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Law enforcement authorities agents searched lockers and offices in several Chicago Police districts this week, expanding an investigation that already has led to four officers being charged with shaking down drug dealers, authorities confirmed Friday. (This sentence as published has been corrected.)
Police sources said that internal affairs officials on Thursday searched lockers in several districts, including Englewood, South Chicago and Wentworth. Any evidence that was found would be turned over to the FBI, which also conducted searches of the officers' homes, the sources said. (This paragraph as published has been corrected.)
The four officers charged Wednesday for allegedly shaking down drug dealers had all worked in Englewood.
FBI officials declined to comment on the searches, other than to say they were directly related to the ongoing investigation. "A number of search warrants were obtained and executed as part of that [investigation]," FBI spokesman Ross Rice said.
A police source confirmed Friday that additional officers--perhaps more than six--are being investigated.
Many of the officers in the Wentworth District did not know about the searches until afterward, according to a veteran detective. The searches were conducted "quietly and discreetly," said the detective, who asked not to be named.
In a city with a colorful history of police corruption, the investigation appears to be the most significant since federal prosecutors brought several cases in the mid-1990s.
Among them were two federal inquiries in 1996 and 1997 that led to the convictions of seven officers in the Austin District and three in the Gresham District on charges that they routinely shook down drug dealers. In 1998, gang specialist Joseph Miedzianowski was arrested on federal charges of running a drug ring. Dubbed the "most corrupt cop in the history of Chicago" by federal prosecutors, he is serving a life term in prison.
On Thursday, U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald announced charges against Broderick Jones and Corey Flagg, both 34; Eural J. Black, 41; and Darek A. Haynes, 35, all veteran officers. They were charged in connection with several attempts to target drug dealers for robbery and extortion. Five suspected drug dealers were charged with helping the officers target rivals.
The case has refocused attention on the 2001 shooting death of Police Officer Eric Lee, who was gunned down on duty. Jones and Flagg were with Lee when he was killed in Englewood. Although a defense attorney for the man convicted of murdering the officer said she plans to file new motions in the case, police spokesman David Bayless said the department's probe of Lee's shooting would remain closed unless the federal investigation uncovered new information.
The investigation began after Chicago police conducting a drug investigation on the South Side saw Jones' Cadillac Escalade--with a Fraternal Order of Police sticker on the windshield--parked at a restaurant where drug suspects were meeting. The information was related to the internal affairs division and the FBI.
The scandal has unnerved many in the South Side neighborhoods where the corruption allegedly took place.
Englewood community activists called on city and federal officials to launch a full investigation of the Englewood District. They also demanded that the Chicago Police Department reopen the investigation into Lee's death and re-examine all arrests made by the four officers.
"We need to find out what else these scoundrels have done," Rev. Anthony Williams said during a Friday news conference attended by several community activists in Englewood's St. Stephen's Evangelical Lutheran Church.
"We cannot allow our community to be vandalized by criminal police," he said.
Williams added that the scandal undermined efforts to improve tenuous relations between Chicago police and Englewood residents, particularly adolescent males who complain of police profiling and harassment.
"Young people see these cops every day shaking them down," he said. "What the negative cop does affects what the good cop does," in terms of improving faith in city police. "We know 95 percent of our Chicago police are good. It's that 5 percent that's got to be weeded out."
The federal probe further complicates the efforts of a community seeking to free itself from the decades-long image of being among Chicago's most troubled neighborhoods.
"We're trying to change the face of the community," said Williams, who noted the new Kennedy King College campus being built at 63rd and Halsted Streets and a new police station and several residential buildings under construction nearby.
"Now, people will be asking: `Are you going to fill that police station with criminal cops?'"
Newsday
© Newsday, Inc.
Long Island's & NYC's News Source
Police sources said that internal affairs officials on Thursday searched lockers in several districts, including Englewood, South Chicago and Wentworth. Any evidence that was found would be turned over to the FBI, which also conducted searches of the officers' homes, the sources said. (This paragraph as published has been corrected.)
The four officers charged Wednesday for allegedly shaking down drug dealers had all worked in Englewood.
FBI officials declined to comment on the searches, other than to say they were directly related to the ongoing investigation. "A number of search warrants were obtained and executed as part of that [investigation]," FBI spokesman Ross Rice said.
A police source confirmed Friday that additional officers--perhaps more than six--are being investigated.
Many of the officers in the Wentworth District did not know about the searches until afterward, according to a veteran detective. The searches were conducted "quietly and discreetly," said the detective, who asked not to be named.
In a city with a colorful history of police corruption, the investigation appears to be the most significant since federal prosecutors brought several cases in the mid-1990s.
Among them were two federal inquiries in 1996 and 1997 that led to the convictions of seven officers in the Austin District and three in the Gresham District on charges that they routinely shook down drug dealers. In 1998, gang specialist Joseph Miedzianowski was arrested on federal charges of running a drug ring. Dubbed the "most corrupt cop in the history of Chicago" by federal prosecutors, he is serving a life term in prison.
On Thursday, U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald announced charges against Broderick Jones and Corey Flagg, both 34; Eural J. Black, 41; and Darek A. Haynes, 35, all veteran officers. They were charged in connection with several attempts to target drug dealers for robbery and extortion. Five suspected drug dealers were charged with helping the officers target rivals.
The case has refocused attention on the 2001 shooting death of Police Officer Eric Lee, who was gunned down on duty. Jones and Flagg were with Lee when he was killed in Englewood. Although a defense attorney for the man convicted of murdering the officer said she plans to file new motions in the case, police spokesman David Bayless said the department's probe of Lee's shooting would remain closed unless the federal investigation uncovered new information.
The investigation began after Chicago police conducting a drug investigation on the South Side saw Jones' Cadillac Escalade--with a Fraternal Order of Police sticker on the windshield--parked at a restaurant where drug suspects were meeting. The information was related to the internal affairs division and the FBI.
The scandal has unnerved many in the South Side neighborhoods where the corruption allegedly took place.
Englewood community activists called on city and federal officials to launch a full investigation of the Englewood District. They also demanded that the Chicago Police Department reopen the investigation into Lee's death and re-examine all arrests made by the four officers.
"We need to find out what else these scoundrels have done," Rev. Anthony Williams said during a Friday news conference attended by several community activists in Englewood's St. Stephen's Evangelical Lutheran Church.
"We cannot allow our community to be vandalized by criminal police," he said.
Williams added that the scandal undermined efforts to improve tenuous relations between Chicago police and Englewood residents, particularly adolescent males who complain of police profiling and harassment.
"Young people see these cops every day shaking them down," he said. "What the negative cop does affects what the good cop does," in terms of improving faith in city police. "We know 95 percent of our Chicago police are good. It's that 5 percent that's got to be weeded out."
The federal probe further complicates the efforts of a community seeking to free itself from the decades-long image of being among Chicago's most troubled neighborhoods.
"We're trying to change the face of the community," said Williams, who noted the new Kennedy King College campus being built at 63rd and Halsted Streets and a new police station and several residential buildings under construction nearby.
"Now, people will be asking: `Are you going to fill that police station with criminal cops?'"
Newsday
© Newsday, Inc.
Long Island's & NYC's News Source
