It has emerged that two police officers from the Chicago Police Department (CPD), forced an African-American man to pose as a deer while they took pictures of him. The humiliating deal was made in order to let the man walk away free of drug charges.
According to investigators of the case, the incident happened at the West Side police station, sometime between the years 1999 and 2003. The police officers have been identified as Timothy McDermott and Jerome Finniga.
Investigators said the African-American man was arrested for possessing “20 bags of weed”, and in exchange for the marijuana and posing for the pictures, they allowed the man to go scot-free. According to court records, the officers never filed an arrest report.
The pictures depict the two officers posing with rifles over an unidentified African-American man. Nearly all who have seen the photos have noted the obvious racial tone of the images. The man wears deer antlers on his head whilst lying on his stomach, his pose clearly suggesting he had been shot by the officers who hunted him. The real identity of the man is not known, but many say they believe he might have been a resident in the area and might have left the city after the humiliation he suffered from the hands of the officers.
It is said the CPD learnt about the pictures in 2013, and held it secret from the public in order “to protect the privacy and identity of the African-American man”. But many doubt this explanation given by the CPD.
According to an anonymous source within the CPD, when officials had knowledge of the pictures and the actions of the officers, they set up a body to investigate the case in order to get the appropriate punishments for the officers. This resulted in the dismissal of McDermott last year. By then, Finniga had long been dismissed without any reason, raising suspicion that authorities might have been aware of the pictures and the actions of the officers.
Even in McDermott dismissal, the nine people who voted to dismiss him voted 5-4 in favor of his dismissal. This means that there were four dissenters who had wanted him to stay despite what he has done. The details of McDermotts dismissal were made public.
The five who voted to dismiss McDermott said plainly that, “the two treated the African-American man not as a human being but as a hunted animal is disgraceful and shocks the conscience”.
After intense public pressure and a court order that permitted the publication of the pictures to the rest of the world, CPD chief- Garry McCarthy released a statement saying the police department had acted in the interest of the public, condemning the actions of the officers.
“It is disgusting, and the despicable actions of these two former officers have no place in our police department or in our society. As the superintendent of this department, and as a resident of our city, I will not tolerate this kind of behavior, and that is why neither of these officers works for CPD today. I fired one of the officers and would have fired the other if he hadn’t already been fired by the time I found out about the picture. Our residents deserve better than this, as do the thousands of good men and women in this department,” he said.
Although the two officers have been dismissed, many suspect that the CPD had tried to cover up the case to avoid criticisms from the public. Human rights activists have said that if only the man could be identified, they can push for a lawsuit against the officers.
It is unclear whether the officers had abused the man either before or after the photo was taken, however, many suspicious surrounding this issue have arose. Therefore, a concerted effort should be made to identify the man so more details regarding the incident can be obtained from him.
For us, we congratulate the CPD for at least dismissing the officers. What they did was wrong and should not be tolerated anywhere in the country. It was disgusting. It was despicable.
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http://countercurrentnews.com/2015/05/picture-chicago-police-didnt-want-you-to-see/
i think its important too identify the man too make sure they didnt possibly kill him and too get his side of the story!!!