Youth-Police Encounters on Chicago's South Side: Acknowledging the Realities

We write from Chicago, a city in upheaval following revelationsabout the police shooting of seventeen-year-old Laquan McDonald.In a matter of days, public debate about patterns of police abuseand impunity, a discourse extending back to the 1960s and beyond,has undergone a Copernican revolution. A set of propositions aboutthe nature of the problem, fiercely resisted for decades by publicand private interests, has been embraced by officials and themedia as axiomatic.Perhaps the most striking expression of this sea change was thespeech Mayor Rahm Emanuel gave to the Chicago City Council onDecember 9, 2015. Breaking with the past and his own prior stances,' the mayor asserted that this is "a defining moment onthe issues of crime and policing-and the even larger issues oftruth, justice and race." He stated that we must confrontlongstanding institutional conditions that enable and shield policeabuse. He acknowledged that there is "a code of silence" withinthe Chicago Police Department that must be addressed.

Hefurther acknowledged the inadequacy of the city's investigativeand disciplinary systems. And, he emphasized that policeaccountability is essential to effective law enforcement. Mostimportantly, he spoke of this constellation of issues asfundamentally a matter of race-of other people's children beingtreated differently than his children because they are Black.