Transparency: Chicago’s Independent Police Review Authority Releases Database of Video, Evidence From Police Misconduct Cases
From the Official Announcement:
The Independent Police Review Authority announced today that the agency is fully implementing the policy recommendation made by the Police Accountability Task Force which calls for the public release of recordings and reports related to certain types of police incidents.
The video release policy, which requires the City to release specific audio and video recordings and police reports to the public no later than 60 days from the date of the incident, was formally adopted by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in February 2016. Since the formal adoption of the policy, IPRA has worked with several city agencies to develop a new online case portal to facilitate the release of the case materials. The new case portal can be found at: http://portal.iprachicago.org/
Content Found in the Database
Pursuant to the Task Force’s policy, the new case portal will feature case materials related to pending IPRA investigations that fall within the following categories:
- Officer‐involved shootings
- Officer‐involved taser use that results in death or great bodily harm
- Incidents of death or great bodily harm (other than self‐inflicted harm) that occur in police custody
[Clip]
As outlined in the policy, the evidentiary materials to be released on the new case portal by IPRA will include certain videos (dashboard cameras, POD videos, lockup footage, third‐party footage and body‐cam video), audio (911 calls, OEMC dispatch recordings, CPD radio calls and third‐party audio) and police reports (arrest reports, original case incident reports, officer’s battery reports and tactical response reports). Due to the different nature of each police‐ involved incident, the type of materials released will vary accordingly.
Evidence related to incidents involving juveniles will not be released on the case portal because Illinois State Law prohibits the release of law enforcement records that relate to a minor who has been investigated, arrested or taken into custody before his or her 18th birthday, without a court order.
The case portal currently houses approximately 100 cases that can be searched by date of incident, IPRA notification date, type of case, IPRA log number or by the name of the person that was the subject of the police conduct.
Direct to Portal/Database
From the Database:
Viewer Discretion Advised: Some of the content available on this website depicts incidents that are graphic in nature and/or contains strong language, which some viewers may find disturbing. Video and audio material is only one source of evidence reviewed and analyzed in the context of other materials obtained in the course of an investigation. The inclusion of an incident on this website does not suggest a determination has been made regarding any police officer’s conduct.
The database can be searched by keyword.
Limits Include:
- Incident Types
- Notification Date
- Incident Data
Coverage/Additional Info
City releases police misconduct files, videos (via Sun-Times)
The files released are from all open misconduct cases involving police shootings and cases in which suspects suffered serious injuries or were killed, following newly adopted guidelines recommended by Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Police Accountability Task Force earlier this year.
Read the Complete Article
Video release of police shootings, incidents marks seismic shift in Chicago’s secrecy
The document dump comes more than six months after video of a Chicago police officer shooting Laquan McDonald 16 times changed the landscape for the embattled Police Department.
As many as half of the cases still under investigation by the city’s police oversight agency include dashcam videos, surveillance footage and audio, including a handful deemed “sensitive” because they depict citizens being beaten or shot, city officials said.
The move marks the official rollout of a new policy to release video of shootings by police within 60 days of most incidents — an unprecedented shift toward transparency that even longtime critics of the secrecy of the Police Department have praised as an important step.
Read the Complete Article
Filed under: Dashboards, Data Files, News, Reports, Video Recordings
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
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