imported post
Another Dictator on the Loose:
Chicago's Mayor Daley Backs Proposal to Arm Police Officers with Full-Auto Assault Rifles while Citizens are Kept Defenseless
April 27, 2008
Sourced from:
- http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-chicago-police-guns_both_27apr27,0,3289799.story
- http://cbs2chicago.com/local/police.assault.rifles.2.709234.html
- http://www.ci.chi.il.us/city/webportal/portalContentItemAction.do?blockName=Content&topChannelName=HomePage&
contentOID=536964878&Failed_Reason=Invalid+timestamp,+engine+
has+been+restarted&contenTypeName=COC_EDITORIAL&
com.broadvision.session.new=Yes&Failed_Page=%2fwebportal%2fportalContentItemAction.do&context=All+Archived+News%
2f2007%2fNovember
- http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=5164619
- http://cbs2chicago.com/local/taser.elderly.woman.2.490293.html
- http://cbs2chicago.com/local/murder.plot.police.2.409471.html
- http://www.nbc5.com/morning/16482452/detail.html
- http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/02/22/
jury_awards_975m_in_corrupt_cop_suit/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+News
- http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/Chicago.Police.corruption.2.333907.html
- http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcnobody_mayor.html
- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/22/eveningnews/main4036098.shtml
- http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/March-2008/Bang/
- http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/960265,CST-NWS-mell21-web.article
- http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/lott200409290839.asp
- http://www.nbc5.com/news/14272307/detail.html
- http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/
2004-04-30-chicago-police-cams_x.htm?POE=TECISVA
- http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-02-14-chicago-cameras_x.htm
- http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001537.html
- http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.05/crime.html
- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/24/MNACSA80Q.DTL
- http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/Story?id=4862057&page=1
http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=25278
Instead of declaring gun control laws a failure, Mayor Richard M. Daley said he is actively backing a plan by his new police superintendent Jody Weis to equip all Chicago police officers (more than 13,000) with fully automatic M4 assault rifles, the same type of rifle Chicago SWAT teams use, which Daley said would put officers on equal footing with gangs and criminals: "Many times [the police are] outgunned, to be very frank." "When they come to a scene, someone has a semi-fully-automatic weapon, and you have a little pistol, uh, good luck."
Daley named 49-year-old Weis, a 22-year veteran of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Police Superintendent after The Chicago Police Department disbanded the Special Operations Unit. Members of "The Unit" face charges relating to beating civilians while off duty, breaking into homes to steal drugs, selling drugs, planting drugs, trafficking drugs, shaking down drug dealers, armed violence, bribery, extortion, kidnapping, rape, dealing arms, and numerous other crimes.
Police spokeswoman Monique Bond said of police, "The goal is to let the community know that they're in their neighborhoods."
The assault weapons plan comes at a time when Chicago Police already face a number of excessive force investigations. In November of 2007 the police Tasered an 82-year-old woman in her home because they saw her through the window, using a hammer. A "well being check" was being conducted at the time, and officers felt she might hurt someone, although no one else was in her home. A jury awarded $9.75 million to Diane Klipfel and Michael Casali after Joseph Miedzianowski was found guilty of creating a smear and terror campaign against them after they accused him of corruption. Miedzianowski is often referred to as "Chicago's most corrupt police officer." City officials' claim they conducted an 18-month investigation of Miedzianowski and were unable to uncover any evidence of corruption, even though Klipfel and Casali were never interviewed. Miedzianowski was also convicted of masterminding a Chicago-to-Miami cocaine pipeline and supplying guns and ammunition to the very street gangs he was supposed to be investigating. Other charges against Chicago Police include insurance fraud and murder-for-hire. Twenty-eight Chicago alderman have gone to court to request the names of 662 officers with ten or more complaints of excessive force each, after the department has allegedly covered up the incidents.
