CHICAGO—Responding to deepening mistrust of one of the nation’s largest police forces, the federal government opened an investigation Monday into the Chicago Police Department, and authorities announced they would not charge an officer in the death of a 25-year-old black man who was shot in the back last year.
The Justice Department investigation was to look into patterns of racial disparity in the use of force. It comes nearly two weeks after the release of a video showing a white Chicago police officer shooting a black teenager 16 times.
Lack of trust between police and their communities, “makes it more difficult to gain help within investigations, to encourage the victims and the witnesses of crime to speak up and to fulfill the most basic responsibilities of public-safety officials,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch said. “And when suspicion and hostility is allowed to fester, it can erupt into unrest.”
The investigation, which is separate from an existing federal investigation into last year’s shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, will also review how the department disciplines officers and handles misconduct accusations. Justice Department officials say they use so-called patterns-and-practices probes to identify systemic failings in troubled police departments and to improve trust between police and the communities they serve.
The civil-rights investigation follows recent ones in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, and comes as the police department and Mayor Rahm Emanuel are under intense scrutiny over their handling of the October 2014 death of McDonald. Officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder Nov. 24, more than a year after the killing and just hours before the release of police dashboard camera footage showing the officer shooting the teenager.
