Chicago's top cop is not into civilian control of the cops.
In the wake of the killing of Dexter Reed.
I was reading the words of Chicago’s top cop as he appeared at a news conference standing next to Mayor Johnson the other day.
I couldn’t tell if it was the Superintendent speaking or the president of the Fraternal Order of Police.
Responding to a question about the killing of Dexter Reed, Chief Snelling chose the opportunity to attack the Civilian Office of Police Accountability as “irresponsible”.
Reed, you will remember, was killed with nearly a hundred bullets in 41 seconds, following a “pretextual” traffic stop.
A pretextual traffic stop is the jargon used to define the practice of using some mickey mouse violation to engage in racial profiling.
Not wearing a seat belt. A broken tail light. Stuff like that.
In Chicago, a Black driver is six times more likely to be pulled over for a pretextual traffic stop than a white driver.
Although the cops responsible for the killing of Dexter Reed have a history of complaints by citizens, pretextual traffic stops are a Chicago Police Department practice that has come into wide and common use following push back against the earlier practice of stop-and-frisk.
Pretextual traffic stops have the same result as stop-and-frisk.
At the press conference with the Mayor, Snelling said Friday that the agency charged with investigating police misconduct had acted “irresponsibly” by publicly questioning whether the four officers who fired 96 shots in 41 seconds at Dexter Reed on March 21 lied about why they stopped his car.
“We can’t speculate on that, and there’s speculation out there in the media right now as to why that happened,” Snelling said at a news conference alongside Mayor Johnson. “Those who are putting that information out into the media are doing so irresponsibly.”
COPA administrator Andrea Kersten had publicly questioned whether the cops that stoped Reed could see whether or not he was wearing his seat belt through the tinted windows.
Pressed by WTTW News to clarify who specifically he thought was irresponsible, Snelling said COPA had acted irresponsibly.
“I’m passionate about this,” Snelling said. “A police officer was shot. I’ll repeat. A police officer was shot. A man lost his life. A man lost his life. This isn’t something that we should take lightly. This isn’t something that should play out in the court of public opinion.”
That’s ridiculous.
That’s what civilian control of the police means.