The cost of the assault weapons plan and training requirements are unclear, but Daley says Illinois State Police and other police departments around the country already carry high-powered assault weapons, and Chicago's rank-and-file officers need them too. However, the "need" for automatic weapons that fire 1,000 rounds a minute has been called into question. In 2007 Texas lost 22 officers to homicide, Florida 16, New York 12 and California 11, while in Chicago only five officers died in the line of duty in 2007, and none in 2008, and none of the officers lost anywhere in the U.S. was due to assault weapons fire.
Meanwhile, Mayor Daley continues to fully support the ban on citizens owning handguns and continues pushing for bans on citizens owning semiautomatic assault weapons. In 1998 the City of Chicago, under Mayor Daley's direction, filed lawsuits against 12 Chicago-area gun dealers, 17 gun manufacturers, and five gun distributors in an attempt to ban handguns from being purchased anywhere in the vicinity of Chicago.
In recent protest, John Birch, who heads Concealed Carry, Inc., has awarded one handgun per month to the Chicago resident with the best written essay of why they need one. Birch considers his campaign a lifesaving fight against what he calls an unconstitutional law. "This is a moral battle, and I am willing to use every tool available."
City of Chicago Attorney Mara Georges said this is not the first time Birch has defied Chicago's handgun ban and the city is considering civil and criminal action against him. "The laws are stated very clearly and so, if he's going to violate the law, we are going to have to very, very fiercely protect our laws." The city of Chicago reported 676 homicides last year, with significantly more non-fatal shootings. Georges said the number of murders would decrease if the number of people with arms decreased. "I think he is encouraging violence. I think he is encouraging civil disobedience. I think he's encouraging people to break the law," she said.
Birch says Chicago residents are dying because they are unarmed and unable to defend themselves. A recent recipient of the Concealed Carry, Inc. giveaway (who asked not to be identified) said he's willing to risk arrest in order to be safe: "I'm entitled to defend myself. I think this law is a life or death matter." The winner faces up to six months in jail for possessing a handgun, but it's a risk worth taking: "I would rather survive and have to go up against a court case than be buried and not have any chance whatsoever."
According to CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers, public school students in Chicago aren't as worried about making the grade as they are about making it home alive. Student Juston Gant said "You can't go nowhere without being shot." "It's crazy." Last school year 34 students were killed, and this year the death toll is over 24 students already, making for more than 58 deaths in 17 months. In an ironic twist, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said, "Anyone can get a gun." "You can get a gun like you can get expensive sneakers." Bond meant to support the weapons ban, but her statement shows that Chicago's 1982 handgun ban isn't working. Chicago tops the nation in confiscated firearms, and requires all gun owners to maintain a Firearms Owner Identification Card and register all guns annually during a two-month limited registration period.
Crime rates in Illinois were on average falling until 1982, when Chicago banned handgun ownership and possession. Since then, Chicago's murder rate jumped to 12 times greater than neighboring counties and robbery rates have soared, despite Chicago having some of the best computer systems and police facilities in the nation. Chicago led the nation in murders last year.
Some citizens speculate the Mayor has confused the Chicago flag with the Socialist flags of Serbia and the Irish Citizen's Army. Daley plans to add 100 more officers to the streets and 100 more bullet-proof cameras to keep an eye on what citizens are up to--including running red lights, bringing the total number of cameras to more than 550. Mayor Daley said, "The city owns the sidewalks. We own the streets and we own the alleys."
The new cameras are smaller, and harder to spot. So far, cameras have only been placed on public streets, but the Mayor plans to change that. Since 2006, Daley has been pushing for cameras to be installed in bars, convenience stores, and any business open more than 12 hours per day at the business's expense, not the city's. "The safer we make the city, the better it is for everyone," said Chicago Alderman Ray Suarez, who first proposed mandatory cameras in some businesses. "If you're not doing anything wrong, what do you have to worry about?"
