Policing Their Own

By: Rebecca AndersonOn Wednesday morning, Jan. 3, 1996, Chicago Police Officer Eve M. Daly did not report for duty at the 24th District Station, at 6464 N. Clark St. in Rogers Park. At 8:45 a.m., her supervisor, Sgt. Gregory McHugh, went to Daly’s condominium at 6771 N. Olmsted Ave. to check on her. He found her on her bedroom floor, dead from a gunshot wound through the mouth, police reports show.

On Jan. 4, the Office of the Medical Examiner ruled that Daly had committed suicide, and Area 5 Detective Kenneth Berris closed the investigation, concluding that her death was a “non-criminal incident.”

But her sister, Beth Daly, insists the 32-year-old officer was happy in her career and proud of her accomplishments as a body builder. Unsatisfied by the one-day investigation, Daly pressed then-Superintendent of Police Matt L. Rodriguez for a second inquiry into what she calls Eve Daly’s stormy, 51/2-year romantic relationship with Sgt. Patrick J. Minogue.

The 46-year-old Minogue, a 14-year police veteran, once worked with Daly in the 24th District, police records show. Six months before her death, Daly changed her phone and pager numbers, and the locks on her doors, trying to break off contact, said her mother, Lorraine Daly.

Eve Daly told her mother that Minogue followed her when she left work, went to the gym and visited friends. Lorraine Daly, 72, said Minogue sent her daughter rambling letters lamenting their failed relationship and left her threatening phone messages.

“She was upset a lot over [the relationship],” added Jim Shnayder, Eve Daly’s personal trainer for 21/2 years. “Wherever she would go, he was following.”

About three weeks before her death, Daly called her mother on the phone, sobbing. Minogue had “accosted” her outside the district station and told her “she was finished with him when he said she was finished with him,” Lorraine Daly said.

At Beth Daly’s request, the Police Department conducted a second investigation, but found no evidence that “indicted Mr. Minogue in any way, shape or form,” said Patrick Camden, the department’s deputy director of news affairs. He added that the department conducted a gunpowder residue test that showed that Daly had fired the gun that killed her.

Police closed the inquiry in May 1996, but would not give Beth Daly a copy of the final report, citing department policy, Camden added. She was also not informed about the gun residue test, she said.

Daly still believes her sister ended her life because she could no longer cope with the stress of her relationship with Minogue. “It’s just a terrible loss. And this just didn’t need to happen,” Lorraine Daly said.

The Daly case is just one of many that raise questions about the Chicago Police Department’s ability to identify troubled cops and to discipline those who turn abusive or violent—often toward women and minorities.

But the answers can be hard to come by. Minogue declined several requests to be interviewed for this story. And the city’s contract with the Fraternal Order of Police, the union representing more than 12,000 Chicago officers, prevents the department from divulging personnel records or even statistics on officers who are referred for counseling or other intervention programs, said Lauri M. Sanders, the department’s director of news affairs.

To assess the department’s efforts, The Chicago Reporter examined court records and police documents, and interviewed officers and experts on police behavior.

When an officer’s problems end in tragedy, “people cringe to find out that this has been going on for some time,” said Howard Saffold, a former Chicago police commander. He now serves as chief executive officer of the Positive Anti-Crime Thrust Inc., a community organization that focuses on criminal justice. “We’ve looked at the track records of those who have long histories [of complaints], and they don’t get better, they get worse.”

Since Eve Daly’s death, complaints against Minogue have been filed with the Police Department on behalf of two other female police officers. One of the women also obtained an order of protection in the Circuit Court of Cook County.

At least five other complaints charging Minogue with physical and verbal abuse were filed between 1993 and 1997 with the Office of Professional Standards, police documents show. OPS, along with the Internal Affairs Division, investigate allegations of police misconduct. Minogue was cleared in one case, and four were “unsustained,” a murky category that means OPS investigators were unable to prove or disprove the charges.

In an eighth complaint, OPS sustained a charge that Minogue was one of four white officers who beat African American officer Eric L. Holder in 1997.

But Minogue also has received the department’s Life Saving Award, two commendations, 50 honorable mentions and eight complimentary letters. He is “an intelligent person and a good police officer,” said his attorney, Brian Norkett of Coston & Lichtman, a Chicago law firm. He is “neither a sinner or saint,” added Norkett, who would not comment further for this article.

