who truly aspire to serving the people, with honor and dignity: we, the people, respond to your suggestion that we change the no-snitching culture in our communities much like a pair of playground youth goading each other to perform some random daring act of bravery-- “You first.”
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https://flic.kr/p/53QEsm
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A Chicago Shooting Afterwards