The 500+ cameras that spy on the public are just the tip of the iceberg. According to Noah Shachtman, a writer for Wired magazine who spent 1-1/2 weeks with Chicago police, Chicago is planning to use over 2,250 spy cameras to track "suspects." He reports that on a warm afternoon a young African-American man wearing a puffy oversize jacket leaned against the wall of the One Stop Food and Liquor store at the corner of Chicago Avenue and Homan Street. A camera mounted thirty feet up on a telephone pole swiveled toward him as Officer Ron Huberman watched him on a PC screen. "You see that guy?" asks Huberman, the 33-year-old chief of Chicago's Office of Emergency Management and Communications. "He's pitching dope - you can tell. Fucker." Shachtman reports the cameras can zoom in so tight the viewer can see the wisps of a mustache. Citizens report the cameras are being used to spy on them through their apartment windows.
Earl Gardner lounged on the street near his home just west of downtown Chicago, with a 24-ounce can of Crazy Stallion beer in his hand. A mile away, police Officer Al Garbauski slid a computer mouse to maneuver a camera that was perched a block from Gardner. Zooming in tight, Garbauski saw malt liquor meet mouth and sent an officer to arrest Gardner for drinking in public. "I didn't appreciate it, not one bit," the 55-year-old Gardner said. Later, Garbauski sat in the station and showed how to move the cameras. Objects a block away from a camera were hard to make out, but zooming in revealed the digits of a license plate or the contours of a face, in this case that of a McDonald's employee serving patrons at the drive-through. "Let's see what they're getting," said Garbauski's fellow officer, Russell Schultz. "Looks like a McChicken."
Critics of the cameras remain unconvinced of their usefulness. They point to studies of surveillance cameras in Britain - where the technology is far more widespread than even in Chicago - that show slight crime-rate improvements at best. "The silence is deafening," said Jonathan Schachter, a public policy lecturer at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., referring to the absence of any comprehensive studies of Chicago's cameras. "I haven't seen any evidence that cameras are reducing rather than displacing crime."
Mayor Richard Daley said the city will have cameras on "almost every block" by 2016, when the city hopes to host the Summer Olympics. The city is exploring so-called "smart" cameras, which could recognize faces or sound an alarm and zoom in if a certain movement is detected. "[Smart] Cameras are the equivalent of hundreds of sets of eyes," said Daley. Cameras will reportedly alert police of a terrorist possibility when a person lingers in an area "too long."
Meanwhile, private security cameras are monitoring police. Chicago bartender Karolina Obrycka reported that off-duty Chicago police officer Anthony Abbate drank three shots of raspberry brandy, one shot of tequila, and 2-1/2 vodka and Sprites before she took his remaining drink and refused to serve him because of his abusive behavior. Abbate then went behind the bar and refused to leave. "I tell him to get out. That's when he tells me, 'Nobody will tell me what to do.' I tried to get him out [from] behind the bar, and boom. He's like trying to grab my neck, then he throws me on the floor. I was down and he was beating me. And I remember he was hitting my head; I was like sitting on the floor. You don't know if he wants to beat you until you bleed and you die. I thought that he would never stop beating me," said Obrycka.
A patron came to Obrycka's aid, and Abbate stormed out. Obrycka said she was shocked by the response to the incident. Chicago police arrived to take a report, but according to Obrycka's lawyer, Terry Ekl, they ignored the bar owner's key evidence: the surveillance tapes. "If there hadn't been this videotape," said Ekl, "there would have been no charges in this case." Ekl, who has filed suit against the city of Chicago on Obrycka's behalf, said both the incident and the attempted cover-up are no surprise. He said police misdeeds are routinely ignored, and worse. "Covering up their misconduct," he said, "and not punishing them for any conduct they engage in emboldens these police officers, essentially to believe that they're above the law."
As the result of a lawsuit against the Chicago Police Department, University of Chicago law professor Craig Futterman was given access to over 10,000 complaints of police abuse. He found that only 19 of those resulted in what he calls meaningful discipline -- suspension for a week or more. "The code of silence is very real," Futterman said. "Don't rat out other cops. If you do, there'll be real consequences." Futterman says some officers with as many as 50 complaints against them in the last few years have never been disciplined or flagged.
