Police Misconduct

Between 2002 and 2004 alone there were more than 10,000 complaints, many of them involving brutality and assault, were filed against Chicago police officers. The police’s duty is to serve and protect, but the media coverage of abuse has produce some different views. Are some abusing the power the badge gives them by using it to justify their actions? How is this depiction of the police settling with the teenager and how they perceive the police?
Ryan Corey Norris, 19, is a former University of Illinois student and an ordained deacon. Ryan was driving with a friend on Chicago's South Side. They were pulled over by cops, who told Ryan that they were going to search his car. When Ryan asked why, the cops pulled him out of the car. The cops then forced him into the back seat of the police car. One of the officers hit Ryan three times with his fist. Ryan was taken to the police station. He suffered from a broken jaw and dislocated shoulder, but he received no medical attention until his father, Rev. Julius Norris, arrived. Ryan said, "No matter how upstanding the citizen, the police always seem to get away with abuse."
Robin Petrovic, a college English teacher, was out dancing at a popular Chicago nightclub, the "Funky Buddha Lounge," when she got into an altercation with the bouncer and called police for help.
But according to Petrovic, the officer who showed up, James Chevas, a 12-year veteran, turned on her when she refused to sign a blank incident report and tried to write down his badge number."He picked me up and threw me face down into the ground. And since my hands were handcuffed behind my back, I couldn't break my fall at all, so I just landed on my face," she told CNN.Petrovic is one of thousands of ordinary people who every year accuse Chicago police of abuse. Few complaints result in disciplinary action.
"The Chicago Police Department doesn't do a good job of policing itself," Jon Loevy, Petrovic's attorney, said. "For the small minority of police officers, who are inclined to violence for whatever reason and abuses, there is no check, there is no deterrence, because the city does not investigate and punish police abuses."
Throught an interview with, a high senior at John Hope College Prep., I got his views on the situation. When he was ask what he thought about police misconduct display in the news, he replied, “The police department is in shambles because they supposed to police us, but who is there to police them. Their methods can be over aggressive, just because they are the police does not give them the right to do what ever they see fit like in the case of the Peoria police who beat a man during an arrest. I have little faith in The Chicago Police Department; look at Jody Weis, his department issued a vote of no confidence. I do not like some police officers and there will always be mistrust there for them.”
I also interviewed a junior at Roberto Clemente high school, and when ask the same question he replied, “The police have been doing this for years and because of the news coverage has shone a light on what was going in the dark. Maybe we will see a change come out this.”
Jody Weis on Friday decides to comply with a federal order to turn over more than 2,000 names of Chicago police officers who have acquired more than five brutality complaints against them. Maybe the change that the young men mention will come.