>> Chicago police disproportionately used force against black Chicagoans across more than 8,000 instances from 2020 to 2023.

That's the main finding of a study conducted by social scientists from the University of Texas at San Antonio in the University of Pennsylvania, commissioned by CPD.

The study was recently made public following a Freedom of Information Act request by a coalition of police reform groups and has put renewed attention on CP, DEA's efforts to comply with the consent decree.

Joining us now are Alexandra Block director of the criminal legal system in Policing project at the ACLU of Illinois.

Christine Noel, founder of Women's All Points Bulletin in organization supporting women victimized by police violence and via Zoom, Michael Harrington Co Chairperson of Network.

49, the community organization based in Chicago's 40th Ward advocating for police accountability.

We invited representatives of the city who declined to join us and the Chicago Police Department which did not respond to our request.

We think the 3 of you for joining us.

So, Alexandra, starting with you first, because that study found that 73% of the time that officers used force against a member of the public.

That individual was black and that among Chicagoans suspected of a crime, black individuals had a 52% higher risk and Hispanic individuals had a 33% higher risk than white individuals.

How did the study reach these findings?

What's the methodology?

The study looked at the Chicago Police Department's own data.

They look to add to the use of force reports the officers fill out every time they use violence against a member of the community.

>> And like you said, they found that number one uses of force are increasing.

So over the four-year period of the study by the end, more people are being hurt by the police.

Then when the consent decree began and they also found, as you mentioned, that a black and Latino Chicagoans had much higher likelihood of being victimized by force and that was true.

Even if you account for the fact that black and Latino people in Chicago are more likely to be arrested and are more likely to be suspected of crimes or more likely to live in.

Police beats where the crime rates are higher, even accounting for all of those factors.

The rates are recently disproportionate and that that is a systemic and unexplained disparity.

What what's unique about this particular study?

Because we hear a lot of reports about use of force.

Why is this one important?

It was required by the consent decree.

So there was a court order that the Chicago Police Department had to analyze its own data and the Chicago Police Department is also required to take steps to address the results.

And as of right now, we have seen no evidence that the Chicago Police Department has changed any policies or training or examined any operational changes that they are going to make in response to these really disturbing findings.

Yeah.

Okay.

We're gonna come back to that part as well in this conversation, Michael here into new organization network.

49, you all are part of the reform groups and you submitted the foi request that ultimately led to this.

>> Study being released.

What was your initial reaction to the release of the study?

I'd say, well, I think we're glad the police department did.

The study were not happy that we had to force them to release the results of the study.

>> The results of the study showed a whopping huge increase over the years recently against black and Latino residents Chicago myself.

My neighbors here, Rodgers, Bert, are concerned about that.

We think that it is long overdue for the Chicago Police Department to get serious about implementing the considerable police department consent decree.

We've been working with the court authorized by the Gore.

They'll monitor this for 7 years and some of us have been involved in for over a decade that was spent thousands of hours and working with police department brass but improving policies and practices.

The meetings have been blight.

Unfortunately, we're not seeing progress the line.

Nice words, but we did Rove box.

We get instruction is we get resistance from the police department on making major improvements.

The Bruins of that have been small.

easy little things we're looking at the substantive fundamental issues of why this is to to shun continues to not attention to the fact that we cannot had racial discrimination.

We cannot have a bias against people with disabilities and you and the study shows that even in white communities, black and Latino people get grab first, no charges.

No reason illegal searches.

This is a century old problem and job I know you share with our producer is well, you had your own experiences with the with the Chicago Police Department as well.

>> Kristen.

Well, I want to get you in here.

What was your reaction to hearing the results of this study?

It's them.

>> You know, it's the Chicago Police Department what the DOJ said.

You know, so it's it's there are racist group.

There are a sus institution and that's who they are and they continue to be feel like they've made.

I mean, you know, you're not surprised by any of this because this is it is a reflection of what we heard from the Obama Department of Justice years ago after the release of solution the climate so >> we've been doing a lot of work around it and we just don't have their bye.

And you all they feel as if it's holding them back, you know, because at their core, their Alexandra, the independent monitoring team, the track CPD is progress towards consent degree compliance said in a statement, quote, CPD has not yet use the results of the report.

Identify and address any trends that warrant changes to policy training tactics, equipment for department practice as required.

You mentioned this earlier as well like can you agree?

Do you think that CPD is failing to act on the results of the study?

They've had it for a year now.

>> They had it for a year and CPD has done nothing in response to study.

As far as we know.

And that really reflects the lack of progress with the consent decree overall, it's not meant to be a check.

The box exercise.

It's meant to change the way people in Chicago throughout the city are experiencing policing on the streets and it hasn't worked yet.

What the coalition that enforces the consent decree has demanded is that CPD agree to measurable, decreases in the use of force and measurable decreases in the racial disparities who is subjected to to force so that we can and measure a decrease in the violence that people are experiencing on the streets.

Chris, to your organization, the all points the Women's All-points Bulletin was one of the organizations responsible for putting Chicago under the consent decree in the first place.

Lots of other and advocates.

They've expressed frustration as we heard from Michael Harrington at the lack of progress from CPD.

