CHICAGO — Once a month, Ilana Rosenzweig faces an angry crowd at the public meeting of the Police Board and tries to convince them that the bad old days of corrupt Chicago cops are coming to an end.
It's a tough sell for the Los Angeles lawyer, who became chief administrator of Chicago's Independent Police Review Authority in September.
In the last six months, an officer used a Taser on an 82-year-old woman in her home, a federal jury awarded $4 million to a man who said he was sodomized by an officer with a screwdriver during a search, and the Police Board overrode recommendations to fire an officer who was seen on a security tape beating a suspect handcuffed in a wheelchair -- and who later lied about his actions.
"This isn't just about a few cases of police misconduct," said Grant Newburger, 50, one of the outraged community leaders at a recent board meeting. "This is about changing a culture that for years has been abusive."
Rosenzweig was well aware of the problems in Chicago.
"I knew it would take time to get people's trust," she said. "But it was strange that, at the first City Council meeting I attended, I would have someone come up to me and say, 'Welcome to hell.' "
Before Rosenzweig came to Chicago, a string of police- related shootings in the city's South Side and West Side had residents screaming at Police Board meetings. The public's mood remained grim when videotapes surfaced showing an off-duty officer beating up a female bartender, and a group of officers pummeling four businessmen in a downtown bar.
Critics have long contended that the Independent Police Review Authority, formerly known as the Office of Professional Standards, either didn't have enough resources to root out problem officers or didn't have enough support from the city or the department for it to do a thorough job.
A report released last year by University of Chicago researchers said the city's police had more brutality complaints per officer than the national average.
Between 2002 and 2004, civilians filed 10,149 complaints of false arrest, illegal search, sexual or racial abuse, or excessive force.
Only 19 of those cases resulted in an officer being suspended for a week or more, said civil rights lawyer Craig Futterman, a University of Chicago law professor who worked on the report.
Police officials question the report's statistics, noting that the department includes more categories in its reporting pool than other cities do.
