The Chicago Police Accountability Task Force (CPATF) was a task force created to "review the system of accountability, oversight and training that is currently in place for Chicago's police officers" in 2015.[1][2] It was announced via press release on December 1, 2015,[1] in the wake of the murder of Laquan McDonald and the protests and political fallout afterward.[3] On April 13, 2016, the task force released its final report, which found "racism and systemic failures in the city's police force, validating complaints made for years by African-American residents."[4]
The members of the task force included:[5][6]
The task force held four public community forums in February 2016 and one press event in April 2016 and published the meetings on YouTube.[8][9]
The final report used Chicago police data to show that African-Americans were regularly and disproportionately abused and denied rights, which had been reported by many African-American residents of Chicago over many years.[10][11][12] Chicago's population is approximately one-third black, Hispanic and white and according to the report, 404 people were shot by the Chicago police between 2008 and 2015 and 74 percent of those were African-American.[10] According to the New York Times, the final report "was blistering, blunt and backed up by devastating statistics."[10]
As a result of the report, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that he would be implementing roughly one-third of the 76 recommendations in the report.[13][14]
Dean Angelo, the president of Chicago's Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7,[15] declared the accusation of racism in the Chicago Police Department "biased".[16] Lori Lightfoot, who was on the task force, responded to Angelo:[17] "It is hard to fathom that Mr. Angelo maintains his reflexive, uninformed position when it is obviously belied by the facts. Does he really believe that a better trained, better prepared and more professional police force will not inure to the benefit of his members?"[18]