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* CBS 2…
A Chicago Police lieutenant sued the city Tuesday, alleging he blew the whistle on “illegal policing” and was re-assigned after refusing to comply with arrest and traffic stop quotas forced on the newly created Community Safety Team (CST).
Franklin Paz, Jr., 48, was assigned to supervise dozens of officers and sergeants, referred to in at least one email as a “platoon,” on the special team formed by Supt. David Brown.
Brown created the CST in the summer of 2020 to specifically focus on reducing violent crimes and improving relationships in the community.
But in Paz’s whistleblower lawsuit, he said the team is doing the opposite with a practice of quota-based policing during investigatory stops of civilians.
It might now be easier to understand what former Rep. Art Turner, Sr. had to go through last year when he was busted and hauled in to the station for not having a front license plate.
* WTTW…
“[The head of the unit, Deputy CPD Chief Michael Barz] demanded certain numbers relating to police activity, regardless of the criminal or traffic activity justifying police intervention,” the complaint states. “In other words, regardless of the criminal activity occurring that day, his officers were required to make the same number of stops.”
Specifically, Barz wanted to see more “blue cards,” according to the complaint, which are documents created by officers who detain a person but don’t formally arrest them or issue them a traffic citation.
Paz alleged that Barz soon began requiring officers to hit daily quotas, and started criticizing him and his officers over their low number of blue cards. In one conversation detailed in the complaint, Barz allegedly singled out a sergeant who reported to Paz and said that person was going to be removed from their assignment if they didn’t begin “producing” more police activity.
“When Paz tried to defend the sergeant by explaining that in the past, they had focused on community policing efforts and quality of life issues in their areas, which do not result in the data that Barz wanted, Barz’s response was to say ‘f—k community policing, I need activity,’” the complaint states.
In September, Paz allegedly sent an email to Barz explaining that he “can not in good faith and will not mandate Officers to bring in ‘x’ amount of numbers and activity,” stating that these types of actions are “the exact reason” why the CPD remains under a federal consent decree.
* Tribune…
This is not the first time Barz has faced accusations in a whistleblower lawsuit by a fellow officer. He was once accused in a deposition by former Chicago police Officer Shannon Spalding of detaining her during his time as a sergeant in the Bureau of Internal Affairs, in exchange for her dropping a lawsuit against police department officials.
In that suit, Spalding — without naming Barz as a defendant — accused her police bosses of retaliating against her for working with the FBI in its investigation into Sgt. Ronald Watts, a former public housing officer who went to prison for shaking down drug dealers for protection money and pinning false cases on those who wouldn’t pay. City officials settled that whistleblower suit for about $2 million in 2016, a settlement that was reached with the city shortly before then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel would have been forced to take the witness stand in the case.
According to Paz’s lawsuit, , the lieutenant said Barz instructed him and other supervisors to generate specific amounts of police activity during their shifts.
“When a unit engaged in a high number of stops, Barz congratulated the supervisors of the unit by telling them that their (teams) were ‘crushing the numbers,’” the lawsuit alleges. “By the ‘numbers,’ Barz meant traffic stops, arrests, citations, and other documented contacts with people on the street.”
* ACLU Illinois legal director Nusrat Choudhury…
Data about traffic stops in other cities that have experienced dramatic increases similar to the one we are witnessing in Chicago suggests that the rise in traffic stops is fueled by stops that are unjustified or, at best, are based only on suspicion of minor violations, like vehicle equipment regulations and low-level traffic violations. But blanketing entire neighborhoods with traffic stops that are entirely unjustified or justified only by minor infractions make people feel harassed for engaging in normal, everyday conduct and alienates the communities that police are supposed to protect and serve. This overpolicing of communities of color for low-level infractions alienates Black and Brown communities and is a serious problem in Chicago.
The criminal justice reform bill, by the way, increases protections for police whistleblowers.
* Meanwhile…
More than 16 years after authorities say a Chicago police officer took part in one of the biggest scandals in department history, city officials have quietly moved to fire him.
