Yesterday's "Tuesday Commentary" on WTTW's Chicago Tonight went toTribune columnist Dawn Turner Trice, who voiced her hope that Chicago police will "step up" in the face of the city's rising violence without resorting to brutality. She also took aim at Mayor Richard Daley's ridiculous statement last week that fear of unfair media coverage has made officers timid, calling this suggestion "nothing short of shameful." Watch it:
Also of note, in a Sun-Times op-ed last Sunday, Chicago activist and journalist Jamie Kalven (full disclosure: he's my father) responded to Daley's remarks:
It is a first principle of our democracy that public officials in whom we vest substantial power must be subject to public scrutiny. This principle applies every bit as much to the police officer on the street as to the high government official.
We give the police great powers -- to arrest and detain, to use force, and, under certain circumstances, to kill -- and we allow them considerable discretion in performing their duties. Public scrutiny is the necessary antidote to abuses of those powers.
For Daley to suggest that officers must be sheltered from core democratic principles in order to show up for work is a diservice to both the police and the communities they serve.
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