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Police Supt. Eddie Johnson said Tuesday that of all the Chicago Police Department’s failings highlighted in the Department of Justice report released last week, it’s that his officers are not receiving adequate training that pains him most.

“We owe it to our police officers to give them the best training possible because that makes them better when we go out on the street,” said Johnson, a 28-year police department veteran. “And to think that we failed them is a difficult pill to swallow. It really is.” […]

Asked about making timely reforms to police officer training in light of the city’s plan to hire 1,000 new officers in the coming months, Johnson said the process should not be rushed.

“I don’t think the focus should be made on making reforms quick enough. I think what we should focus on is making reforms the right way,” he said.

So, I take it that the newly hired cops won’t be properly trained either?

*Sigh*

* Background…

The Chicago Police Department is stuck in the Stone Age — from training that relies on 35-year-old videos to outdated pursuit tactics that imperil suspects, officers and innocent bystanders, according to a scathing 161-page report just released by the Justice Department. […]

The report takes aim at a series of “unsound tactics” that cops have used for decades to pressure or pursue suspects. The report argues that those tactics — used on the street though they’re not official department policies — can alienate communities and, in many cases, lead to unnecessary violence.

At the top of the list: foot chases. The feds found police routinely chased people simply because they’d run away and not because they were suspected of a particular crime. On many occasions, the result was a deadly shooting. […]

An instructor showed students one video on the use of deadly force that was made about 35 years ago — long before the Supreme Court rulings that currently govern cops’ use of force. The investigation found one in six rookies were able to correctly answer basic questions about the use of force.

The police department’s field-training program is hampered by major problems, investigators found. There are too few training officers and the voluntary job, with a $3,000-a-year stipend, isn’t viewed as a path to promotion and is “a highway to nowhere,” one supervisor said.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Jan 17, 17 @ 1:58 pm

Comments

you can have all of the training in the world…if you moral standards are low…how will that help you make the right decisions?

Comment by pskila Tuesday, Jan 17, 17 @ 2:05 pm
Time to bring back Carey Mahoney and Citizens on Patrol.

Comment by Team Sleep Tuesday, Jan 17, 17 @ 2:17 pm
This whole thing started because Rahm Emmanuel ripped off City Taxpayers using 5 million $$ of City funds to bury a story until he was safely reflected. So why isn’t the DOJ investigating the Mayors actions sitting on the Video and instead is making policing more difficult as violent crime is soaring. Looks like 2017 is starting off worse then did 2016 in terms of shootings and murders. I for one won’t be sorry to see Loretta Lynch gone.

Comment by Sue Tuesday, Jan 17, 17 @ 2:32 pm
You train because, in Chicago, it’s not only long overdue, it’s a critical element in changing tactics, attitudes, behavior. You train because most of those being trained will learn some essential things that will save lives, maybe their own. To not do so because you’re assumption is they are not morally equipped to apply it properly says …… we’ll, that just not right.

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Jan 17, 17 @ 2:47 pm
@pskila

The issue here is what happens when professional norms override moral standards. It happens to a lot of otherwise decent people in many different professions. It’s just here these professional norms lead to unnecessary death and injury.

The way we fix the policing issue is to fix the professional norms. And the way to fix professional norms is to institute proper training, punish violations of that training, and reward those who call out said violations. Basically, the opposite of what is currently happening.

It’s a lot harder than blaming moral standards and washing our hands of the problem, but at least this way has a chance of solving the problem.

Comment by Chicago_Downstater Tuesday, Jan 17, 17 @ 2:48 pm
@pskila

Anon 2:47 PM said it better than me, faster than me. I didn’t see the response before I hit “Say It!” I apologize for piling on.

Comment by Chicago_Downstater Tuesday, Jan 17, 17 @ 2:54 pm
I would assume the Department of Justice report recommends “best practices” for training the Chicago Police. If no best police training practices were included in the report, the DoJ failed.

Comment by PeaceOfficer Tuesday, Jan 17, 17 @ 3:13 pm
CPD should contact New York, LA and other cities the same size or larger than Chicago, and find out how they are training their police force, and incorporate a police training program that is working in other cities.

Comment by Mama Tuesday, Jan 17, 17 @ 3:19 pm
–you can have all of the training in the world…if you moral standards are low…how will that help you make the right decisions?–

Let’s just go ahead and assume that the “moral standards” of police officers reflect those of society as a whole.

Cops have a very tough and dangerous job. Like any job, you do best when you have the right tools. Training is an enormous part of having the right tools.

Doesn’t it make complete sense that a culture of bad practices grew up and thrived in a police department when politicians trying to run it on the cheap did not provide the proper tools for the job?