"20/20" obtained security camera video from another bar in Chicago, the Jefferson Tap and Grill, that shows a group of off-duty officers drinking into the morning and instigating a confrontation with four businessmen who witnesses say were peacefully playing pool. The video shows that the men were knocked to the floor, one was choked, another was slammed down on the table itself and then to the floor, where he was put in a headlock and pummeled. One of the men tried to make a cell phone call for help, but when an officer later identified as Sgt. Jeffrey Planey noticed, he grabbed the phone and violently shoved the man to the wall. 911 calls from inside the bar managed to get through, but a total of nine police vehicles rolled up and then quickly rolled away after being greeted by the same Sgt. Planey. Police didn't investigate until much later, after the off-duty officers had left. The businessmen suffered numerous injuries from the brutal beatings, including broken ribs, a broken nose, a herniated disk, and several bodily contusions. There was little sign of investigation in the Jefferson Tap case for months until the video was leaked to the public. After public outcry, Sgt. Planey and two other officers were hit with felony battery charges and have since pleaded not guilty.
Meanwhile, Chicago police found two men and a woman fatally shot near a money-counting machine in a suspected drug house while doing a well-being check. "This is a gang block. It's a war zone; it's not surprising at all," said 18-year-old hairstylist Kalina Ortiz, who lives a few blocks from the house where the bodies were found. She complained that police don't respond quickly to calls. Investigators planned to review 911 calls from the neighborhood: "There may have been some shots fired earlier in the morning," said police spokeswoman Monique Bond. Leticia Estrada, who was dropping off her child at a day-care center near where the bodies were found Wednesday, said gangs are a problem in the neighborhood. The 31-year-old waitress said people are afraid to talk openly about the gang activity because they fear the gang-bangers. At this time it's unclear if arming police with assault rifles and surveillance cameras will help stop crime, drug, and gang activity or promote further police involvement.
Edit: Sliced up reference links so the displayed page isn't so dern wide.
Another Dictator on the Loose:
Chicago's Mayor Daley Backs Proposal to Arm Police Officers with Full-Auto Assault Rifles while Citizens are Kept Defenseless
April 27, 2008
Sourced from:
- http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-chicago-police-guns_both_27apr27,0,3289799.story
- http://cbs2chicago.com/local/police.assault.rifles.2.709234.html
- http://www.ci.chi.il.us/city/webportal/portalContentItemAction.do?blockName=Content&topChannelName=HomePage&
contentOID=536964878&Failed_Reason=Invalid+timestamp,+engine+
has+been+restarted&contenTypeName=COC_EDITORIAL&
com.broadvision.session.new=Yes&Failed_Page=%2fwebportal%2fportalContentItemAction.do&context=All+Archived+News%
2f2007%2fNovember
- http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=5164619
- http://cbs2chicago.com/local/taser.elderly.woman.2.490293.html
- http://cbs2chicago.com/local/murder.plot.police.2.409471.html
- http://www.nbc5.com/morning/16482452/detail.html
- http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/02/22/
jury_awards_975m_in_corrupt_cop_suit/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+News
- http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/Chicago.Police.corruption.2.333907.html
- http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcnobody_mayor.html
- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/22/eveningnews/main4036098.shtml
- http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/March-2008/Bang/
- http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/960265,CST-NWS-mell21-web.article
- http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/lott200409290839.asp
- http://www.nbc5.com/news/14272307/detail.html
- http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/
2004-04-30-chicago-police-cams_x.htm?POE=TECISVA
- http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-02-14-chicago-cameras_x.htm
- http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001537.html
- http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.05/crime.html
- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/24/MNACSA80Q.DTL
- http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/Story?id=4862057&page=1
http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=25278
Instead of declaring gun control laws a failure, Mayor Richard M. Daley said he is actively backing a plan by his new police superintendent Jody Weis to equip all Chicago police officers (more than 13,000) with fully automatic M4 assault rifles, the same type of rifle Chicago SWAT teams use, which Daley said would put officers on equal footing with gangs and criminals: "Many times [the police are] outgunned, to be very frank." "When they come to a scene, someone has a semi-fully-automatic weapon, and you have a little pistol, uh, good luck."
