The Year of the Gun & Christie's Christmas Gun Study

CPD victims Bettie Jones and Quintonio LeGrier 

Looking back, 2015 was a pretty sobering year for the concept of justice in the United States. 

As Dylan Petrohilos' ThinkProgress.org article on Monday reported, estimates for 2015 reveal that between 975 and 1,186 people were killed by police across America over the course of the past 12 months - easily surpassing the totals for 2014.

Those grim statistics have been brought into focus once again after a Chicago police officer shot and killed two people after being called to a residence at about 4:25am last Saturday in response to 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier (who was mentally ill) threatening members of his family with a baseball bat.  

While Chicago PD called Jones' death "accidental", when officers arrived at the scene 55-year-old Bettie Jones, a grandmother and mother of five who lived in the apartment downstairs, opened the front door of the residence and was promptly shot three times; including once in the neck.

Like many of the names on that list above, Jones was innocent and unarmed; but accidentally shot.

There were 1,930 accidental shootings in America in 2015 according to data collected by the gun control organization GunViolenceArchive.org.

GVA statistics tracked 52,254 gun-related incidents in America in 2015, including 13,270 gun fatalities  and an astounding 329 different mass shootings - in case you were wondering 3,366 children between the ages of 0 to 17 were killed by guns over the past 12 months.

Considering numbers like that, 2015 could very well be considered the Year of the Gun in America.

Which makes New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's actions four days before Christmas a bit puzzling.

As Claude Brodesser-Akner reported on NJ.com last week, on Monday December 21st an entity known by the unwieldy moniker of the New Jersey Firearm Purchasing and Permitting Study Commission released a report through Governor Christie's office that was some five months in the making.

In short, the NJFPPS Commission report recommended that local municipalities around the state begin amending New Jersey's notoriously strict handgun laws to make it easier for people to carry concealed handguns.

As a fairly observant individual interested in politics who also works in the real estate industry in New Jersey, I deal with a lot of people from all walks of life on a daily basis in person and on the phone.

I also enjoy discussing politics and current events with the locals who hang out at my favorite local haunt, The Franklin Tavern in Lawrenceville; Jon Stewart used to be a bartender there when he went to Princeton.

So let me just say that I've yet to meet New Jerseyeans who feel that the most critical issue facing the state is the restrictive handgun laws that make it almost impossible for a private citizen in New Jersey to carry a concealed handgun.

The real kicker?

Not only was the NJFPPS Commission established the night before Christie's presidential campaign launched back in June, the commission that made these recommendations is made up of three people; all of whom are close personal associates of (wait for it...) Chris Christie.  

As Akner reported:
"The commission, whose members were not previously announced by Christie, is comprised of Adam Heck, a retired police officer from Morristown who until this year worked as as associate counsel to the governor and is currently in the General Counsel's Office of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority; Eric Jaso, a former assistant United States attorney under Christie 2003-2008, and Seton Hall Law School Vice Dean Erik Lillquist, who is married to the governor's chief ethics officer, Heather V. Taylor."

So in a year in which over 13,000 Americans were killed by guns, Christie decides that what New Jersey needs is more people walking around with concealed, loaded handguns. 

It's vintage Christie, throwing his political weight around the state to tailor laws (that keep us safe from gun violence) that will help him pander to the right-wing Republican political spenders who are aligned with the NRA in order to boost his national appeal with Republican voters.

It's absurd and he's rightfully taking a lot of heat for it. 

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the irony of Christie appointing the husband of his own chief ethics officer to a three-person commission that releases a report favorable to his own presidential campaign.

And yes, that's from the same New Jersey Governor who recently made headlines for telling voters in Iowa that his record low job approval rating as Governor in New Jersey is proof he "knows how to get things done."

On that note, I must conclude my last blog entry of 2015 and get ready to head over to my friend Will's house for good friends, good food and of course drinks to ring in the new year.

Have a safe and Happy New Years and I hope to see you back here in 2016!

Cmdr Glenn Evans & The "Fleeting Relevance" of Systematic Abuse By the Chicago PD

Rickey Williams (left) & Commander Glenn Evans (right)

The myriad complexities related to holding members of law enforcement accountable for excessive violence were made clear by the acquittal of Chicago Police Department Commander Glenn Evans earlier today on two counts of battery and seven counts of official misconduct.

