Craig Futterman Co-Authors Public Letter to Mayor Lightfoot on Chicago Police Use of Force Recommendations
A public letter to Mayor Lightfoot: A call for leadership
Dear Mayor Lightfoot:
We write as individual members of the Use of Force Community Working Group that you convened “to provide feedback, revisions and formal recommendations to the Police Department to adopt under a new use of force policy.”
Members of the Community Working Group were hopeful that this process would finally provide a “seat at the table” and result in improved policies that reflected the lived experiences and expertise of communities most impacted by CPD’s excessive and discriminatory use of force. Instead, the CPD has demonstrated that this process is a sham, designed only to use us to create the illusion of community engagement so that CPD can check the box on the requirements in the civil rights federal Consent Decree. On Tuesday evening, the CPD made public that it had rejected every substantive Working Group recommendation on CPD’s overarching use of force policy, and instead announced a few symbolic word changes that have no effect on the rules governing when officers may use force or how much force they may use. By doing so, CPD made clear that it has no intention to actually engage with, listen to, or learn from community members.
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