The Department of Justice report criticized the CPD for excessive force, lousy training and lax discipline.
At the downtown news conference, many fine and earnest things were said by the politicos, and many flowery words were spoken about police trust and police responsibility, and the need for police to be respected by the community.
But the politicians — meaning Lynch and Emanuel and others — protected themselves by ignoring the most important aspect of Chicago police culture.
It wasn’t the Chicago cops who shaped the police culture. The political corruption and cynicism of politicians over decades in a one-party Democratic machine town shaped the culture.
Police are just part of that culture. They’re the part with guns. . . .
The police didn’t order the hiring and promotion of top Outfit-controlled boss cops to run things for decades, cementing a cynicism that oozes to this day. It wasn’t the police who didn’t want better training for officers.
It wasn’t the police that sat on the video of Laquan McDonald, the black kid shot 16 times by a white cop until dead. It wasn’t police that refused to release the video until Emanuel was safe and had won a tough re-election.
City Hall sat on that video.
And for all the talk of “police accountability” there was nothing said by Lynch or Emanuel or U.S. Attorney Zach Fardon about investigating how the political types squelched the video until after the mayor’s politics were covered.
What isn’t said is often the most important part of the story.
Certainly in today’s journalism.
Note, too, that amid all the violence on Chicago’s streets, Chicago’s Democratic politicians are in bed with the gangs.