Daley named 49-year-old Weis, a 22-year veteran of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Police Superintendent after The Chicago Police Department disbanded the Special Operations Unit. Members of "The Unit" face charges relating to beating civilians while off duty, breaking into homes to steal drugs, selling drugs, planting drugs, trafficking drugs, shaking down drug dealers, armed violence, bribery, extortion, kidnapping, rape, dealing arms, and numerous other crimes.
Police spokeswoman Monique Bond said of police, "The goal is to let the community know that they're in their neighborhoods."
The assault weapons plan comes at a time when Chicago Police already face a number of excessive force investigations. In November of 2007 the police Tasered an 82-year-old woman in her home because they saw her through the window, using a hammer. A "well being check" was being conducted at the time, and officers felt she might hurt someone, although no one else was in her home. A jury awarded $9.75 million to Diane Klipfel and Michael Casali after Joseph Miedzianowski was found guilty of creating a smear and terror campaign against them after they accused him of corruption. Miedzianowski is often referred to as "Chicago's most corrupt police officer." City officials' claim they conducted an 18-month investigation of Miedzianowski and were unable to uncover any evidence of corruption, even though Klipfel and Casali were never interviewed. Miedzianowski was also convicted of masterminding a Chicago-to-Miami cocaine pipeline and supplying guns and ammunition to the very street gangs he was supposed to be investigating. Other charges against Chicago Police include insurance fraud and murder-for-hire. Twenty-eight Chicago alderman have gone to court to request the names of 662 officers with ten or more complaints of excessive force each, after the department has allegedly covered up the incidents.
The cost of the assault weapons plan and training requirements are unclear, but Daley says Illinois State Police and other police departments around the country already carry high-powered assault weapons, and Chicago's rank-and-file officers need them too. However, the "need" for automatic weapons that fire 1,000 rounds a minute has been called into question. In 2007 Texas lost 22 officers to homicide, Florida 16, New York 12 and California 11, while in Chicago only five officers died in the line of duty in 2007, and none in 2008, and none of the officers lost anywhere in the U.S. was due to assault weapons fire.
Meanwhile, Mayor Daley continues to fully support the ban on citizens owning handguns and continues pushing for bans on citizens owning semiautomatic assault weapons. In 1998 the City of Chicago, under Mayor Daley's direction, filed lawsuits against 12 Chicago-area gun dealers, 17 gun manufacturers, and five gun distributors in an attempt to ban handguns from being purchased anywhere in the vicinity of Chicago.
In recent protest, John Birch, who heads Concealed Carry, Inc., has awarded one handgun per month to the Chicago resident with the best written essay of why they need one. Birch considers his campaign a lifesaving fight against what he calls an unconstitutional law. "This is a moral battle, and I am willing to use every tool available."
City of Chicago Attorney Mara Georges said this is not the first time Birch has defied Chicago's handgun ban and the city is considering civil and criminal action against him. "The laws are stated very clearly and so, if he's going to violate the law, we are going to have to very, very fiercely protect our laws." The city of Chicago reported 676 homicides last year, with significantly more non-fatal shootings. Georges said the number of murders would decrease if the number of people with arms decreased. "I think he is encouraging violence. I think he is encouraging civil disobedience. I think he's encouraging people to break the law," she said.
Birch says Chicago residents are dying because they are unarmed and unable to defend themselves. A recent recipient of the Concealed Carry, Inc. giveaway (who asked not to be identified) said he's willing to risk arrest in order to be safe: "I'm entitled to defend myself. I think this law is a life or death matter." The winner faces up to six months in jail for possessing a handgun, but it's a risk worth taking: "I would rather survive and have to go up against a court case than be buried and not have any chance whatsoever."
