Chicago cops start preemptive arrests on the eve of NATO Summit

Russia Today

 
Authorities in Chicago are gearing up for a weekend of anti-NATO activity in the Windy City, but it's already being reported that law enforcement there might be a little too eager to begin arrests. The home of known activists was raided Wednesday.

The National Lawyers Guild confirms that law enforcement agents broke down the door of a 6-unit apartment building in the Chicago, Illinois neighborhood of Bridgeport at around 11:30 pm on Wednesday. Once inside, they entered the apartment of known activists with guns drawn and then cuffed the residents.

For two hours, tenants were shackled and questioned by officers with the Organized Crime Division of the Chicago Police Department. The Chicago Tribune writes that police reports detailing the incident have been obtained by the newspaper and confirm that nine people were arrested in the raid for allegedly making or possessing Molotov cocktail explosives. Police sources add to the paper early Friday, however, that none of the suspects had been charged.

Attorneys for the accused attest to the innocence of their clients. The reason they cannot prove that they were making Molotov cocktails, they say, is because they weren’t — instead, police saw and seized equipment used for home brewing beer.

“As far as we know, there was no liquid in the bottles,” Kris Hermes, a spokesman for the lawyer’s guild, tells the Tribune on Friday in speaking of the alleged paraphernalia pilfered by law enforcement. Another source with ties to the police tells a Chicago ABC News affiliate that Molotov cocktails were discovered in the raid, but those claims have yet to be verified.

In Lead-Up to Mass Protests in Chicago, Illinois Ban on Recording Police Challenged

Common Dreams

G8/NATO protests "that are almost certain to be countered with excessive police force will be illegal to record"

- Common Dreams staff 

As Chicago prepares for thousands of protesters and journalists for the G8 and NATO summits this May, an Illinois law declaring a felony the audio recording of police officers is coming under the microscope. One representative has filed an amendment to allow for such recordings, a move protesters, who will likely be met with heavy-handed tactics from police, would welcome.
An Illinois law declaring a felony the audio recording of police officers is coming under the microscope. (photo: Paul Stein)Under the current Illinois Eavesdropping Act from 1961, a person recording a non-consenting police officer can be charged with a felony and 15 years in prison. The Huffington Post explains:

The Eavesdropping Act makes recording officers without their permission a Class 1 felony, but has been inconsistently applied by different sectors of the justice system who disagree on its merits, particularly in cases where audio spotlights police wrongdoing. In the recent high-profile case of Tiawanda Moore, who recorded police officers trying to talk her out of filing a complaint after she claimed she was sexually harassed by an officer, a jury acquitted her and called the county's charges against her "a waste of time."

An amendment to the law submitted by Rep. Elaine Nekritz would allow for the recording or police officer on duty in public place. The Daily-Journal reports:

House Bill 3944, sponsored by Rep. Elaine Nekritz, D-Northbrook, would amend the Illinois Eavesdropping Act, under which a member of the public can be charged with a felony if he or she records the conversations of police officers, prosecutors and other law enforcement personnel without their knowledge. [...]

Nekritz said her legislation would "allow citizens to do what they think they already had the ability to do."

The amendment has an unlikely ally, Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy. The Huffington Post reports on McCarthy's stance:

"As far as the use of videotape, I certainly endorse it, for the protection of the police as well as [civilians]," he said at the panel. "There's no argument when you show videotape and can look at what happened. I actually am a person who endorses video and audio recording."

McCarthy, who came to Chicago from New York, said video and audio recordings helped prove officers acted appropriately amid allegations of brutality following a series of protest arrests. He added that this material could be equally useful as police prepare for massive crowds of protesters when Chicago hosts the NATO/G8 summits this spring. McCarthy clarified that it's not his job to advocate for policy changes, according to CBS Chicago, but called objections to covert recordings of police interactions a "foreign concept" after finding the practice helpful during previous stints in other cities.

As WLS-Chicago reported in September, the ACLU says the current law "doesn't make any sense":

The ACLU argues that the Illinois Eavesdropping Act is antiquated and overly-restrictive, and it wants the ability to record audio of police officers when they're on the public way - most specifically as a means of monitoring how police handle marches and demonstrations.

"You can video the police officer, you can photograph the police officer. They admit that you can listen to the police officer, and even write down what the police officer is saying, but you can't turn on the audio button. It simply doesn't make any sense," said Harvey Grossman, ACLU.