Chicago, 10/4/05: Local activists charge that Chicago police remain unaccountable to the rule of law, despite the City of Chicago’s announcement on Monday that it will pay $1.75 million to a police brutality victim officers tried to frame for going public about his abuse.

On Monday, a City Council committee agreed to the settlement with Jeremiah Mearday, who was beaten by two white police officers in 1997. The case galvanized public opposition to police brutality, and the City eventually fired the white two officers who beat the Black youth. But two weeks after their firing, police arrested Mearday again, claiming that they found drugs on him and that he assaulted officers. The drug charges were eventually dropped and Mearday was acquitted of assault – lending veracity to the charge that cops planted the drugs and fabricated the assault charge as retaliation for the firing of the two officers that beat Mearday. Monday’s settlement covers civil rights suits for both cases.

But no officers have ever been criminally charged or convicted of crimes connected with Mearday’s assault and arrests, underscoring the impunity with which police officers operate in Chicago, say police accountability activists.

Jeremiah and his family have suffered enormously," says Rev. Paul Jakes of the Christian Council on Urban Affairs, one of the lead groups in marshalling support for Mearday and his family. "But that suffering continues throughout the city, because violent officers know they will never be held to the same standards of justice that the rest of us must face – while we live under the risk of unprovoked police violence, fabricated evidence, and worse. This is no different than the sort of impunity one finds in the worst sort of dictatorships."

Mearday is currently being treated for post traumatic stress syndrome, which is endemic in victims of torture and police violence.

"The tone for accountability is set at the highest levels of government, and unfortunately the mayor of this city continues to fail abysmally in this arena," said Jakes. "Daley has never taken responsibility for the wrongful prosecution of dozens of police torture victims under his watch as states attorney, and to this day he is ducking responsibility for more contemporary crimes in his administration, including the outright theft of taxpayers’ dollars to illegally enrich his political cronies. These are not victimless crimes. Many of those wrongfully convicted police torture victims continue to languish in jail, while police and public officials who perpetrate crimes remain free. This heinous double standard has got to end."