As many of you reading this have probably heard, Commander Evans was facing charges related to his having allegedly stuck the barrel of his loaded handgun down the throat of suspect Rickey Williams in an abandoned building after a foot pursuit back in 2013.

Despite the fact that lab results found traces of Williams' DNA on Evans' handgun, Cook County judge Diane Cannon (a former long-time prosecutor...) decided that Williams' credibility called into question his testimony.

As reporter Steven Schmadeke noted in The Chicago Tribune earlier today, Judge Cannon also dismissed the presence of Williams' DNA on Evans' gun as being "of fleeting relevance or significance."

Interestingly she, the prosecutor and the defense all dismissed (and lambasted) the initial investigation of the misconduct charges by the Independent Police Review Authority. 

It's understandable that the story was a national headline throughout the day in light of recent 1st degree murder charges filed against Chicago PD officer Jason Van Dyke for his execution of 16-year-old Laquan McDonald.  

Judge Diane Cannon

Now I wasn't at the court hearing today, and I'm not an expert on Chicago policing.

But from what I read of Judge Cannon's comments to the court prior to acquitting Commander Evans, my sense is that she seemed to come off as less a judge evaluating evidence with an objective eye.

Rather, she seemed more like a former prosecutor with deep ties to the Chicago PD who was dead-set on making sure that a long-time, high-ranking CPD officer would face no legal repercussions for the kind of physical abuse of a suspect that a seven-year-old could tell you falls outside the boundaries of police conduct and procedure.

Now I could be wrong.

Maybe there's a chapter in the CPD code of conduct that outlines jamming the barrel of a loaded service weapon down a suspect's throat as an approved technique, but I'm doubting they teach that at the academy.

Now in all fairness to Commander Evans, it's not fair to judge his actions without knowing what it's like to deal with law enforcement in the neighborhoods on the west side of Chicago, and Rickey Williams was no angel, but he wasn't a murder suspect or anything.

As Schmadeke reported in his Tribune article, "Williams alleged that Evans chased him into an abandoned South Side house, shoved the gun down his throat, pressed a Taser to his groin and threatened to kill him in January 2013."

Was shoving a gun down someone's throat really necessary to"serve and protect"?

In making the decision to acquit today, I have to wonder if Judge Cannon considered Evans' past record and conduct as a CPD office to be of "fleeting relevance".

If Evans' acquittal strikes you as odd, then I suggest you take a few minutes to check out an article by Angela Caputo entitled "Abusing the Badge" which details two of the numerous cases of police misconduct leveled against Evans during his career with the Chicago PD. 

Rennie Simmons - victim of Glenn Evans' abuse

Published back in May of 2012 on TheChicagoReporter.com, Caputo's article shows that Commander Glenn Evans is no stranger to media publicity over the use of excessive violence, or to physically abusing citizens in custody in ways that call his professional judgment into question.

Like his filing false battery charges against Rennie Simmons (pictured left) a water department employee who is paralyzed on his right side who went to Evans Chicago home to post a water shutoff notice and ended up being physically attacked by Evans, thrown in the back of a squad car and arrested on concocted charges.

Simmons later filed a federal suit against Evans and was awarded $99,999 by the city of Chicago.

Or worse, there's the disturbing case of Cordell Simmons (no relation to Rennie), a community college student with a history of marijuana arrests who was picked up with $20 worth of weed on him and taken to a police station.

The two cops who picked him up suspected he was concealing more weed on him, so they removed his pants and then-lieutenant Evans came into the room with a Taser and proceeded to use it on Simmons' scrotum, anus and on his arm in an effort to find out if he was holding more weed.

Don't take my word for it. Check out this 2014 article by Randa Morris that details other truly disturbing incidents of excessive physical force by Commander Glenn Evans - you have to read them for yourself to understand what kind of police officer this guy is.

If you read about the multiple cases of physical abuse he's committed, Judge Diane Cannon's decision to acquit him today actually makes sense in a way.

It's actually the same twisted logic that led Mayor Rahm Emanuele's office, the Chicago PD and the prosecutor's office to wait 13 months to file charges against officer Jason Van Dyke for shooting a 16-year-old sixteen times - they were trying to avoid sticking the taxpayers of Chicago with yet another payout in court to cover up another blatant use of excessive force by members of the Chicago PD.

