Alderman accuses Law Department of holding back information

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Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th) is shown at an October news conference at City Hall. The topic then was police accountability. | Sun-Times file photo

African-American aldermen were harshly criticized for signing off on a $5 million settlement to the family Laquan McDonald — before a lawsuit had even been filed — without asking tough enough questions or seeing the incendiary shooting video.

On Monday, South Side Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th) tried to make amends — by accusing Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Law Department of withholding information from aldermen about legal misconduct tied to the fatal 2011 police shooting of 27-year-old black motorist Darius Pinex.

Hairston unleashed her tirade before the City Council’s Finance Committee signed off on four more settlements with a total price tag of $9.34 million, including two more fatal police shootings. Nearly $2.4 million of that money will go to the Pinex family.

“What I don’t understand — and maybe you don’t understand — is that the point of everything that happened with Laquan McDonald was because information was withheld. And with you still doing this, we are not going to be able to change anything,” Hairston told first deputy corporation counsel Jenny Notz.

“You have to be honest with this City Council about everything … so we are not surprised, blind-sided. Otherwise, we’re gonna go back to the streets. And you have to understand that correlation. African-Americans like me, African-American lawyers like me, are sick and tired of people being sworn to uphold the law and violating it at every turn and twist. Your office is doing the same. That is not going to continue.”

Finance Committee Chairman Edward Burke (14th) fell on his sword after reading a summary of the case that did not include the legal misconduct controversy.

“Let me take responsibility if I failed to reveal something that you thought or felt would influence your decision. But, I merely was reading the synopsis that is prepared by my staff,” Burke said.

“If you’re gonna blame the first assistant, please understand that I was simply reading what my staff prepared. Don’t blame her.”

Darius Pinex was killed by Chicago Police in 2011. His family sought an award of up to $10 million. | Family photo

Darius Pinex was killed by Chicago Police in 2011. His family sought an award of up to $10 million. | Family photo

Hairston was not appeased.

“We continue to see situations where we are not getting all of the information that we need, as in the Laquan McDonald case,” she said.

Burke countered, “Your point is well taken. It won’t happen again.”

Ald. Emma Mitts (37th) said she, too, was “stunned” when gang enforcer-turned-“urban translator” Wallace “Gator” Bradley raised the issue of legal misconduct in the Pinex case during testimony before the Finance Committee.

“It makes us look like we’re not responsible to our constituents,” Mitts said.

“If we’re gonna be briefed, we need the whole truth. Withholding information is almost like not telling the truth.”

Last year, U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang reversed a jury’s decision that found Officers Gildardo Sierra and Raoul Mosqueda did not wrongfully kill Pinex and ordered a new trial.

Chang found that city attorneys engaged in misconduct when they failed to turn over to the Pinex family a key recording of a police radio transmission central to the police version of why the car driven by Pinex was pulled over by officers in the first place.

Jordan Marsh, an attorney for the city, knew about the recording before the first trial, the judge ruled.

Chang sanctioned Marsh for holding back evidence, prompting the city attorney’s resignation.

Soon after, Emanuel hired former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb to conduct an exhaustive review of the Federal Civil Rights Litigation Division of the city’s Law Department.

After a six-month investigation that cost taxpayers $1.6 million, Webb recommended more than 50 policy changes but found no “evidence establishing a culture, practice or approach” of “intentionally concealing evidence or engaging in intentional misconduct.”

Cedrick Chatman |Provided photo

Cedrick Chatman |Provided photo

The Pinex case was among six since 2012 in which courts have disciplined city officials for “failure to produce documents in discovery” or for not producing them quickly enough, Webb’s 74-page report said.

Law Department spokesman Bill McCaffrey denied that information was withheld from aldermen.

“The misconduct by the former Law Department attorney was raised in the Aldermanic briefing sessions, which Alderman Hairston did not attend, and was also in the First Assistant Corporation Counsel Jenny Notz’s prepared remarks,” McCaffrey said.

“This issue has also been extensively covered in the media and was the genesis of the independent review by Dan Webb and Winston & Strawn, which found no pattern or practice of intentional misconduct and provided recommendations which the Law Department immediately adopted.”

On Monday, Notz acknowledged under questioning from Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) that the city “could have done a better job” when it comes to collecting and turning over evidence in police shooting cases.

Two Law Department paralegals now work out of the Office of Emergency Management and Communications to make certain that recordings are turned over to plaintiffs as quickly as possible, she said.

“As a result of implementing all of the recommendations in the Webb report, we always think we can do a better job,” she said.

“We do believe that, by implementing the recommendations, that we should be able to do better in the future.”

Aldermen also signed off on a $3 million settlement to compensate the family of 17-year-old Cedrick Chatman. He was shot to death by police in January 2013 while fleeing in a vehicle he was alleged to have stolen in a carjacking.

The plainclothes officer who curbed the fleeing vehicle and fired the fatal shots claimed Chatman had a dark object in his right hand and turned his upper torso slightly to the right. The dark object turned out to be a black iPhone box.

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