>> But you've said that compliance is going to take more time.

Tell us more they have been a racist organization since the beginning of policing.

Right?

>> So we know policing in America goes back to the slave patrols.

So we know that at its foundation at its core, it's a racist organization.

Okay.

It's a racist institution.

So how do we move from them being a racist institution and there what?

200, something years old.

They've been around.

How do we move quickly from that?

You can't do that, OK?

You can't change 200 years worth racism in 7 years.

It's going to take a while and it's going to take by and it's going take change management.

All right.

And change management.

It's not a quick process.

So on one hand, I understand that there's like I said, you know, we're acting like we're in 100 yard dash right?

And we got 9.8 seconds to get 100 yards.

But we're in America.

Okay.

And it's gone.

The 28 hours of a marathon.

This is I think 28 years.

Maybe what we need at least 10% of the time that they have actually been in existence to change the racism.

That's at the core of police departments.

Michael Harrington.

>> Brenda's, I say what's really sad is the Chicago Police Department's had this information is new statistics about the her in this increase police use of force against black and brown.

People have over year.

We met with them in January just like 5 weeks ago to talk about it.

They said, we need to study of more.

We need to study these results.

What we need to find out why happened.

You know, we don't need another meeting to plan a meeting to talk about agenda.

We need action.

We need Mayor Brandon in summer didn't Snelling have made promises and pledges words a nice but we need to see some product because this is multiple millions of dollars that are being spent on policing on this consent decree.

If people can't get on and support progress because of the moral issues that here in these need to pay attention.

Every one of your viewers needs into the financial cost and this being wasted.

I hope to be proven wrong, but I'm doubtful.

>> Alexander critics often argue that the higher police use-of-force rates against black and Hispanic Chicagoans is a reflection of higher crime rates in the neighborhoods in which they live.

And this came up a little bit earlier, but I want to see a little bit more because the study controlled for that as well as other factors.

Tell us about That's right, this was a methodology that CPD agreed to use and they controlled for crime rates.

They controlled straits and the controlled for the rates at which black and Latino people are suspected of committing crimes.

>> And what the researchers found is that none of those factors explained away the racial disparities so that they are systemic and they are not related to crime rates.

They are related to bias.

They are related to structural problems and systemic bias within the police department.

And that's a factor that the coalition really would like CPD to address, which is what are the operational changes they can make in terms of how are police interacting with community members to prevent and reduce these racial disparities, the stark racial disparities in future Chris, you know, one of the things that you've mentioned, as you know, referring to the CPD as a racist organization.

I'm sure the folks at CPD would have some thoughts on that freezing.

>> They're welcome to come and join us and talk to about it on.

I guess I want to talk hear from you a little bit about, you know, there are officers of color on the force as well.

What is it about their training, their the messaging that they are receiving the culture that still makes it what you say what you're calling a racist organization.

Well, one of the interesting things is my focus has been on sanctity of life.

All right.

>> And there was a point that they it was historic right?

They killed 2 people one year and another year they killed 3 people.

And last year that killed 9 people right?

So they're going backwards right?

And surprisingly, it's in Trump's administration.

So you have these guys and even even heard officers of color that you turn blue.

It's not about black white.

You turn right.

You see these awful things, right?

And you just turn blue and everybody's altogether and is the old Boys club.

And, you know, the old boy Old boys club, some races club.

So, you know, it's it.

They that blue, it's races.

Where do you think CPD has made progress on the consent decree?

>> They went backwards.

No progress in in any of their.

They went anyway.

they went backwards.

The first and foremost, if they can't stop shooting and killing people.

Then they can't do anything else.

So we got them down to 2, 3, and we were feeling good.

We were feeling good.

And then they went back up to 9.

>> In Aden Ministration.

That is arguably one of the most races.

administrations that we've ever experienced in the last.

I don't know how >> decades.

>> Michael, it sounds like you and something.

>> No, I'm just saying the irony is that the Chicago Police Department has a huge budget.

You million billion a year they've hired, you know, where he's been progress.

They've hired more staff for the Office of Constitutional Policing.

They have beefed up the public relations and the communication, but we don't see the changes.

Apparently the necessary, you know, officer training.

We don't see them evaluating whether the officers have actually learned what they've been taught in training.

They need to be in the report that came out said that needs to be more supervision of officers.

Again, we see the police department talking.

We don't see the resolve to make action have.

And that's all it was a it says it's becoming comical almost.

>> Alexander as of 6/30/2025.

think we should get some new numbers sometime this year.

Cpd reached preliminary compliance with 94% of the consent decree.

Secondary compliance with 66% and full compliance with 23%.

Does that signal progress or short coming?

This is the last word you've got about.

45 seconds.

It signals that CPD has made progress on paper, but not much progress on the streets of Chicago.

So the last 7 years we've seen a lot of negotiations over policy.

>> Over training curriculum.

And, you know, some some of that is shown in the figures that you that you provided.

So the 94% preliminary compliance means they've written 94% of the new policies that are supposed to be on paper.

They're struggling and failing at translating those policies to actual behavior.

Changes includes that 23% to to show that actually doing the stuff that they've written down in that in that first part that you mentioned exactly going to