Judge Cannon knew all about Glenn Evans' lengthy and violent record of abusing suspects in custody, that's why she acquitted him - according to an investigation by WBEZ editor Derek John, there have been some 45 separate complaints of abuse filed against Evans and he's been named as the defendant in 10 separate trials.

Holding him accountable would've meant yet another payout of thousands of dollars by the city of Chicago and with Jason Van Dyke facing murder charges and the Department of Justice gearing up a federal investigation of the police department - in Judge Cannon's eyes the city of Chicago simply couldn't afford the justice due Rickey Williams.

Why else would a judge dismiss the presence of Williams DNA on the gun that he alleged Glenn Evans shoved down his throat to be of "fleeting relevance"?
 
The city of Chicago couldn't afford another guilty abusive cop and it seems like the only thing of "fleeting relevance" in this case were Rickey Williams' Constitutional rights. 

Van Dyke, DCFS & The Tragic Death of Laquan McDonald

Chicago PD officer Jason Van Dyke

It's late Tuesday night at as I write this and it's about 40 degrees out in Chicago but there are reportedly hundreds of people assembling on the streets in response to the release of the police dash-cam footage showing the violent death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.

Personally speaking, after watching the video a couple times myself, the presence of protesters on the streets shouldn't surprise anyone. 

You can see it on The New York Times Website, but with millions of people off on Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving it's going to be replayed a lot in the coming days as people try to understand why a teenager brandishing a three-inch knife while traipsing down a busy street in full view of at least 6 armed Chicago PD officers in two separate vehicles needed to be shot.

Chicago officials, including Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, tried to keep the footage from being released and now it's clear why - the video clip completely contradicts previous police statements that the shooter was in fear for his life after the teenager lunged at him. 

The video showed no lunge, in fact McDonald was actually walking away when he was shot.

At 7:41am this morning, thirteen months after fatally shooting the teenager during a confrontation in Chicago on October 20, 2014, 37-year-old Chicago PD officer Jason Van Dyke walked into the Leighton Criminal Court Building and turned himself in to investigators.

While he'd been on paid desk duty during an extensive 12 month investigation, today he became the first CPD officer in 35 years to be charged with murder. 

Van Dyke and his partner were only on the scene about thirty seconds before the veteran officer jumped out of the car six seconds later and began firing shots at McDonald; who'd been accused of breaking into cars in the area and was holding a 3-inch knife which he'd used to punch a hole in the tire of a police vehicle at some point during his foot chase.

According to an article in The Chicago Tribune, autopsy reports reveal that nine of the sixteen shots that entered McDonald's body entered at a downward trajectory; meaning Van Dyke fired at least nine shots as McDonald, already wounded, lay on the ground.

Nine.

To me, part of what's chilling about the video, aside from the teenager being gunned down like an animal, is the reaction of the officers on the scene.

After McDonald is on the ground, there's a pause before one of the officers walks over and kicks the three-inch knife away from the teenager's hand - then not one of the officers bothers to approach McDonald to check his pulse, or see if he might still be alive.

The shooting wasn't some kind of behavioral anomaly for Officer Van Dyke.

According to data complied by the Citizens Police Data Project (CPDP) Website, at least 18 separate civilian complaints have been filed against Van Dyke since he joined the CPD in June, 2001 - charges that include verbal abuse (including multiple charges of using of the word 'nigger' while performing arrests or serving warrants), excessive force, misconduct and violations of arrest & lockup procedures.

Check out this article on Heavy.com if you want to read some more details about Van Dyke's extensive record of physical violence and excessive use of force.

The shooting wasn't an anomaly for the Chicago PD either, they were responsible for 70 fatal police shootings between 2011 - 2014, the most in the U.S. and more than New York and Los Angles which both have larger populations.

In contrast, non-military police in Germany have shot and killed fifteen people since 2009.

Protest against gun violence in Chicago,  2014

When you consider the extent of the global reaction to the approximately 128 people killed in the terrorist attacks in Paris recently, it seems like there should be more of a public outcry over the huge number of gun deaths that have taken place in the city of Chicago, Illinois this year.

Back in July, Rolling Stone explored that very question in a searing piece titled 'Inside Chicago's Endless Cycle of Gun Violence.


Without minimizing the horrific death toll of approximately 128 people in Paris at the hands of ISIS killers, according to the latest statistics tracked by staff members of The Chicago Tribune, as of today November 24th, approximately 2,712 people have been victims of gun violence in the Windy City this year.

