“It’s always darkest before the dawn.” In theory, the shining of the light of day onto police transgressions/atrocities is intended to serve as a check against future transgressions/atrocities. There are times, however, when that bright light illuminates such horrors as to make you want to close the curtains and seal up the windows. Recently, the story of two Chicago police officers who sodomized a man with a screwdriver came to light:
On Aug. 28, 2004, Chicago Police Officer Scott Korhonen did something truly heinous to a young man named Coprez Coffie. Just 20 years old at the time, Coffie was spotted by Korhonen and his partner in what they claimed was a drug deal. Coffie, who was employed as a security guard at a local hotel, was then driven to an alley, handcuffed and strip-searched with his pants down. During the strip search, Korhonen got a screwdriver and jammed it deep into the rectum of Coffie — causing internal injuries to Coffie. [...]
As you could imagine, Coprez Coffie refused to simply accept what happened to him. For the next three years he fought like hell to prove that he was brutalized and assaulted by Korhonen. At first, Coffie and his attorneys fought for the case to go to trial and filed several motions before judges requesting his day in court. In the meantime, the Chicago Police Department stonewalled and refused to even discipline Officer Korhonen or his partner, Officer Gerald Lodwich, who stood by and did nothing when the assault took place.
Finally, on Oct. 17, 2007 a civil jury found Officers Korhonen and Lodwich guilty of the “unreasonable search” and ordered the City of Chicago to pay Coffie a $4 million settlement plus nearly $675,000 for his legal fees. In the process of the investigation, it was determined that not only did the officers have screwdrivers in the glove compartment of their car, but that human fecal matter was found in the glove compartment as well. The injuries to Mr. Coffie’s rectum were also confirmed and documented.
You’ll notice the term “former” officers was not used. The two officers—who were found to be guilty by the civil jury, as well as having given false testimony and lied under oath—are currently still employed by the City of Chicago. It’s been reported, “Gerald Lodwich made $90,618 last year as an officer. The rapist Scott Korhonen made $87,384.”
The light that has been thrown onto Chicago since it released the tape of the Laquan McDonald shooting has revealed all manner of ugliness. The cover-up in that case (which also involved the prosecutor) has lead to no small number of investigations; officially, by official bodies locally and nationally, and by not-so-official bodies, but powerful bodies nonetheless. Meaning, the media. The Chicago Reader has looked into the finances of the Chicago Police Department and reported on its “secret budget,” monies taken from the public by the police, but not disclosed to the public:
Since 2009, the year CPD began keeping electronic records of its forfeiture accounts, the department has brought in nearly $72 million in cash and assets through civil forfeiture, keeping nearly $47 million for itself and sending on almost $18 million to the Cook County state's attorney's office and almost $7.2 million to the Illinois State Police, according to our analysis of CPD records.
The Chicago Police Department doesn't disclose its forfeiture income or expenditures to the public, and doesn't account for it in its official budget. Instead, CPD's Bureau of Organized Crime, the division tasked with drug- and gang-related investigations, oversees the forfeiture fund in what amounts to a secret budget—an off-the-books stream of income used to supplement the bureau's public budget.
The Reader found that CPD uses civil forfeiture funds to finance many of the day-to-day operations of its narcotics unit and to secretly purchase controversial surveillance equipment without public scrutiny or City Council oversight. (The Cook County state's attorney's office, for its part, clearly indicates narcotics-related forfeiture income in its annual budget. According to its 2016 budget, the office will use this year's expected forfeiture revenue of $4.96 million to pay the salaries and benefits of the 41 full-time employees of its forfeiture unit.)
Over at The Intercept, a four-part series on corruption in Chicago’s police department has just been published that would make both Michael Crichton and Stephen King shake their heads. Cover-ups and denials that are as routine as shift changes and equipment check-out; activity by police that was only distinguishable from criminal gangs by police badges; and retaliation against officers who tried to do the right thing. Intense retaliation.
No matter how much ugliness transparency reveals, there’s always just a little bit more to be found out. And no matter how much ugliness is revealed, it is absolutely necessary that it be done. It’s also absolutely necessary that we the public remain committed to keeping feet to the fire.