The year 2007 has seen a frightening increase in reports of police misconduct. These increases were reported by Chicago Reporter which stated that “45 percent of Chicago police officers that have been sued for having shot and killed a civilian since 2000 had previously been sued before-in some cases multiple times.”
While this account is startling to most people there are circumstances at work that the average citizen is unaware of. Wrongful death lawsuits levied against the police are subject to rigorous internal investigation by the police department to determine if the shooting in question is justified by police department standards.
These standards are very specific as to what constitutes justifiable homicide for a police officer. Police general orders state, “a police officer is justified in killing a person when that person presents a real danger to others or to the police officer himself/herself.”
With this in mind the wrongful death lawsuits are generally fraudulent as the police officer in question is right in executing action against a perceived threat. It goes without to much elaboration that mistakes happen and some of the people killed by police were not representative of any real danger, but this is normally determined after the victim has been shot. While this alone is not enough to exonerate police officers it can be used to show how the criminal element has been able to pervert the justice system in getting police officers that do their jobs correctly from their training off the streets.
Note also that the investigation by the Chicago Reporter stated that those officers were sued for other misconduct other than the shooting of civilians. Any police officer can attest that in the course of doing their job they will have a complaint levied against them. While this is often times dismissed by the Office of Professional Standards, the regulating body for the police department, this still does not prevent private citizens from finding a lawyer and filing suit in court.
With the reticence of Mayor Richard J. Daley to release the names or records of the officers that have been referenced by the Chicago Reporter it is difficult for civilians to fully trust the police department. The police officers that are honest have the unfortunate consequence of being included in the low opinion of police officers who have abused their authority, much like the Special Operations officers that were disbanded by Interim Superintendent Dana Starks. All of this coalesces into good cops being unable to do their jobs for fear of judicial reprisal and bad cops continuing to tarnish the efforts of good cops