Comment on Cash-strapped Chicago has paid half a billion dollars in police brutality settlements since 2004

rss@dailykos.com (Shaun King), Daily Kos
Mon, 04/27/2015 - 10:27am

Cash-strapped Chicago has paid half a billion dollars in police brutality settlements since 2004

Rekia Boyd, shot and killed by Chicago Officer Dante Servin With 49 elementary schools closing this summer, with pensions being slashed, and with public services being cut all over Chicago, the city now admits it has paid out over $521 million in settlements and legal fees due to police violence, misconduct ,and abuse over the past 10 years alone—with a whopping 500 cases still pending. What's more, criminal justice experts say new lawsuits will surely keep filling the pipeline until the city addresses a so-called "code of silence" – where officers refuse to tell on each other for misbehavior – and a flawed disciplinary system that together allow misconduct to prosper. In all, the BGA found a total of $521.3 million has been spent to handle police misconduct-related lawsuits from 2004 to present day. The true cost, though, is even higher, as the BGA counted settlements and judgments, legal bills and other fees – but not less tangible expenses related to, say, insurance premiums, in-house lawyers and investigators, and the cost of incarcerating innocents. In the government-sponsored study to track the outrageous costs of police brutality in Chicago, the following examples of what could have and should have been done with half a billion dollars in the city were given: Could build five high schools like the state-of-the-art building the city recently developed in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.

 

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