Tag Archives: chicago police department

Search Continues For Missing Special Olympian

Jul 23, 2018 | kimberlykaczmarek

CHICAGO (CBS) — Police are asking for the public’s help to find a missing man who disappeared while participating in the 50th anniversary of the Special Olympics being held in Chicago.

CBS 2’s Vi Nguyen has more on the efforts to find him.

CPD said the 22-year-old man is a high-risk missing person and they’re still looking for him.

The last time anyone made contact with him was Thursday night and he hasn’t been seen since. Police have shared his picture on social media Friday night and CPD is hoping someone will recognize him.

The 22-year-old man with autism does not speak English. He was reported missing from the 100 block of East Delaware.

His name is Rezwanul Haque. He was last seen wearing a blue hat with USA on the front, a blue polo shirt with the word “Bangladesh” on the back, black pants, and white gym shoes.

He also had a light gray and red backpack.

According to Special Olympics International, Haque is an athlete with the Bangladeshi Unified Cup soccer team. He’s one of the hundreds of athletes taking part in the 50th anniversary of the Special Olympics.

The five-day celebration began earlier in the week. It wraps up Saturday at Soldier Field with a concert at Northerly Island.

Special Olympics International released a statement which said they are deeply concerned and their top priority and safety of their athletes. They are working with local police to find him.

If you have any information or do spot the athlete, you are urged to call the Chicago Police Department.

Lynch: “Too Many CPD Officers Shoot People Who Represent No Threat”

Jan 13, 2017 | WLSAM Staff

By Bill Cameron, WLS-AM 890 News

(CHICAGO) The Justice Dept has issued its long-awaited report on the Chicago Police Dept and Bill Cameron says it’s damning.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch came to Chicago to say there is “reasonable cause” to believe what you’ve heard for decades: that too many police officers shoot people who represent no threat and oversight agencies don’t do anything about it.

“There is reasonable cause to believe what you’ve heard for decades,” Lynch said on Friday morning. “That too many CPD officers shoot people who represent no threat and oversight agencies don’t do anything about it.”

Lynch stated that the Chicago Police Department does not give its officers the training to do their jobs “safely, effectively, and lawfully,” and that “it fails to properly collect and analyze data including data on misconduct complaints and training deficiencies.”

The finding suggested that the CPD has not properly reviewed the use of force in a number of incidents to see if it was necessary or could have been avoided altogether.

At her side was Mayor Emanuel promising to negotiate an expensive legally binding, independently monitored consent decree to fix the problems.

“The Chicago Police Department and city of Chicago is already on the road to reform,” Rahm addressed.

© WLS-AM 890

Ex-CPD sergeant gets 6 months for swapping police info for cash

Dec 9, 2016 | WLSAM Staff

(CHICAGO) A former Near West District sergeant with the Chicago Police Department was sentenced to six months in prison Thursday for trading police information with a liquor store clerk in return for cash.

Ray M. Ramirez, 53, admitted in a plea deal that he traded information he got from police databases to the clerk for cash payments of $150-200, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s office.

The information he gave the clerk included a criminal background check on a prospective store employee, a vehicle registration check and a review of police incidents happening in and around the store, prosecutors said.

Ramirez also admitted to shaking down the clerk and other store employees for cash payments ranging from $70-200 — at times while he was on-duty and wore his police uniform, prosecutors said.

He pleaded guilty last year to a misdemeanor count of exceeding his authorized use of a police department computer and was sentenced to six months in prison by U.S. District Judge Ronald A. Guzman, according to the statement.

 

© Copyright 2016 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

The Latest: Chicago activists say more cops isn’t the answer

Sep 22, 2016 | WLSAM Staff

(CHICAGO) Activists with Black Lives Matter Chicago say the city’s plan to add nearly 1,000 new positions at the police department isn’t the way to stop the violence.

The group said in a statement Wednesday that the crime and violence exist “because of the conditions of poverty that (Mayor) Rahm Emanuel has exacerbated.” The group cited mass school closings in 2013 and increasing taxes.

Black Lives Matter Chicago also said additional resources should instead be used to address employment, affordable housing and access to health care.

Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson says the new positions will strengthen leadership on the force and help earn trust in the community.

City officials have not detailed the cost or how the new jobs will be paid for.

 

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Chicago’s mayor to deliver major speech on city crime

Sep 22, 2016 | WLSAM Staff

(CHICAGO) Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel will deliver his new, more comprehensive plan for addressing public safety in the nation’s third-largest city.

The agenda is expected to include more support and mentorship of youth, a key theme he’s expected to address in the evening speech at a community college campus.

His comments come as Chicago is seeing a spike in violent crime and dealing with fallout from the 2014 shooting death of Laquan McDonald, which prompted a U.S. Department of Justice investigation. The black teenager was shot 16 times by a white police officer. Video of the incident sparked national outrage.

Chicago police have already announced that the department will hire nearly 1,000 more officers in the next two years, and all officers will use body cameras and undergo de-escalation training. Emanuel is also pushing a plan to overhaul Chicago’s system for investigating police shootings and officer complaints.

