We’ve heard this argument many times before. “I understand there may be a few bad apples in the bushel, but there are gangbangers and drug dealers in the neighborhoods who learn how to file complaints against officers,” the 47th Ward’s Eugene Schulter said in a hearing just last week that gave alderman an opportunity to tee off on the Independent Police Review Authority, the agency charged with vetting complaints about cops.
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And I can tell you from firsthand experience that it’s not that easy to file a complaint–and it’s far less easy to prove it’s justified.
I had to take a half day off work to make the trip down there, wait awhile, wait some more, then finally get escorted to the desk of an investigator who pulled up a bunch of photos of officers on her computer screen . . . only to determine what you might expect: there was no way to look at someone’s head shot and honestly say yes, that’s the guy I saw once, several weeks ago, from several yards away, most of the time with his back to me, seemingly harassing a teenager who didn’t appear to do anything other than act like a teenager.
