Dec. 02--If there's a crisis playbook for mayors, here's what it calls for when a cop is charged with first-degree murder and all signs point to a cover-up:
Fire the police chief. Assign a blue-ribbon task force to determine what went wrong and how to correct it. (Ignore shouted questions about why you don't resign yourself.)
Mayor Rahm Emanuel was acting strictly by the book when he announced Tuesday that police Superintendent Garry McCarthy was out and that a panel of "five respected Chicagoans" selected by the mayor would spend the next four months examining how the police department polices itself.
"Now is the time for fresh eyes and new leadership to confront the challenges the department and our community and our city are facing as we go forward," Emanuel said.
Fresh eyes. New leadership. Going forward.
If that sounds familiar, it's because Chicago is simply repeating a familiar cycle.
Two issues are in play here. One is that the city's system for evaluating complaints of police misconduct can take years and almost never results in discipline against the officer. That system failed to identify Officer Jason Van Dyke as a problem cop, though he certainly looks like one in the rear view mirror.
Since 2006, Van Dyke had been named in 17 citizen complaints, including three alleging excessive force, yet was never disciplined. Now he's facing a first-degree murder charge for pumping 16 bullets into Laquan McDonald as seven other officers looked on without firing a shot.
Chicago's leaders have wrung their hands for decades over the police department's dysfunctional disciplinary system. Complaints are handled by three overlapping boards, and the process is rife with avenues to grieve, appeal or otherwise stall a finding. Those obstacles, and an entrenched code of silence among police officers, feed a culture of impunity in the department.
Emanuel's task force -- it's a strong team -- will figure that out quickly. Much of it already is laid out in a report produced for the city in December 2014 by former federal prosecutor Ron Safer and others. (chicagotribune.com/misconduct)
At his news conference Tuesday, Emanuel repeated that report's caveat that many of the needed reforms would require changes in the department's collective bargaining agreements. Where will the mayor's task force go when it hits that same wall?
The second issue is how police, prosecutors and City Hall responded after McDonald's death. A union spokesman at the scene fed reporters a false narrative in which Van Dyke fired in self defense after McDonald lunged at him with a knife.
The police department's official statement the next day did not correct the factual errors and omitted details that would have provided an accurate account. Then it tossed the case into that plodding disciplinary apparatus and told reporters to go to the Independent Police Review Authority for its no comments.