Is it the race or social class of the victims in Chicago that doesn't seem to warrant global outrage? The neighborhoods they live in?

Think you had a rough Monday? At least seven people were shot on Monday November 23rd in various parts of Chicago. 

As statistics compiled by The Guardian project The Counted have revealed, 2015 has been a horrific year for the use of deadly police force against American citizens and the data is alarming.

According to The Counted: over 1,000 people have been killed by members of American law enforcement this year; and there are still six days left in November.

•  883 of those were killed after being shot by police
• 47 died after being shot by a taser
• 36 people were killed while in custody
• 102 people were unarmed
• 26% of the 248 African-American people killed by police were unarmed
• 18% of the 490 white people killed by police were unarmed

Disturbing stats like that are one of the reasons that the deaths of people at the hands of the police is often a focus of this blog.

It's not because I'm anti-cop or anything, I hold members of law enforcement in the highest regard as I was one of those kids raised to respect police officers and recognize the essential public service they perform.

In fact, it's because I hold them to such a high standard that I consider it critical to examine the alarming disparity with which people of color loose their lives during confrontations with police officers.

Because the more these incidents happen, there's a proportional loss of respect for police authority that undermines the essential relationship that must exist between the community and those sworn to protect and serve them.

As the excessive use of deadly force has reached epic proportions in this country and police departments have come under increased scrutiny by the media, politicians, citizens and activist groups like Black Lives Matter, opportunistic push-button reactionaries like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Donald Trump have been quick to vilify and demonize activists who oppose police violence.

Not because what they say reflects truth, but because it reflects a warped perception of America, reinforces their internalized beliefs and fears; and serves their trite political objectives.

Laquan McDonald

In the coming days as the video of Laquan McDonald becomes the central focus of mainstream media coverage, watch how people like Christie and Trump react.

Watch who they vent their anger at and how they frame this shooting.

Despite the truth of the dash-cam footage showing McDonald wasn't actually threatening anyone when he was shot 16 times (and what was he going to do with a three-inch pocket knife anyway with three police vehicles around him??) you can be sure that conservative media will be hard at work vilifying the 17-year-old teenager.

Like Tryavon Martin, the news that traces of drugs were supposedly found in McDonald's system is already being offered up like some sort of iron-clad scientific proof that he was some kind of raving maniac on a deadly rampage.

Punching a hole in the tire of a Chicago PD cop car wasn't the brightest thing he could have done; but it was a tire, not a human being.

Only time will tell if Officer Jason Van Dyke is held accountable for taking McDonald's life.

But at the least, his being a member of a major metropolitan police force facing murder charges represents a significant step for growing public demands that members of law enforcement be made to take responsibility for their actions.

Regardless of the color of the victim's skin.

It's just sad that such a step had to come as the result of such a horrific and violent end to the life of a teenage kid who'd already faced such uphill battles in his young life.

As The Chicago Sun Times reported:
"Twice, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services removed him from his mother’s care — once when he was 2 years old and again when he was 5 — because of abuse allegations leveled at the mother’s boyfriend. As is too often the case, McDonald was allegedly sexually molested in two different foster homes, according to a source familiar with his juvenile court record."

Laquan McDonald didn't just morph out of thin air on that Chicago street with a knife in his hand, he'd faced unspeakable horrors in his young life before he ever had the misfortune to meet Officer Jason Van Dyke.

Maybe people should take a few minutes to read The Sun-Times piece by Mary Mitchell before simply dismissing this kid as some kind of monster.

Perhaps the folks at Fox News preparing to portray him as a knife-wielding criminal who was threatening a cop's life should learn a little about Laquan McDonald's life before condemning him.

Like the fact that "McDonald was particularly close to his grandmother, Goldie Hunter, and was in her care until she died last year. His daily life seemed to unravel after her death" 

Oh, and as Mitchell reports in her heart-breaking article, even though the Department of Child & Family Services reports that McDonald was a ward of the state at the time of his death and had been the subject of two separate abuse investigations in 2000 and 2003, “DCFS never did anything in terms of following up on the sexual abuse,”

As Mitchell reported, just two days before being shot on October 20, 2014, "DCFS had given custody of McDonald and his sister to an uncle. “The uncle had a live-in girlfriend, and the sister had spent the night away from home,” said the source familiar with this case. “When she came back the next morning, the girlfriend wouldn’t let her back in the house.

