”We have allowed our police department to get fetal, and it is having a direct consequence,” Mayor Emanuel said last week. ”They have pulled back from the ability to interdict . . . they don’t want to be a news story themselves, they don’t want their career ended early, and it’s having an impact.”
Emanuel made the comment at a summit of mayors, police chiefs, and federal prosecutors called by U.S. attorney general Loretta Lynch to discuss the rise in violent crime in metro areas throughout the nation. The meeting in a D.C. ballroom was supposed to be closed to the press, but a Washington Post reporter got in. Emanuel echoed many of the summit’s participants in his comments; the ubiquitous presence of video cameras has made police officers less proactive and has contributed to the spike in crime, they argued.
Another officer is on desk duty after he fired into a car filled with teens on the far south side, wounding two of them, in December 2013. The car had been curbed for speeding, and the officer fired when it began backing up. A video of the shooting, also taken by a dashboard camera, was leaked to the Chicago Reporter. The city has thus far paid $360,000 to settle a lawsuit on behalf of three of the teens.
Maybe Emanuel is right about the “fetal” response by Chicago police. If they’re not allowed to be “proactive” like the officers in the videos, what other possible option is there but lying down and curling up?
