Craig Futterman on Police Accountability Work in the Midst of COVID-19

In Chicago, two Jewish lawyers fight to make the police accountable

The protests following the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd have been infused with hope and fraught with danger. They could result in increased justice, or more injustice.

Craig Futterman and Adam Gross, two lawyers in Chicago’s Jewish community, are trying to tip the balance toward the brighter side as they tackle the issue of police accountability from different angles. Futterman, 54, is a University of Chicago law professor who founded and directs the school’s Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project. Gross, 54, is a public interest attorney who has been working with the city’s Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability (GAPA) to create a new ordinance to ensure civilian oversight over the Chicago Police Department.

Futterman has been in triage mode over the past week and a half as he and his law students respond to a flood of reports of mistreatment on the streets of Chicago.

“All day, all night, I’m getting calls about people being abused [by police]—being beaten up, needing serious medical treatment, bones being broken, people being thrown to the ground, [police] using the curfew as a means to target certain people and protestors for not just arrests but for violence,” Futterman said Wednesday night. “And then [there have been] just these huge numbers of arrests over the last few days in particular where police refuse to tell lawyers and family members where their clients and children are, holding people incommunicado and in these confined and dirty quarters that are putting people gravely at risk of COVID.”

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