Mayoral Mandate
Mayor Richard M. Daley recently emphasized the need to identify officers with troubled histories. Chicagoans are working “together to deal with isolated cases of over-aggression by individual police officers,” Daley said May 10 in his State of the City address.

But Police Department officials will not discuss whether officers have been disciplined or have received counseling. And an Oct. 31, 1997, report from the department’s Internal Affairs Division states that Minogue had received no disciplinary action in the previous five years. The Reporter obtained the report from court files.

Critics question this secrecy and say OPS is ineffective and does not adequately track police misconduct or report it to the public. Leaders of the Fraternal Order of Police say OPS is too tough on police and bends to politics and media pressure.

OPS does not keep computerized records of complaints, said Callie Baird, the office’s chief administrator. And because her office is not “automated,” she is unable to analyze demographic trends in complaints, investigations and discipline.

“People think that we have this [information] and we don’t want to give it out,” she said. “But we don’t have it compiled according to the way people are requesting it.”

In addition, the city’s contract with the union provides that with rare exceptions, OPS complaints older than five years cannot be used by the Police Department as part of any internal investigation.

Union President Bill Nolan advocates going further. All unfounded or unsustained complaints should be cleared from an officer’s record after one year, he said. “Where there’s smoke, there’s not necessarily fire.”

But Sanders defends the department’s procedures. “All we can say is that there is a process in place to deal with personnel concerns, and to bring officers assistance, guidance or appropriate action,” she said.

“We play heavy on early interventions, constantly teaching first-line supervisors that the minute you see a [problem] behavior that you should give a referral,” added Lt. William Powers, a clinical psychologist and manager of personnel concerns for the department’s intervention programs.

But determining problem cases is difficult because the majority of complaints are unsustained. OPS received 8,315 complaints in 1998 and completed 2,799 investigations. Sixty-five percent were unsustained. Seven percent of the 1998 investigations were “sustained,” or supported by enough evidence to warrant discipline.

Many officers have problems that receive little or no attention, said Mary D. Powers, coordinator of Citizens Alert, a non-profit group that calls for police accountability and advocates for victims of police brutality.

This June, on behalf of the Daly family, Powers wrote to Superintendent of Police Terry G. Hillard, requesting a meeting on Eve Daly’s case. Hillard has not responded.

The department “needs to make every effort to identify these officers early on, to protect the public and the investment they have in each officer,” she said.

“To me, Minogue is an example of how one officer can slip through the cracks.”

Personal Relations
Patrick Minogue was born in Chicago on March 4, 1953. He served in the U.S. Army from 1971 to 1977, and married Kathleen Sannasardo in 1979, according to court and military documents. The couple divorced in March 1998.

Minogue became a police officer in 1985 and was promoted to sergeant in 1996. He has served in the 24th, 15th and 18th Districts, police and court records show. In August 1998, he had open heart surgery and is currently on medical leave.

Among the eight complaints against Minogue investigated by the Reporter are allegations that he used excessive force during an arrest and directed a racial slur at two children.

Minogue also has been involved in two disputes with women he dated. On Aug. 5, 1997, Chicago police Sgt. Michael Mulkerin filed an OPS complaint on behalf of then-15th District Police Officer Karen McCullough, charging that Minogue threatened her and her children during at least five telephone calls on Aug. 2, 1997.

According to the OPS report, Minogue told McCullough, “Which one of your kids goes first? How’s your mother’s heart? Look out your window, watch your back, I’m coming.”

OPS declared the complaint unsustained after McCullough declined to provide further information. While Mulkerin told the Reporter he stands by his report, McCullough said she never had a problem with Minogue and the incident was a “misunderstanding.”

Minogue’s relationship with 15th District Police Officer Laura Brancher led Cook County Associate Judge Francis A. Gembala to issue a Jan. 19 order of protection against him. In court records, Brancher described four months of harassing phone calls and letters at home and at work.

“I received a note on my door that I was a ‘gutless F-ing bitch,’ and that he owes me and hatred is so much deeper than love,” Brancher told the court.

At a March 26 hearing, Minogue denied the charges and said Brancher repeatedly contacted him during the period in which she claimed he was harassing her. Gembala then lifted the order of protection. Brancher declined to comment for this article.

