The Chicago Sun Times continued its quest for more money for Lawsuit Lotto Lawyers, like Jon Loevy. Today's commentary by La Pasionaria Cheryl Reed - drafter of the July 15th Manifesto that raised the Red Flag over Chicago and the appetizer cartoon that accompanied the shameless calumny against working class Police Officers should about do it for Law Enforcement Professionals.
Here it is in full of it:
If an employee's misconduct cost a private company millions of dollars or caused public embarrassment, that employee would be fired. No doubt about it.
But no such punishment faces Chicago police officers found liable for abusing the people they have sworn to serve and protect. Instead of firing those cops, the city keeps paying the victims -- hundreds of millions of dollars over the years -- for beatings, false arrests or illegal searches. And the cops get to keep their jobs. How much more will it cost before the city gets rid of rogue cops?
(J.P. Schmelzer/Special to the Sun-Times) L Here's the guy who did the cartooon showing Chicago Police Officers celebrating their crimes
''Nothing is ever done'' to abusive cops, said attorney Jon Loevy, whose firm has won millions of dollars against the city in scores of police brutality verdicts in the last five years. This year, according to the Law Department, as of Sept. 30, Chicago had paid out more than $27 million in police misconduct judgments and settlements on claims ranging from sexual harassment to excessive force and illegal search. That's money this cash-strapped and tax-heavy city could use to hire more police officers. ( Emphasis here my own)
Who are these cops who are costing the city millions of dollars? They include Gerald Lodwich and Scott Korhoven, who were accused by Coprez Coffie of sodomizing him with a screwdriver in 2004 after a drug arrest. His complaint filed with OPS was ''not sustained.'' A federal jury believed him, though, after an investigation showed the officers had several screwdrivers in their glove compartment and found traces of feces. Coffie last month won a $4 million verdict. Lodwich and Korhoven are still on the job.
So are detectives Martin Garcia and Dion Boyd, accused of framing Timothy Finwall in 2001 for attempted child kidnapping. A jury awarded him $2 million in October. And so are the hundreds of officers whose conduct resulted in individual verdicts and settlements of as much as $6 million.
Not since cops clobbered anti-war demonstrators at the Democratic National Convention in 1968 has the public image of Chicago police been so battered. In many low-income and minority communities, where police misconduct is disproportionate, the police image is not Officer Friendly but Anthony Abbate, who was seen on video viciously beating a female bartender. Complaints to the Office of Professional Standards, which is supposed to investigate, are almost always dismissed.
''There is little likelihood that an officer will receive any meaningful discipline -- meaning suspended for seven days or longer,'' said Craig Futterman, a law professor at the University of Chicago and author of a study due out this month that tracked police brutality complaints from 2001-2006 in Chicago. Even in 1999, the start of the study period, the rate of sustained complaints was only 5 percent, meaning 95 out of 100 complaints were not sustained. It's even worse now: Less than 0.5 percent are sustained. No wonder those accused cops continue to abuse civilians with impunity. And the lawsuits keep on coming.
Those high numbers suggest that the Chicago police department is filled with corrupt officers, but Futterman's study showed that 80 percent of the officers had fewer than three complaints. However, 5 percent had 11 or more complaints -- and some had 50 complaints, without ever being disciplined. No wonder rogue cops don't believe they have to change.
It's as though their misdeeds earn them a place in a special inner circle in the department. The more their abuse costs the city, the more exclusive their membership in this club-within-a-club becomes. It's high time that the city of Chicago closed that club and barred the door for good.
That would about do it for me - it did. I stopped buying the Sun Times in July. There are some good writers and talent at the Sun Times but the they have been shanghaied by the Banana Pirate CEO - Cyrus Friedheim who is under Federal investigation since August 2007 - that was after the July 15th Reed Manifesto - BTW.
It seems that Cyrus, while CEO of Chiquita Banana was paying off right-wing Death Squads in South America and that the Federal Government is weighing charges against Cyrus and his fellow Banana Vintners - They've come long way from the old push carts! Now, how about that for WORKING CLASS VALUES? The Progressive- Independent Conscience of the City
If I were a Chicago Police Officer, or a member of his/her family ( Hey, I do have cops in the family - forgot about that: full disclosure n'cest pas?) no more nickles, dimes or quarters would go to the Sun Times.The Chicago Tribune is directed by a Chicagoan and has a wonderful sports page. The Sun Times used to pick up good local coverage, but now, it seems, only incidents that can help pay off Jon Loevy and his ambulance chasers. I wonder if the Chicago Sun Times is getting kick-backs from lawyers groups that sue the City , the taxpayers and discredit law.
The Chicago Sun Times directed by a guy who is being eyed by the G for paying off Right Wing Death Squads; ignored the death last week of Steven Lyons murdered by Gang-bangers while studying in his room at 76th & Aberdeen, because there was no follow-up pay off linl to Lawsuit Lotto Lawyers ( the GDs and Vice Lords, it seems, can not be compelled to buck up by such Lawsuit Lotto Addicts); dishonors all Police officers on a daily basis; undermines confidence in all Law and Justice; and insults the readership of Chicago should sit un-purchased on newsstands, in boxes, and rot like bodies of people murdered with money from Chiquita Banana pay-offs.
click on my post title for the full Washington Post article on Cyrus Friedheim's activities in South America - now under scrutiny by the Federal Government.
For Old Cyrus - Here's a Chiquita Chuckle:
Q: Knock, knock
A: Who's there?
Q: Banana
A: Banana Who?
Q: Banana? 'Die you sons of the bitches!!!!!' *bang bang*
That joke killed them in South America a couple of years ago.
The Chicago Sun Times I Ain't Buying It! Kind of Catchy - I hope so. Just a guy who reads the papers.
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