The U.S. Justice Department, led by Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, released a 164-page report that detailed the Chicago Police Department’s pattern of using excessive force and a lack of oversight and accountability to deal with misconduct.
The Chicago PD report comes after a 13-month investigation of the department, during which time video surfaced of a white officer shooting and killing a black teenager, The Washington Post reported.
Chicago PD handles the third-largest city in the country, where the murder rate is skyrocketing in recent years.
Problems detailed in the report included “systemic deficiencies” in training and guidance about the use of force, investigation of improper uses of force, and the methods of officer discipline used in the process, The Washington Post reported.
The head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Vanita Gupta said, “We found that Chicago’s accountability system is broken,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
The city has agreed to negotiate the process of reform, in which court-appointed monitors will oversee the process.
Chicago had more than 760 murders last year along with over 4,000 shootings. Only 29 percent of the homicides were cleared during 2016, which is lower than the national clearance rate, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Most of the shootings took place in minority neighborhoods, with African-American men being both the offenders and the victims of the violence, WSJ reported. African-Americans constitute about a third of the city’s residents.
Mayor Rahm Emmanuel said that the city is already taking steps toward reform like body cameras and de-escalation training. He stated that the report “does not represent the city of Chicago” but that he appreciated its honesty and help, according to The Wall Street Journal.
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