Domestic disputes hit police families hard, said Leanor Boulin Johnson, director of African American Studies at Arizona State University. In research conducted between 1983 and 1988, Johnson found that domestic violence charges involving police officers mirrored the national average of 10 percent. But 40 percent of officers reported they had “lost control” with family members, either verbally or physically.

Chicago has one of the only programs in the country to offer Police Department-sponsored intervention, advocacy and counseling to victims of police domestic abuse, said Sgt. Debra Kirby, the department’s domestic violence operations coordinator. The program began in 1994, but Kirby could not say how many people have participated.

Backyard Beating
In the early hours of July 10, 1997, off-duty 11th District Police Officer Eric L. Holder, an African American, was beaten by four white officers from the West Side’s 15th District—including Patrick Minogue.

Holder was visiting his fiancee, Theresa Green, at her home in the Austin neighborhood. Around midnight her brother, Ryan Green, was shot in the alley behind her house, according to court records and police reports. Thirteen officers were called to the crime scene.

Holder said he went to the back yard to get his car and drive another brother, Randy Green, to the hospital to visit his wounded sibling.

Police and court records offer two versions of what happened next. As he entered the yard, Holder said, he identified himself as a police officer, but Minogue, one of two sergeants supervising the crime scene, told him, “You ain’t shit. I don’t give a damn about that badge. Get the hell out of the yard.” An unidentified officer also yelled, “You’re not one of us, nigger; you’re not one of us,” Holder said.

After being pushed, Holder said, he swore at Minogue and turned to walk away, but Minogue ordered the officers to “take his ass down.” OPS found that at least four officers threw him to the ground and beat him. He was handcuffed and arrested, police reports show.

But Police Officer Ronald Meziere said Holder pushed him first, cursed and then pushed Minogue when Minogue tried to intervene. The officers said Holder was injured in a fall when he resisted arrest, and all denied the charges of verbal and physical abuse.

Later that night, police took Holder to Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Hospital, 1653 W. Congress Parkway. He had suffered bruises, cuts and a lump on the head consistent with being struck with a blunt object, hospital records show.

OPS later sustained claims that Holder interfered with an investigation “by becoming loud and boisterous,” and not following orders. But OPS did not uphold Minogue and Meziere’s claims that Holder pushed them, citing conflicting testimony.

Investigators did sustain charges that Minogue swore at Holder, and that Minogue, Mezeire and Police Officers Thomas Stack and Anthony Barsano abused Holder by pushing him to the ground and hitting him with their fists and feet.

In a 1997 memo to the police superintendent, former OPS Chief Administrator Gayle Shines recommended that Holder and the four officers be disciplined. Hillard has not made a final decision in the case, Camden said.

In a January 1998 trial in Cook County Criminal Court, Holder was found guilty of resisting arrest and acquitted of battery. He was sentenced to a one-year conditional discharge and 30 days in the Cook County Sheriff’s Alternative Work Program. Conditional discharge, a form of probation, meant Holder could not carry a gun, and he took a one-year leave of absence from the department. Holder’s conviction was upheld by the Illinois Appellate Court on March 15, 1999; he is now preparing an appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court.

In January 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation into the incident. It is still underway, said Christine DeBartolo, press officer for the department’s Civil Rights Division.

On May 8, 1998, Holder filed an $8 million civil rights lawsuit in U.S. District Court, charging Minogue, the other officers and the City of Chicago with excessive force, assault and battery, emotional distress, failure to protect and a hate crime. The officers and the city have denied the charges; the case is pending.

Holder, who in April returned to work as a police officer at the 11th District on the West Side, said he hoped “something from my case will make officers a little more reluctant to act out of order.”

Troubled Cops
The 70 investigators at OPS are responsible for looking into complaints of excessive force, shootings by police, civilian deaths in police custody and domestic violence involving officers. While a civilian agency, Baird said OPS is “part of the office of the superintendent, and therefore part of the Police Department.”

Baird, appointed OPS chief in June 1998, said the office has improved. Investigations that once took “a long period of time” are now handled within two to six months, with priority given to the most serious cases, she said.