 

 

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Chicago police: All patrol officers to wear body cams by ’18

Sep 19, 2016 | WLSAM Staff

(CHICAGO) The Chicago Police Department says it’ll expand the use of body cameras to include all officers on patrol within two years.

Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson announced the plan Sunday and says numbers of body cameras will increase by several thousand to give all patrol officers access to them by 2018. The expansion is expected to cost around $8 million

Police launched a body-cam pilot program in 2015 and it currently includes seven of 22 city police districts. Disputed police shootings since then increased pressure to make officers more accountable, including by recording more interactions with the public.

At least one officer’s body camera didn’t appear to be recording during a fatal July shooting of 18-year-old Paul O’Neal. That raised questions about whether officers can switch the cameras off intentionally.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

City seeks to keep cops’ personal emails about McDonald private

Sep 14, 2016 | WLSAM Staff

(CHICAGO) City Hall is trying to keep Chicago Police officers’ personal emails regarding the shooting of Laquan McDonald private.

The City of Chicago is asking a judge to overturn a state Attorney General’s Office ruling that said the emails are public record and, therefore, subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

The city filed the complaint Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court against the Illinois Attorney General’s Office and CNN.

Last January, a CNN producer filed an FOIA request with the Chicago Police Department that sought “all emails related to Laquan McDonald from Police Department email accounts and personal email accounts where business was discussed” for 12 specific Chicago Police officers, according to the filing. The request sought emails that were exchanged between Oct. 19 and 24, 2014, and again between Nov. 19 and 29, 2015.

The police department asked for and was granted an extension to fill the request. On April 19, the department sent the producer more than 700 pages of responsive records, according to the filing. Part of the request was denied.

The producer contacted the CPD’s FOIA office and was told the department “had provided her with all of the records found in its search for responsive records,” according to the filing.

On April 28, CNN asked for a review of the records by the Illinois attorney general’s public access counselor, alleging that the records provided by the police department were unresponsive, the filing stated. CNN also questioned whether the police department “had conducted an adequate search to identify all responsive emails.

The police department told the counselor that it had not searched officers’ personal emails.

“Moreover, CPD explained, communications of individual officer employees on their privately-owned and personal email accounts were not ‘prepared by or for,’ or ‘used by, received by, in the possession of, or under the control of any public body’ ” and were not subject to FOIA disclosure, the filing stated.

On Aug. 9, Sarah Pratt, the attorney general’s public access counselor, ruled that the police department had violated the Freedom of Information Act, stating: “Any e-mails exchanged by CPD employees concerning the shooting death of Mr. McDonald presumably pertain to those employees’ public duties and therefore accessing them would not constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy under the plain language of section 7(1)(c) of FOIA.”

Maura Possley, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, said: “We plan to defend the public access counselor’s opinion in the administrative review.”

According to Pratt’s Aug. 9 ruling, the 12 officers in question included Jason Van Dyke, the officer charged with fatally shooting McDonald 16 times, and Deputy Chief David McNaughton.

McNaughton retired from the department in August after the city inspector general found he was at fault for determining that Van Dyke’s use of force was proper. In a report, McNaughton wrote that McDonald was approaching Van Dyke when he was shot and the officer was in fear for his life.

The city is asking a judge to find that Pratt erred in the ruling that declared officers’ personal emails as public record.

© Copyright 2016 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

Johnson: Thousands of extra police on duty Memorial Day weekend

May 27, 2016 | WLSAM Staff

(CHICAGO) After a violent winter and spring, Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson said Thursday that the city will start off the summer with “thousands” of officers deployed to city parks, beaches and neighborhoods, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting.

After a six-month span that saw a surge in shootings and homicides, Johnson said the department will deploy additional officers, backed up by State Police and Cook County Sheriff forces to target major roads and freeways.

“They’ll be thousands. I can’t give you an exact number,” Johnson said at a news conference on the campus of University of Illinois-Chicago.

Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said it is department policy not to give specific numbers on officer deployments, and that Johnson would announce the department’s plans to tamp down violence over the rest of the summer on June 19.

State Police Director Leo Schmitz, said his agency would have additional troopers on the roads, as well as fixed-wing aircraft circling Chicago area expressways. Chicago highways have seen 20 shootings so far this year, eight more than during the first six months of 2016, said Schmitz, a former Chicago Police Department commander whose district included Englewood.

Citywide, the city has seen nearly 250 homicides so far this year, about 80 more killings than during the first five months of 2015. Johnson said the department has traditionally added officers for key weekends each year, and noted that homicides and shootings have declined after a steep upturn that began in December.

“Any level of violence in Chicago is unacceptable … since the beginning of the year we started out very rocky, in a really bad place, but we’ve seen the numbers progressively go down,” Johnson said. “So we’re seeing progress. It’s not success. If we keep trending the way we are now, by the end of the year we should be in a fairly good place.”

— Chicago Sun-Times

© Copyright 2016 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

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