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http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20131219 ... blic-trustSPECIAL REPORT: Rule 14 and Cops Who Lie, Testing The Public Trust
December 19, 2013
CHICAGO — Claims that the Chicago Police Department has a lying problem — its very own "no-snitch" code of silence — have always been easy for critics to make, but difficult to prove.
Cops who lie often get exposed in high-profile cases, but lying to cover up misdeeds within the ranks doesn't always make headlines.
A DNAinfo Chicago investigation has found that since 2008, Chicago police — from beat cops to lieutenants — made up stories, filed false reports or told lies to cover up their actions or to back up the lies of fellow cops in all kinds of situations.
Officers lied about throwing a bag of dog excrement on a neighbor's front porch, planting drugs, shooting an unarmed teenager, aggressively flirting with twin sisters at a Walgreens and repeatedly punching a man handcuffed in the back of a patrol car.
Other cops were accused of lying about punching a CTA bus driver, making illegal searches, punching a news photographer during NATO and raiding the wrong house during a barbecue celebrating the birth of puppies.
Police even lied to cover up accidentally discharging pepper spray at a River North steakhouse, according to a review of records.
It’s a story that can be told by taking a closer look at a little-known provision in the Police Department's disciplinary code: "Rule 14: making a false statement, written or oral."
Currently, most Rule 14 investigation details remain hidden from the public.
The police union contract prohibits the city and Independent Police Review Authority, or IPRA, from naming officers accused of misconduct or disclosing details of administrative investigations, including Rule 14 violations, unless the allegations are proven true or an officer requests they be made public.
DNAinfo Chicago obtained through sources a list that named officers investigated by IPRA who were accused of breaking Rule 14.
The list was used to search public records — including thousands of pages of civil and criminal court records, police board and IPRA documents, depositions and police reports — and to conduct dozens of interviews with victims, civil rights lawyers, accused cops and current and former police brass to take a closer look at the code of silence that a 2012 federal court ruling called a “persistent widespread custom” within the Police Department.
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Rule 14: Day 1
DNAinfo Chicago found that IPRA has investigated 87 cases — involving 160 officers — that included alleged Rule 14 violations between 2008 and 2013.
And during that same time period, the Police Department's Internal Affairs Department leveled Rule 14 allegations in 140 more misconduct cases and completed investigations that determined officers violated Rule 14 in 90 more cases, according to public records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
Police union officials claim the number of Rule 14 allegations made each year simply aren't enough to claim that a department with 12,500 sworn officers harbors a culture of lying.
But last year, a federal jury ruled a Police Department code of silence emboldened former Police Officer Anthony Abbate, who conspired with fellow officers under cover of law to cover up the drunken, videotaped beating he gave a female bartender in 2007.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration attempted to have that part of the jury's judgment taken off the books, but U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve refused.
The judge's written ruling states the jury verdict should stand as a matter of principle that has "ramifications for society" and "social value to the judicial system and public at large."
Experts who study law enforcement statistics say the few Rule 14 cases that are publicized offer just a glimpse of the culture that St. Eve declared a matter of "public interest."
University of Chicago law professor Craig Futterman, who has studied Chicago police misconduct for 15 years, said one must look beyond the numbers — particularly when it comes to Rule 14 allegations, administrative findings made against police officers by law enforcement officers — to fully understand how pervasive the code of silence is within the department.
After reviewing more than 1,000 police misconduct cases, Futterman said that neither the Police Department's Internal Affairs Department nor IPRA charged an officer with violating Rule 14 every time an officer was accused of filing a false report in cases that involved alleged dishonesty.
"A charge of making a false report could be submitted in any police misconduct investigation. It's present in every single complaint in which an officer doesn't admit, 'I did it.' Those are allegedly false reports," Futterman said. "And we're not seeing those charges added or investigated in any systematic matter by Internal Affairs or IPRA.”
IPRA’s acting director, former Drug Enforcement Administration supervisor Scott Ando, said the agency never files charges that officers lied unless they make "material false statements or reports" after they are allowed to review initial police documents and any previous statements they made to investigators.
