Again, the committees do not have the power of termination or to file charges. I posted links to the Summary of the investigations that resulted in each of the seventeen Consent Decrees between Cities and the DOJ after U.S. Attorneys investigation.
How about an example. Chicago.
The murder of Laquan McDonald took place on October 20, 2014, in Chicago, Illinois, when the 17-year-old African American was fatally shot by Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke. A court case was filed to release the video of the murder which was released a year later (Nov 2015). He was walking away and shot in the back six seconds after Van Dyke exited his car. In total, Van Dyke fired 16 shots at McDonald in 14–15 seconds, expending the maximum capacity of his 9 mm semi-automatic firearm. The first shot hit McDonald, who spun and fell to the ground. As McDonald lay on the ground, still holding a knife that was folded, Van Dyke fired more shots into him. Police portrayals of the incident prompted police supervisors to rule the case a justifiable homicide and within the bounds of the department's use of force guidelines.[
The day the video was released, Officer Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder and initially held without bail at the Cook County Jail. The investigation report in January 2017, describing the police as having a culture of "excessive violence," especially against minority suspects, and of having poor training and supervision. Van Dyke was a 14-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department.
Since 2001, some 20 citizen complaints have been filed against Officer Van Dyke, but none resulted in disciplinary action. Ten of the complaints allege he used excessive force, and two involve the use of a firearm. According to CNN, "the Chicago Police Department has about 12,000 officers.
Charges were filed. On October 5, 2018, Van Dyke was found guilty of second degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm, but was found not guilty of official misconduct. Van Dyke emptied his On January 18, 2019, Van Dyke was sentenced to 6.75 years in prison for the second-degree murder conviction alone.
Eight police cars responded to the complaint. Only three videos from dash-cams could be obtained and all were without audio, which automatically kicks in. A nearby video from a Burger King was taken with passwords by police, which had gaps in it.
Like Van Dyke, 402 officers have 20 or more complaints on file in the database. The most complaints against any officer, according to the database, is 68. The database shows that of the 20 complaints against Van Dyke none resulted in discipline. Five complaints in the database were "not sustained," five were unfounded, four resulted in exoneration, five had unknown outcomes and one resulted in no action taken."
The investigation by DOJ and the US and State Attorneys found a pattern of unlawful force we found resulted from a collection of poor police practices that our investigation indicated are used routinely within CPD. We found that officers engage in
tactically unsound and unnecessary foot pursuits, and that these foot pursuits too often end with officers unreasonably shooting someone—including unarmed individuals.
Among the most egregious uses of deadly force we reviewed were incidents in which
CPD officers shot at suspects who presented no immediate threat. CPD’s use of less-lethal force also contributes to the pattern of unlawful conduct we found. CPD does not investigate or review these force incidents to determine whether its responses to these events were appropriate or lawful, or whether force could have been avoided.
The City is currently taking steps to improve its response to persons in mental health or
behavioral crisis, in part in response to the tragic shootings deaths of Quintonio LeGrier and Bettie Jones.
The City received over 30,000 complaints of police misconduct during the five years
preceding our investigation, but fewer than 2% were sustained, resulting in no discipline in 98% of these complaints.
The investigation found that deficiencies in officer training are exacerbated by the lack of adequatesupervision CPD provides to officers in the field, which further contributes to CPD’s pattern or practice of unconstitutional policing. CPD does not sufficiently encourage or facilitate supervisors to provide meaningful supervision to officers. Overall, CPD does not hold supervisors accountable for performing certain basic supervisory tasks, including guiding officer behavior or reporting misconduct.
CPD’s pattern or practice of unreasonable force and systemic deficiencies fall heaviest on the predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods on the South and West Sides of Chicago, which are also experiencing higher crime. Raw statistics show that CPD uses force almost ten times more often against blacks than against whites. As a result, residents in black neighborhoods suffer more of the harms caused by breakdowns in uses of force, training, supervision, accountability, and community policing.
The pattern or practice of unreasonable force, coupled with the recurrence of unaddressed
racially discriminatory conduct by officers further erodes community trust and police
effectiveness. Our review of complaints of racially discriminatory language found repeated
instances where credible complaints were not adequately addressed. Moreover, we found that
some Chicago police officers expressed discriminatory views and intolerance with regard to race,
religion, gender, and national origin in public social media forums, and that CPD takes
insufficient steps to prevent or appropriately respond to this animus.
Activist yesterday gathered outside Chicago City Hall to advocate for an Ovesight board that will have the power to investigate and fire police officers - the bad apples.
More:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/file/925846/download
