CHICAGO, Ill. – Chicago cops shoot and kill civilians at a far higher rate than other big city U.S. police departments according to two separate wrongful death lawsuits being filed in federal court today.

New York City for example, despite a much larger population, had fewer police shootings than Chicago did in 2004. On a per capita population basis, Chicago police shot civilians at least six times as often as New York cops did.

To cover for their violence, the department conducts perfunctory investigations which almost always exonerate the officers. In one of the suits, Demetri Centera v. Chicago, et al, an off duty officer, Edward Yerke, had been drinking in a West Side bar until closing time, and yet investigating officers failed to give him any sobriety tests. Yerke then drove away from the bar in his late model Hummer and at a nearby intersection, shot Centera and a companion, Kenneth Elrod, nine times, killing them both.

Yerke's claim that Centera and Elrod started the confrontation is contradicted by eyewitness accounts, but the police department failed to refer the case to the Cook County States Attorneys Office for possible prosecution. That Centera and Elrod allegedly began the confrontation by pointing guns at Yerke, and yet somehow failed to fire off a single shot, apparently didn't strike the investigators as strange. Centera, of the 4700 block of North Kenneth and 31 years old at the time of his death, will be represented at the press conference by his mother, Christine Centera.

In the other suit being filed today, police shot to death an unarmed man, Michael Dunbar. While the police exonerated the officer and his partner, multiple eyewitnesses directly contradicted their account of the shooting. Once again, the case was not referred to the states attorneys office for possible criminal prosecution. Dunbar, of the 3300 block of West Lexington Street and 30 years old at the time of his death, will be represented at the press conference by three family members.

Dunbar's and Centera's families are represented by the civil rights law firm of Loevy and Loevy, which files more police misconduct lawsuits than any other firm in the city. Copies of the suits will be available at the press conference.

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