Officer Thomas Sherry faces dismissal for alleged misdeeds he carried out as a member of the disgraced Special Operations Section, a specialized unit that was disbanded when some of its officers committed home invasions and robberies in the 2000s.
Sherry was taken off the street and placed on paid desk duty when he was charged criminally in the scandal, only for those charges to be dropped a few years later.
But Chicago police officials kept him in that role for more than a decade anyway, prompting him in 2018 to file a federal lawsuit against the city, alleging that CPD violated his due process rights by refusing to hold a disciplinary hearing in his case before the Chicago Police Board.
posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Jan 20, 21 @ 10:42 am
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Unreformable
Comment by Precinct Captain Wednesday, Jan 20, 21 @ 10:46 am
How to do “Job Security” in the worst way.
Comment by Sayitaintso Wednesday, Jan 20, 21 @ 10:52 am
It’s called compstat and it’s all about statistics, commanders demand “activity” from officers so they aren’t embarrassed at Compstat. Quotas are illegal so now their is a “matrix” of the numbers you are supposed to meet. If you are below the “matrix” then you have problems. Yes, Supt Brown knows and supports this. He attends the Compstat meetings (done on Teams) he is a screamer. The commanders don’t want to get replaced so they lean on the Lieutenants, who then lean on the sergeants, who then lean on the officers. Deniability if you are far enough up the chain of command.
Comment by Area6 Wednesday, Jan 20, 21 @ 10:58 am
=Barz’s response was to say ‘f—k community policing, I need activity,’”=
And they wonder why the community doesn’t trust them.
Comment by JoanP Wednesday, Jan 20, 21 @ 11:46 am
If this is coming from Superintendent Brown then it is coming from the Mayor. Seems she campaigns one way and governs another
Comment by DuPage Saint Wednesday, Jan 20, 21 @ 11:52 am
SOS, indeed.
Comment by Rich Hill Wednesday, Jan 20, 21 @ 12:08 pm
“…that person was going to be removed from their assignment if they didn’t begin “producing” more police activity.” The CPD buzzword for this practice of stopping and questioning “civilians” is “production.” Usually this abuse is most prevalent in area-wide “tactical” units, who are drawn from several precincts. As you see here, the larger the area these police cover, the less accountability for their actions. Also note that these police are almost all plainclothes, not in uniform, so they are much more difficult to identify.
I know a licensed private detective working security on the north side. He frequently was in the area HQ near Grand & Central to sign complaints and make witness statements. Told me there was a grease pencil chart on the wall showing the number of stops/interrogations/arrests for every officer, exactly as described here. He said it reminded him of a sales chart in a real estate office, no different. In this case people’s legal rights and dignity are the raw material for this “work product.”
Comment by Payback Wednesday, Jan 20, 21 @ 12:16 pm
Management by numbers; good or bad, you get the results you manage to.
Comment by RNUG Wednesday, Jan 20, 21 @ 12:24 pm
Not complying with the Consent Decree. Monitoring Team? https://cpdmonitoringteam.com/
Comment by Big Rocker Wednesday, Jan 20, 21 @ 12:41 pm
This sound like lack of trust. well how do we make sure the officers are not just goofing off in parking lots somewhere? I’ve got it we’ll make them produce output so we can make sure they’re doing something.
Comment by cermak_rd Wednesday, Jan 20, 21 @ 2:20 pm
Just blew the whistle on _Tuesday_? This same issue was exposed over a decade ago in New York. As Area6 notes, it’s called Compstat. Seriously folks, it was in all the papers.
https://www.villagevoice.com/2010/05/04/the-nypd-tapes-inside-bed-stuys-81st-precinct/
https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/o2hx34
Hey CPD, just because they call you the Second City, it doesn’t mean you have to make all the mistakes the first one did.
Comment by Dysfunction Junction Wednesday, Jan 20, 21 @ 3:26 pm