According to CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers, public school students in Chicago aren't as worried about making the grade as they are about making it home alive. Student Juston Gant said "You can't go nowhere without being shot." "It's crazy." Last school year 34 students were killed, and this year the death toll is over 24 students already, making for more than 58 deaths in 17 months. In an ironic twist, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said, "Anyone can get a gun." "You can get a gun like you can get expensive sneakers." Bond meant to support the weapons ban, but her statement shows that Chicago's 1982 handgun ban isn't working. Chicago tops the nation in confiscated firearms, and requires all gun owners to maintain a Firearms Owner Identification Card and register all guns annually during a two-month limited registration period.
Crime rates in Illinois were on average falling until 1982, when Chicago banned handgun ownership and possession. Since then, Chicago's murder rate jumped to 12 times greater than neighboring counties and robbery rates have soared, despite Chicago having some of the best computer systems and police facilities in the nation. Chicago led the nation in murders last year.
Some citizens speculate the Mayor has confused the Chicago flag with the Socialist flags of Serbia and the Irish Citizen's Army. Daley plans to add 100 more officers to the streets and 100 more bullet-proof cameras to keep an eye on what citizens are up to--including running red lights, bringing the total number of cameras to more than 550. Mayor Daley said, "The city owns the sidewalks. We own the streets and we own the alleys."
The new cameras are smaller, and harder to spot. So far, cameras have only been placed on public streets, but the Mayor plans to change that. Since 2006, Daley has been pushing for cameras to be installed in bars, convenience stores, and any business open more than 12 hours per day at the business's expense, not the city's. "The safer we make the city, the better it is for everyone," said Chicago Alderman Ray Suarez, who first proposed mandatory cameras in some businesses. "If you're not doing anything wrong, what do you have to worry about?"
The 500+ cameras that spy on the public are just the tip of the iceberg. According to Noah Shachtman, a writer for Wired magazine who spent 1-1/2 weeks with Chicago police, Chicago is planning to use over 2,250 spy cameras to track "suspects." He reports that on a warm afternoon a young African-American man wearing a puffy oversize jacket leaned against the wall of the One Stop Food and Liquor store at the corner of Chicago Avenue and Homan Street. A camera mounted thirty feet up on a telephone pole swiveled toward him as Officer Ron Huberman watched him on a PC screen. "You see that guy?" asks Huberman, the 33-year-old chief of Chicago's Office of Emergency Management and Communications. "He's pitching dope - you can tell. Fucker." Shachtman reports the cameras can zoom in so tight the viewer can see the wisps of a mustache. Citizens report the cameras are being used to spy on them through their apartment windows.
Earl Gardner lounged on the street near his home just west of downtown Chicago, with a 24-ounce can of Crazy Stallion beer in his hand. A mile away, police Officer Al Garbauski slid a computer mouse to maneuver a camera that was perched a block from Gardner. Zooming in tight, Garbauski saw malt liquor meet mouth and sent an officer to arrest Gardner for drinking in public. "I didn't appreciate it, not one bit," the 55-year-old Gardner said. Later, Garbauski sat in the station and showed how to move the cameras. Objects a block away from a camera were hard to make out, but zooming in revealed the digits of a license plate or the contours of a face, in this case that of a McDonald's employee serving patrons at the drive-through. "Let's see what they're getting," said Garbauski's fellow officer, Russell Schultz. "Looks like a McChicken."
Critics of the cameras remain unconvinced of their usefulness. They point to studies of surveillance cameras in Britain - where the technology is far more widespread than even in Chicago - that show slight crime-rate improvements at best. "The silence is deafening," said Jonathan Schachter, a public policy lecturer at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., referring to the absence of any comprehensive studies of Chicago's cameras. "I haven't seen any evidence that cameras are reducing rather than displacing crime."
