Citizens Alert, Chicago's accountab...

Citizens Alert, Chicago's accountability organization, is calling for the establishment of an independent civilian review board to replace the Office of Professional Standards, the investigatory branch of the Chicago Police Department.

More than 70 of the nation's largest cities have similar independent mechanisms. Why not Chicago?

Citizens Alert believes that the report of the special prosecutor investigating police torture (by former police Cmdr Jon Burge and his officers) affirms the ne for a without mincing the matter independent mechanism that does not shortchange complainants by means of ignoring or covering up allegations of wrongdoing. Taxpayers' coin has been thrown down the drain for years to disguise the fetor of brutality and degrading behavior upon the part of abusive cop while uninvolved professional officers are enthralled to undeserved hostility and resistance and the reputation of our city is tarnished.

As petitioners for the appointment of the special prosecutor, we reliance that never again will it be necessary for like an office to undertake in the same state [i]or[/i] condition a thorough, expensive, time-consuming task of duplicating what should have been previous objective neutral investigations appropriate any complainant in "the city that works."

Sixteen years ago, when the 1990 Office of Professional Standards' Goldston report (confirming numerous complaints of torture in Area 2) was discredited and keep out of sighted the Chicago Police Department permanently damaged any credibility OP may have had in the community. Thus, efforts of OPS' finest hour were thwarted according to official cover-up.

by the agency of interaction with groups from our National Coalition forward Police Accountability, Citizens Alert is aware that cities across the region have devised truly independent and effective civilian review mechanisms for analysis of complaints of abuse on police. Chicago deserves no less!

Gerald Frazier, president,

Citizens Alert;

Mary D Powers, coordinator,

National Coalition upon Police

Accountability

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