Craig Futterman on the Release of Hundreds of Chicago Police Video and Audio Clips

Chicago Police Union Reacts to IPRA Release of Videos, Audio

We spoke with Craig Futterman, founder of the Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project and law professor at the University of Chicago, about what the IPRA file release means for transparency.

Chicago Tonight: What is your reaction to the IPRA release of police video and audio files?

Craig Futterman: I think it’s impressive, and I think that it is a significant step toward transparency in Chicago. The challenge is: how do we implement transparency in a police department that has always operated in secrecy? We have to start somewhere. And this was a powerful place to start. 

CT: Is this what you envisioned when you began the Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project?

CF: It’s part of it. It’s a piece of it. And the challenge is, this is in part trying to make up for decades of, again, secrecy and denial. But there’s something much more than that, too. It’s about honesty from the very beginning. When there’s a police shooting, when there’s an allegation of police brutality, that the department is honest from day one, keeps people informed throughout the process of the investigation … If there’s a video taken in a public area, the video should be released within 24 to 48 hours of the incident. That’s what better and more effective police departments are doing.

That’s one of the areas also in which the department continues – at least with respect to its policy – to fall short. Under the new policy, things like videos may be withheld for 60 days or more, and indeed there can be extensions – a 30-day extension beyond 60 days, and even indefinite extensions if the city seeks judicial approval. That policy falls far short of what’s necessary to build trust in Chicago and build trust particularly among the citizens of communities most affected by police abuse. The time when the public interest is most acute is when things are happening, and when an incident occurs, when someone is shot, people want to know what happened and what’s going on. And ‘Come back. We’ll tell you in 60 days’ just simply isn’t good enough to earn trust. There are ways to release information. There’s always the fine line of being transparent, being open and honest with the public, and not compromising the integrity of an ongoing investigation.

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