In proven cases of misconduct, Baird recommends discipline to the superintendent, who decides the punishment. The 10-member Office of the Police Board, appointed by Mayor Daley, rules on cases where the superintendent recommends officers be fired or suspended for more than 30 days. The board also hears appeals from officers with lesser penalties.

Saffold of the Positive Anti-Crime Thrust said OPS would be more effective if it reported directly to the board rather than the Police Department.

According to police rules, watch commanders must request that officers enter the Behavioral Intervention System if they receive three unsustained complaints of excessive force within a year. Officers with sustained complaints are recommended to the Personnel Concerns Program.

Baird said she reviews all complaints every month, but could not say how often she makes recommendations to the intervention programs. The department also offers confidential counseling.

With 16,133 employees, “we can’t ever let loose and sit back,” said William Powers of the department’s intervention programs. Not every officer who “meets the criteria [for intervention] is problematic,” he said, but added: “In a system of this size, is it possible for someone to slip through the cracks? Yes, unfortunately.”

The Fraternal Order of Police also sponsors St. Michael’s House, a set of programs at 1759 W. Adams St. on the Near West Side. The 2-year-old facility offers officers mental health care, alcoholism treatment and some residential services.

In June 1994, the Police Department purchased the BrainMaker computer program, Camden said. It analyzes behavior patterns among fired officers to help predict similar behavior among active members.

BrainMaker identified 91 Chicago police officers at risk, and more than half were not enrolled in counseling, wrote Mark Lawrence, president of California Scientific Software, on the company’s Web site. The Nevada City, Calif. firm developed the program.

But Camden said the program was never used. The department decided to drop it after fierce opposition from the police union, and now relies on supervisors to monitor problem behaviors, Sanders said.

Officers who make many arrests are bound to accumulate more complaints, Nolan said. “If you’ve got a busy, aggressive officer in a busy district, the offender knows they can complain and get the officer in trouble,” he said.

Cadets at the Chicago Police and Firefighter Training Academy learn that citizen complaints go with the territory, said Pat Hill, former president and a board member of the African American Police League, an advocacy group that represents about 1,500 Chicago police officers.

“They call it good police work when you get a lot of unsustained complaints,” said Hill, an officer on medical leave. “It’s really a code for ‘Keep doing that aggressive police work.’”

Chicago’s rate of unsustained complaints is typical among comparable cities across the nation, said Kenneth Adams, chair of the criminal justice department at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

But complaints do matter, Saffold said. “For example, if someone is charged with racial epithets, it is not considered serious, but it may say something about [the officer],” he said. “All these things are patterns.”

And officers who accumulate many unsustained complaints may be in need of personal or professional help, said Samuel Walker, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska of Omaha. His forthcoming book, “Citizen Complaints and Police Accountability,” analyzes civilian review boards.

While inherently difficult to prove, complaints should be a “window” into the Police Department, helping the public spot trends and identify troubled officers, he added. Complaints, which usually only become public through lawsuits, should “help professionalize the department, to identify problems and recommend policy.”

In their annual report, Chicago police provide two pages of data on the outcome of internal investigations, while other major cities, including San Francisco and Minneapolis, produce more detailed studies. For example, the New York Civilian Complaint Review Board publishes an approximately 150-page report every six months describing complaints by allegation, precinct, race and other categories.

Mary Powers of Citizens Alert, who has worked on police accountability issues for 30 years, said the Police Department hides behind regulations and its contract with the police union instead of honestly evaluating police officers with repeated complaints against them.

“It’s obvious that whatever intervention they have doesn’t work,” Powers said. “Or they just don’t intervene with everyone who needs it.”

For more information on police accountability, visit the following sites:

w Report of the Commission on Police Integrity

w The Chicago Police Department

w Human Rights Watch report on Chicago in Shielded from Justice: Police Accountability and Brutality in the United States

w The National Coalition on Police Accountability and Citizens Alert

w California Scientific Software, the creators of BrainMaker

w Read the Reporter's story on policing the police: Police Brutality Complaints Decline; Disciplinary Actions Increase, September 1990. Also see Death Behind Bars, March 1999.

Contributing: Mick Dumke and Alysia Tate. Peggy A. Floume, Susan Hsu, Ylda Kopka, J. Coyden Palmer, Chanel Polk and Abhi Raghunathan helped research this article.