Preckwinkle: CPD afflicted by ‘pervasive racism’

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle on Wednesday stopped short of throwing the shortcomings of the Chicago Police Department at the feet of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, but said she wished he had done more, and done it sooner.

“I think there’s a lot of responsibility to go around here. I think he inherited a department that is very troubled. And surely I would have wished that he would have responded to some of the difficulties sooner than he did,” Preckwinkle said at a news conference steps from her Loop office to discuss the Department of Justice report released last week that outlined police department failings.

“I hope going forward he is aggressive in his efforts to improve the quality of policing in our communities, particularly black and brown neighborhoods,” she said.

Preckwinkle drew from her experience previously serving as 4th ward alderman to praise the vast majority of Chicago’s police officers — before slamming the department as a whole.

“What I found is that 95 percent of our officers are good and decent people who work very hard every day at a very difficult job, but it’s been obvious to me since I moved to Chicago in the 1960s that there’s a pervasive racism that afflicts the department institutionally and too many of its officers individually and the report confirms this.”

Fixes to cadet training and instituting a foot chase policy are essential she said.

Investing in training reform would be money well spent compared to the millions in tax payer dollars routinely paid by the city to settle lawsuits brought by people who were shot by police officers and others who were wrongfully convicted, she added.

“Making these changes will not be easy. It will require tearing down a culture within the department that has existed for decades if not for generations,” Preckwinkle said.

“I said last week this report gives us an opportunity to hit the reset button on police-community relations. I hope that the moment will be seized, but only time will tell, however.”

Asked if she thought the DOJ should have spent more time on the report than the 13 months it took to put together, Preckwinkle said that, under the circumstances, no.

“I don’t think it’s unfair to say that President Obama was anxious to have this report concluded before he left office so that it would be released at all and I don’t fault him for that. I think it was a wise decision on his part.”

Preckwinkle did not mince words when it came to her assessment of President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for United State Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, and whether or not he will pursue a consent decree to force change upon on the Chicago Police Department from the federal level.

“I think the nominee to the attorney general has a very troubled past when it comes to racial issues and I’m unpersuaded that he has transformed himself over time. Given that belief, it’s unclear to me whether he would hold the city accountable for abuses in the police department. And therefore I think the burden is on the mayor to pursue the reforms that are necessary.”

Sessions has been criticized for his prosecution — when he served as a U.S. Attorney in Alabama — of several black community organizers accused of voting fraud who were ultimately acquitted by a jury.

Preckwinkle refused to speculate on how a Trump administration might effect the county’s budget, especially when it comes funding medical care for its poorest citizens.

“We have had several sessions in which we talked about the potential impacts of a Trump administration on our budget, including what might happen in the health and hospital system. But those brainstorming sessions have just begun and of course the administration doesn’t take office until Friday, so it remains to be see what they’ll actually do.”