Mayor Richard Daley said the city will have cameras on "almost every block" by 2016, when the city hopes to host the Summer Olympics. The city is exploring so-called "smart" cameras, which could recognize faces or sound an alarm and zoom in if a certain movement is detected. "[Smart] Cameras are the equivalent of hundreds of sets of eyes," said Daley. Cameras will reportedly alert police of a terrorist possibility when a person lingers in an area "too long."
Meanwhile, private security cameras are monitoring police. Chicago bartender Karolina Obrycka reported that off-duty Chicago police officer Anthony Abbate drank three shots of raspberry brandy, one shot of tequila, and 2-1/2 vodka and Sprites before she took his remaining drink and refused to serve him because of his abusive behavior. Abbate then went behind the bar and refused to leave. "I tell him to get out. That's when he tells me, 'Nobody will tell me what to do.' I tried to get him out [from] behind the bar, and boom. He's like trying to grab my neck, then he throws me on the floor. I was down and he was beating me. And I remember he was hitting my head; I was like sitting on the floor. You don't know if he wants to beat you until you bleed and you die. I thought that he would never stop beating me," said Obrycka.
A patron came to Obrycka's aid, and Abbate stormed out. Obrycka said she was shocked by the response to the incident. Chicago police arrived to take a report, but according to Obrycka's lawyer, Terry Ekl, they ignored the bar owner's key evidence: the surveillance tapes. "If there hadn't been this videotape," said Ekl, "there would have been no charges in this case." Ekl, who has filed suit against the city of Chicago on Obrycka's behalf, said both the incident and the attempted cover-up are no surprise. He said police misdeeds are routinely ignored, and worse. "Covering up their misconduct," he said, "and not punishing them for any conduct they engage in emboldens these police officers, essentially to believe that they're above the law."
As the result of a lawsuit against the Chicago Police Department, University of Chicago law professor Craig Futterman was given access to over 10,000 complaints of police abuse. He found that only 19 of those resulted in what he calls meaningful discipline -- suspension for a week or more. "The code of silence is very real," Futterman said. "Don't rat out other cops. If you do, there'll be real consequences." Futterman says some officers with as many as 50 complaints against them in the last few years have never been disciplined or flagged.
"20/20" obtained security camera video from another bar in Chicago, the Jefferson Tap and Grill, that shows a group of off-duty officers drinking into the morning and instigating a confrontation with four businessmen who witnesses say were peacefully playing pool. The video shows that the men were knocked to the floor, one was choked, another was slammed down on the table itself and then to the floor, where he was put in a headlock and pummeled. One of the men tried to make a cell phone call for help, but when an officer later identified as Sgt. Jeffrey Planey noticed, he grabbed the phone and violently shoved the man to the wall. 911 calls from inside the bar managed to get through, but a total of nine police vehicles rolled up and then quickly rolled away after being greeted by the same Sgt. Planey. Police didn't investigate until much later, after the off-duty officers had left. The businessmen suffered numerous injuries from the brutal beatings, including broken ribs, a broken nose, a herniated disk, and several bodily contusions. There was little sign of investigation in the Jefferson Tap case for months until the video was leaked to the public. After public outcry, Sgt. Planey and two other officers were hit with felony battery charges and have since pleaded not guilty.
Meanwhile, Chicago police found two men and a woman fatally shot near a money-counting machine in a suspected drug house while doing a well-being check. "This is a gang block. It's a war zone; it's not surprising at all," said 18-year-old hairstylist Kalina Ortiz, who lives a few blocks from the house where the bodies were found. She complained that police don't respond quickly to calls. Investigators planned to review 911 calls from the neighborhood: "There may have been some shots fired earlier in the morning," said police spokeswoman Monique Bond. Leticia Estrada, who was dropping off her child at a day-care center near where the bodies were found Wednesday, said gangs are a problem in the neighborhood. The 31-year-old waitress said people are afraid to talk openly about the gang activity because they fear the gang-bangers. At this time it's unclear if arming police with assault rifles and surveillance cameras will help stop crime, drug, and gang activity or promote further police involvement.
Edit: Sliced up reference links so the displayed page isn't so dern wide.