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Minister Calls for Police Accountability in Wake of Settlement to Framed Brutality Victim

police brutality [permalink] 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.

A City Council committee agreed to the settlement with Jeremiah Mearday, who was beaten by two white police officers in 1997. The City eventually fired the 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.

"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." Read the full article here.
 
 

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