“DCFS came and took the sister and was trying to take Laquan. For the third time, he was made a ward of the state. It was a pretty upsetting thing.” 

Upsetting? I think that's a monumental understatement considering the sexual abuse he'd suffered as a ward of the state of Illinois when he was 9-years-old and 12-years-old.

Unfortunately, it appears that the last representative of the City of Chicago to follow up on Laquan McDonald was Chicago PD Officer Jason Van Dyke who used the only tool he knew how to use to deal with this troubled teenager; a gun. 

That's the teenager who was running down the street that night with a three-inch knife in his hand.

It's just too bad those Chicago PD officers didn't know or understand what Laquan McDonald was running from that night, had they known they might have treated him like a human being.

Homan Square - Chicago PD 'Black Site' - CPD Or CIA?

Gated entrance of Chicago PD's Homan Square facility

Late last night I heard a pretty disturbing story about the Chicago Police Department on the Democracy Now show on public radio as I was driving home from Princeton after having dinner with a friend.

One that left me feeling chilled inside the heated confines of my SUV on a cold night in February.


Two days ago the British newspaper The Guardian reported that the Chicago PD have been operating a secret interrogation facility on the city's west side inside a large building that used to be a Sears & Roebuck warehouse.

Aside from some small blue and white signs on the gate outside, there's really nothing to distinguish the Homan Square facility as a police station. Statements from the Chicago Police Department insist the building serves as both an 'Evidence and Recovered Property' location and a site where SWAT teams, organized crime task force members, and other shadowy police investigation units operate out of.

But according to multiple reports from defense attorneys and individuals who've been held there, at least part of the facility is used to interrogate suspects for periods that can last anywhere from 12 and 24 hours without access to lawyers, Miranda rights, telephones or even basic police procedures that officially log and keep track of when a person is detained and where he or she is at any given time.

Homan Square detainee Brian Church 

During the Democracy Now program, I heard an audio clip of an interview with Brian Jacob Church (pictured left), identified as one of the "NATO Three", three individuals arrested for allegedly plotting to use Molotov cocktails in protest of the 2012 NATO summit.

Church said Chicago police officers brought him to Homan Square and kept him shackled to a bench for 17 hours - his ankles were chained together with cuffs and his wrist was kept handcuffed to a metal bar on the bench behind him.

When he asked to use a phone to contact his lawyers, police told him he would have no phone access until he told them what they wanted to know.

According to The Guardian, article, Church claims that: 

“Homan Square is definitely an unusual place,” Church told the Guardian on Friday. “It brings to mind the interrogation facilities they use in the Middle East. The CIA calls them black sites. It’s a domestic black site. When you go in, no one knows what’s happened to you.”
  
What allegedly has happened inside Homan Square includes unauthorized interrogations, beatings and at least one known death of a detainee under mysterious circumstances.

The Chicago Tribune reported detainee John Hubbard was found unconscious in an interrogation room; the medical examiner ruled he'd died of a heroin overdose. 

First Defense Legal Aid attorney Eliza Solowiej says one of her clients was taken away from a police station and brought to Homan Square for several hours; she later found him at a hospital with head injuries he suffered at the hands of CPD officers at Homan Square.

Minors are taken there as well.

The Guardian also reports attorney Julia Bartmes went to Homan Square demanding to see a fifteen year-old client who'd been in the facility for hours; police refused to grant her access and the juvenile was later dropped off at his home by police after almost 13 hours in custody being interrogated without a parent, legal guardian or his attorney present - he was never charged.
 
Did the CPD take a page from the CIA playbook to conduct secret interrogations outside the purview of legal oversight?

The story is just breaking, so there's a lot we don't know about Homan Square, but we do know the vast majority of suspects taken there are young men of color; people who already suffer disproportionately from the use of excessive force at the hands of police.

The legal, ethical and moral implications of the CPD intentionally creating a police facility where Constitutional protections do not apply is disturbing on a number of levels; and it's not only a huge setback to building trust between Chicago police and the poor urban communities they serve - it's an affront to the rule of law in America and another blatant example of unchecked police authority.

'Domestic Black Sites'? And our politicians have the nerve to call out Russia and China for domestic human rights abuses?