Issues Under Fire: Loretta Lynch Rahm Emanuel Anita Alverez and the Artful Dodge
Loretta Lynch's announcement of the Justice Department's planned investigation into pattern and practices of the Chicago police was so meticulously articulated and so narrowly focused its difficult to envision the people of Chicago ever seeing their civil rights respected, let alone protected. By the time the U.S. Attorney General had finished her longwinded self-serving presentation of the DOJ's intent to intervene, this observer was struck by how little that intervention would actually accomplish. The entire presentation was no more than an artful dodge.
Apparently, the scope of the DOJ's involvement will be limited to the police department and will not extend to the mayor's office nor the Cook County State's Attorney. While the individual police officers should be held fully responsible for their actions, those actions could not have persisted for decades without being noticed and tolerated by other city and state officials. However, when queried by an aggressive press, those other city officials were just a self serving and longwinded as they skillfully focused on what they plan to do and not what they failed to do.
After spending hundreds of millions settling lawsuits for police wrongdoing cases, with few if any prosecutions of the officers involved, one can reasonably presume everyone who had anything to do with any of these high profile incidents should be under suspicion. To fixate on the shooters, their partners in the field and internal affairs investigators will not get to the head of the snake.
A thorough investigation must include everyone who reviewed and understood the merits of the complainant's/victimm's case. That investigation should reveal what everyone knew and when they knew it. And that should include Federal investigators as well. In the interest of complete transparency and accountability, no one can be excluded from scrutiny.
If a thorough investigation of the Laquan McDonald killing is every completed and released to the public, it will likely reveal at least a hundred or more names linked to the case. Since it only takes a minimum of two entities to engage in a conspiracy, it doesn't take a genious to realize how explosive this incident has become. If a thorough investigation of all police cases of excessive force is every completed and released to the public, it won't take a genious to realize how thoroughly corrupt and irredeemable the city's leadership has become.
Its impossible for a police department the size of Chicago's to engage in patterns and practices that routinely violate the rights of its citizens to go undetected by the mayor's office, the city council, the prosecutors and any other agencies responsible for oversight of local law enforcement. What is happening in Chicago is an amalgamation of corruption and collusion that's fostered a safe haven for legal lawlessness. Given the extent of all those who could be justly forced to account for their actions and inactions, a thorough investigation could literally gut Chicago's police department and its entire political infrastructure.
Bottom line: The stories of police brutality and the Chicago police department are legendary, so none of what's being reported can be considered news. What is news, is the fact that the first African American president with two African American Attorney Generals at his beck and call, let this happen on his watch. If it were any city but President Obama's adopted hometown, this crisis of confidence would at least seem less sordid disappointing and disgusting. Podcast below!
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