"We don't make those allegations in a cavalier way, because we realize how significant it is and how devastating it can be to a police officer's career," Ando said. "It impacts their credibility as a witness, and in so many instances can be a career killer."
'TO SAY IT DOESN'T EXIST IS NAIVE'
Some of the Rule 14 cases reviewed by DNAinfo Chicago either occurred or were investigated under the watch of former police Supt. Jody Weis, a retired FBI supervisor despised by many rank-and-file officers who considered him an outsider.
Weis said that during his tenure, dozens of officers explained to him why the culture of lying exists within the department.
"The culture here is if you get in trouble, if there's an administrative inquiry, you can lie and do whatever you can to get out of it because the penalty for lying will never be greater than the trouble you're in," Weis said. "The 'Thin Blue Line,' … to say it doesn't exist, is naive."
Chicago police union officials take offense to the idea of a code of silence being part of Police Department culture.
"It's a slap in the face to the dedicated police officers that work the streets in the city of Chicago on a daily basis,” Fraternal Order of Police spokesman Pat Camden said.
"They're out there putting their lives on the line, and you've got people thinking, 'Well, they're all out there lying.' It's really disheartening."
But Chicago's most prolific civil rights attorneys say it's not fair to argue the Police Department's trouble with the truth is the work of just a few bad apples.
Attorney Jared Kosoglad, who represents several people suing police officers accused of covering up misconduct, said it's obvious to him that police stay silent to protect other officers.
"They'll watch misconduct. They'll watch officers beat people up. They'll watch false reports being made and lies being told under oath, and nobody will stand up and say, 'Hey you know this is fraud and it's wrong,' " Kosoglad said. "That police officers routinely lie is obvious. The best part is, they lie even when [my] client is guilty."
A Chicago beat cop with more than 10 years on the job offered his perspective on the issue, answering questions from DNAinfo Chicago on the condition of anonymity, because he said he fears retribution from fellow officers.
Personally, he said he knows and tries to avoid "certain people on every watch, in every unit" who go "above and beyond in a bad way.
"Sometimes you see these people at a job and just keep driving," the officer said. "You don't do this because you don't want to back them up. You do it because you don't want to get sucked into their bulls---."
And he said that presents the kind of quandary regular folks face when they witness violence but don't cooperate with police because they fear retribution for violating the "no-snitch code of silence" on the street that the Police Department says is the top reason more shootings and murders don't get solved.
"On some levels, police officers are no different than a street gang when it comes to the culture of silence. We are not supposed to snitch, just like they say on the street. Yet we implore those that live in high-crime areas to put their lives at risk and [be a] witness against gang members," the officer said.
"Most officers play by the rules. … The department does not endorse silence, lying, etc. It's the culture within the department that makes it possible," he said.
The officer said he's never been openly asked to lie, but that's not how the Police Department code of silence works, anyway.
"The key phrase used is, 'Get your story straight.' There is an expectation to fall in line with the narrative of an event, even if it differs from what you actually saw," he said. "I haven't had this happen often, maybe a handful [of times] at best. But it does happen."
Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said there's no doubt that Chicago cops who lie tear at the entire department's credibility with Chicagoans, especially with folks who already don't trust the police.
"The third rail in departments across the country is Rule 14s, lying. 'You lie, you die,' that's what they call it in Boston. You get terminated if you lie during an official investigation. And I support that," McCarthy said.
"If you boldface lie ... my policy is termination. It has to do with our credibility."
But even when officers get caught violating Rule 14, some of them serve out suspensions and wind up back on the job doing police work, according to IPRA findings and Chicago Police Board decisions.
When that happens, McCarthy says his hands are tied.
"That's why we need to terminate people who get convicted of a Rule 14," he said.
McCarthy blames the department's "convoluted" disciplinary process — IPRA recommends punishments, and then the police superintendent files charges with the police board, which makes the final decisions — for not doling out consistent punishment that sends a message to the rank-and-file that lying won't be tolerated.
