The news: During the first quarter of 2012, 610 shootings were recorded in Chicago, a 40.9 percent increase from the same period in 2011. Twenty-two of those shootings involved Chicago police officers, according to a quarterly report from the Independent Police Review Authority.
Behind the news: The percentage of African Americans injured in officer-involved shootings in Chicago is on the rise, according to data from the Independent Police Review Authority. In 2011, 80 percent of the 60 injuries resulting from police shootings—including injuries to officers—involved African Americans compared with 66 percent of 61 injuries in 2009.
Flint Taylor, founding partner of the People’s Law Office in Chicago, said he finds the increase “startling,” but it’s reflective of a predictably biased criminal justice system, he said.
“We’ve had and continue to have a 43-year history of dealing with racially based police brutality and violence against predominantly African-American and also Latino and Latina victims,” he said. “Systemic racism is unfortunately alive and well in the Chicago Police Department, as it is in other aspects of our society. It makes you think about the correlative numbers of young African-American men who are behind bars, who have been routed into the criminal justice system.”
Taylor believes a better disciplinary system is needed for officers who use excessive force. “If there is a change at the top and a newfound commitment to root out these kinds of problems then I think we can be optimistic,” he said.