Post by Site Admin on Sept 13, 2005 6:14:14 GMT -5
How complaints against police are investigated
By Garrett Ordower
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Wednesday, July 13, 2005
A drunken teenager speeds toward a Mundelein officer and just before being hit, the officer shoots into the car, hitting him in the shoulder and side.
A man tries to ram his pickup truck into two Crystal Lake squad cars after leading the officers inside on a high-speed chase. They fire 22 shots, killing him.
During a midnight traffic stop, a man pulls a kitchen knife out of his car and comes at a Geneva police officer. The officer shoots him twice in the chest.
Every year, the Illinois State Police investigate 15 to 20 police shootings like these or allegations of excessive force, said Illinois State Police spokesman Lt. Lincoln Hampton.
Last year, the allegations of Brian and Kevin Gaughan were one of the cases state police probed.
The brothers lodged a complaint of excessive force against Marengo police officer Scott Crawford.
Because of the many avenues by which complaints can be pursued and the myriad agencies involved, trying to get a bird’s-eye view of police brutality can prove tricky.
But the U.S. Department of Justice tried. It released a study this year, based on interviews conducted in 2002, chronicling the outcome of interactions between police and the public.
It found that 101,600 people nationwide took some sort of formal action against the police in 2002, be it filing a complaint with a civilian review board, the department itself, a local prosecutor or in court.
While that number seems large, it’s a small percentage of the 45.2 million people who reported having some sort of contact with the police in 2002, according to the report “Contacts between Police and the Public.”
Of those, 1.5 percent, or 664,500 people, had force used or threatened against them. Three-quarters of those characterized that force as excessive.
The study found that those in the youngest group it examined were three times more likely to report excessive force than the oldest.
For those 16 to 19 years old, 3.5 percent of arrests involved the use or threat of force, 20- to 29-year-olds reported an incidence of 2.1 percent, and for those older than that it hovers around 1 percent.
The Justice Department study also attempted to describe what type of force those arrested considered excessive.
Several of the nine examples interviewers recorded mirror the allegations made by the Gaughan brothers and others who claim a Marengo officer used excessive force, including:
• Forcing respondent’s arms behind his back.
• Handcuffs put on too high.
• Officer pushed resident to the ground.
• Verbal threat to slam respondent’s head into a wall.
When citizens claim police have threatened them or use excessive force, how the investigation is handled might be determined by a department’s size.
While larger departments handle it internally, smaller towns don’t have the staffing to impartially investigate their own officers, Hampton said.
The state police, at its regional Elgin office, and the McHenry County state’s attorney looked into the allegations Brian and Kevin Gaughan made against officer Scott Crawford and determined he had not used excessive force.
No statistics are kept on the outcome of excessive force complaints investigated by the state police, Hampton said.
By Garrett Ordower
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Wednesday, July 13, 2005
A drunken teenager speeds toward a Mundelein officer and just before being hit, the officer shoots into the car, hitting him in the shoulder and side.
A man tries to ram his pickup truck into two Crystal Lake squad cars after leading the officers inside on a high-speed chase. They fire 22 shots, killing him.
During a midnight traffic stop, a man pulls a kitchen knife out of his car and comes at a Geneva police officer. The officer shoots him twice in the chest.
Every year, the Illinois State Police investigate 15 to 20 police shootings like these or allegations of excessive force, said Illinois State Police spokesman Lt. Lincoln Hampton.
Last year, the allegations of Brian and Kevin Gaughan were one of the cases state police probed.
The brothers lodged a complaint of excessive force against Marengo police officer Scott Crawford.
Because of the many avenues by which complaints can be pursued and the myriad agencies involved, trying to get a bird’s-eye view of police brutality can prove tricky.
But the U.S. Department of Justice tried. It released a study this year, based on interviews conducted in 2002, chronicling the outcome of interactions between police and the public.
It found that 101,600 people nationwide took some sort of formal action against the police in 2002, be it filing a complaint with a civilian review board, the department itself, a local prosecutor or in court.
While that number seems large, it’s a small percentage of the 45.2 million people who reported having some sort of contact with the police in 2002, according to the report “Contacts between Police and the Public.”
Of those, 1.5 percent, or 664,500 people, had force used or threatened against them. Three-quarters of those characterized that force as excessive.
The study found that those in the youngest group it examined were three times more likely to report excessive force than the oldest.
For those 16 to 19 years old, 3.5 percent of arrests involved the use or threat of force, 20- to 29-year-olds reported an incidence of 2.1 percent, and for those older than that it hovers around 1 percent.
The Justice Department study also attempted to describe what type of force those arrested considered excessive.
Several of the nine examples interviewers recorded mirror the allegations made by the Gaughan brothers and others who claim a Marengo officer used excessive force, including:
• Forcing respondent’s arms behind his back.
• Handcuffs put on too high.
• Officer pushed resident to the ground.
• Verbal threat to slam respondent’s head into a wall.
When citizens claim police have threatened them or use excessive force, how the investigation is handled might be determined by a department’s size.
While larger departments handle it internally, smaller towns don’t have the staffing to impartially investigate their own officers, Hampton said.
The state police, at its regional Elgin office, and the McHenry County state’s attorney looked into the allegations Brian and Kevin Gaughan made against officer Scott Crawford and determined he had not used excessive force.
No statistics are kept on the outcome of excessive force complaints investigated by the state police, Hampton said.