You hope that the cops and citizens can see that they have to demand more from kick-the-can spin doctors like Daley and Emanuel. They should be on the same side there.

Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Jan 17, 17 @ 3:23 pm
Oh, so the way to reduce violence is to allow suspects to defy police and run away? Running away, disobeying a lawful order, is no constitutionally protected? No wonder cops don’t enforce the law anymore, no wonder the murder rate is so high, no wonder no rational human being would ever want to be a cop in Chicago. Good luck with ‘recent Supreme Court rulings’ as interpreted by the ACLU.

Comment by Horst Cabal Tuesday, Jan 17, 17 @ 3:57 pm
–Oh, so the way to reduce violence is to allow suspects to defy police and run away?–

And what was actually written, Strawman-maker:

–At the top of the list: foot chases. The feds found police routinely chased people simply because they’d run away and not because they were suspected of a particular crime. On many occasions, the result was a deadly shooting.–

Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Jan 17, 17 @ 4:01 pm
Glad to see the DOJ report focused on the importance of training. The reason police criminality persists for generations is because the old cops teach the new cops their dirty tricks. Most start out with good intentions at the academy.

Jon Burge started in what, the 1960s or 1970s? He was a Vietnam vet. The guys who taught him “police work” (I use the term loosely) probably started in the 1940s or 1950s after WW2. That’s referred to as the “pre-Miranda” days of policing (shoot a suspect, then plant a gun in his hand afterwards as in L.A. Confidential.)

Because many police who attain rank have twenty to thirty year careers, it seems that most police bureaucracies are effectively at least twenty to thirty years behind the times. This report affirms it.

For practical solutions to reduce injuries and/or deaths among police and suspects alike, two suggestions:

Criminal penalties for destruction of Body Cam evidence. That’s easy, the state can amend SB1304.

Define by statute that police cannot use deadly force to pursue suspects of non-violent misdemeanors, for example, shoplifters. It’s not worth running over legit citizens at a bus stop or shooting up a neighborhood chasing shoplifters through grandmas’ back yard.

Prediction: police unions will resist any statutory oversight, and claim they will address criminal conduct by police with “departmental charges” just as they resisted video taping homicide interrogations, and just as they resisted criminal charges for destruction of Body Cam evidence in SB1304.

Legislators need to stand firm and understand one basic truth: the police cannot police themselves, ever, period. The American constitutional system is based on checks and balances, and the police unions have too much influence in state legislatures.

If The Man has to come here from Washington, D.C. to straighten out C.P.D. because they are still stuck in the head-bashing mentality of the 1968 convention and Mayor Daley, then we all have a problem.

Comment by Payback Tuesday, Jan 17, 17 @ 4:38 pm
Another major failing seems to be that Chicago cops (and lots of others) no longer “qualify”, or show their expertise, with firearms on a monthly basis, as was standard practice 30 years ago. For budget reasons, actual time on a firing range has been drastically cut, and an increase in unjustified shootings is arguably the result, according to retired officers of my acquaintance. The edge officers once had was the confident knowledge that if it came to a gun fight, their expertise was infinitely superior to that of a street adversary. Now a cop no longer has that confidence and is therefore more prone to “jump the gun” and fire at someone under circumstances where a better trained officer might still hold his fire. Incompetent governance bears a lot of responsibility for the rash of questionable police shootings in recent years, and nowhere is incompetent governance more on display than in Chicago.

Comment by Skirmisher Tuesday, Jan 17, 17 @ 4:58 pm
Meanwhile, the State Police Academy in Springfield hobbles along on a minimal budget with few classes going through it… Seems like something the Gov could do something about pretty quick, if he wanted to help Chicago out… but then again, he would have to WANT to help. He prefers the way it is now, for strategic reasons. His choices in funding cuts for Chicago anti-violence programs were equally strategic.

Comment by Newsclown Tuesday, Jan 17, 17 @ 5:34 pm
The answer is so much larger than training or numbers. It is always going to come down to a cultural rift and in the end, we expect officers to work for the least while being emergency responders, counselors, mediators, attorneys, emt’s, law enforcers and otherwise know-it-alls.

Comment by Shemp Tuesday, Jan 17, 17 @ 5:58 pm
I don’t see how you fix the culture without a wholesale turnover of managers and lifers.

Comment by Ebenezer Tuesday, Jan 17, 17 @ 10:06 pm
On the subject of “foot chases….” should cops just ask them to stop running? If they don’t, should they just give up and let them go?! Seriously?! When are we going to hold the person running from the police responsible?

Comment by Shanks Tuesday, Jan 17, 17 @ 11:30 pm
this is one of the most Disappointing comment section I'’ve read

Comment by omg Wednesday, Jan 18, 17 @ 2:27 am