The victims were often unarmed, and they were almost always Black. In Chicago and elsewhere, the police kept killing people. In the ensuing years, as high-profile killings by police across the country mounted, they catalyzed the Black Lives Matter movement, a nationwide effort to get government officials to do something-anything-to stem the epidemic of violence wrought upon Black and Brown communities by the very officers tasked with keeping them safe. In response to that killing, organizers began the push for community control of police anew. Servin, found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter because the judge determined he’d shot Boyd intentionally, resigned from the department with a pension. The Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance that created the councils and the CCPSA is the result of a decade of organizing spurred by the 2012 killing of 22-year-old Rekia Boyd by Dante Servin, an off-duty police detective, in Douglass Park. This holiday season, save a space for local journalism.īecome a Reader member today! Read: What do police district councils do? They’ll be tasked with building connections between police and communities, developing community policing initiatives, getting community input on CPD policies, and ensuring the citywide Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA) hears the community’s concerns. Three councilors will serve in each of the city’s 22 police districts for four-year terms. The police district councils will be elected. None of the people serving on them were democratically elected. Each agency was created thanks to the tireless efforts of ordinary Chicagoans. It was replaced by the Independent Police Review Authority in 2007, which was in turn replaced by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability a decade later. The Office of Professional Standards was created within the police department in 1974. In the decades since, organizers have won incremental concessions. Deputy chairman Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party sparked the first push in the late 1960s (see Fifty years of struggle). The battle for community control of the police has been waged for more than a half-century. Credit: Kirk WilliamsonĪfter decades of struggle by thousands of people who organized, marched, petitioned, prayed, and collectively clamored for the right to have a say in how their communities are policed, on February 28 voters will elect 66 people to serve on police district councils across the city. Three police district council members will represent each of Chicago’s 22 police districts. This guide was co-published with South Side Weekly. Best of Chicago 2022: Sports & Recreation.Click here to join the Reader Membership Community today! Close
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