On Friday, a jury in Federal Court slapped the City of Chicago and the Chicago Police Department with a $2 million judgment in a civil rights lawsuit for excessive force. Following a seven-day trial, the jury found one Chicago police officer guilty of excessive force and another guilty of failing to intervene in the July 23, 2000 beating of a gay Chicago man, Kentin Waits. The attack occurred in an interrogation room of the 19th District police headquarters at Belmont and Western and was a focal point for activism by the Chicago Anti-Bashing Network, a gay direct-action group, and the subject of a May 2001 report by the human rights organization Amnesty International. Read more.