New website helps public identify Chicago police officers in misconduct complaints

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Washington Times:

It’s rare when a misconduct complaint filed against a Chicago police officer ends in discipline: Complaints records show officers were punished as a result of just 2 percent of the more than 28,000 misconduct accusations from 2011 to 2015.

 

One problem blamed for the low discipline rate is the immediate dismissal of more than a quarter of complaints in which an officer can’t be identified, says a transparency and digital rights advocacy group that has designed an online crowdsourcing tool to help determine the identities of involved officers.

 

Lucy Parsons Lab this week launched OpenOversight, a website the public can use to search for officers’ names, badge numbers and — when available — photographs. The first of its kind in the United States, the project enables users to search for officers by entering information about their rank, estimated age, race and gender.

 

The goal is to make it easier for witnesses and victims of police misconduct to file reports and to correctly identify the officers involved, said Freddy Martinez, director of Lucy Parsons Labs.