Futterman on Chicago City Council's Police Accountability Measure
Devil's in the details in police accountability measure
But while aldermen have been away from City Hall, opposition to the ordinance has grown even among many longtime activists for stronger measures against crooked cops, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois and University of Chicago Law Professor Craig Futterman.
As founder and supervisor of the Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project, Futterman has focused his career on police brutality and racial-discrimination cases and also won a landmark ruling last year forcing Chicago police to make misconduct files public.
He concedes police-accountability advocates typically bemoan the lack of greater subpoena power for agencies that investigate officer misconduct.
Still, Futterman said Tuesday, Emanuel’s proposal “raises a lot of red flags” with him now that he’s read the ordinance.
The measure would allow the police superintendent to issue subpoenas in investigations by the department’s Bureau of Internal Affairs. For those who don’t want to comply, their recourse is to appeal to the very superintendent who issued the subpoena.
“That violates any fundamental notion of due process, of fairness,” Futterman said.
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