Rev. Al Sharpton led a group of Chicago area lawyers and community activists in threatening to lobby the International Olympic Committee to remove the city from consideration as host of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games if immediate action is not taken to address claims of brutality and misconduct involving members of the Chicago police department.
“The Olympics can be a point of leverage for people in this city that have not been able to get direct action by the city (officials) to say that the world must know the kind of city this is,” said Rev. Sharpton at a press conference at City Hall on Dec. 10.
Rev. Sharpton said a planning and action committee will meet here Dec. 29. If Mayor Richard M. Daley and city officials have not taken “definite concrete steps” to deal with police misconduct an escalation in activities may occur, including contacting members of the IOC to inform them of police abuses that include false arrest, harassment, unlawful detainment and unjustified deaths.
“I think you have police problems everywhere, but never have I seen a city where it is so blatant that nobody ever gets prosecuted.I mean nobody,” Rev. Sharpton told The Final Call. “You just pay, but there is no crime,” he added.
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Critics of Mayor Daley suggest his cozy relationship with the police department is connected to his tenure as Illinois states attorney, which includes the infamous reign of Commander Jon Burge. Commander Burge, according to the sworn testimony and complaints by victims and court records, used torture techniques such as cattle prods, electrical shocks to the ears, arms and genitalia of suspects, handcuffed suspects to hot radiators and suffocated suspects with plastic bags in the late 1970s.The suspects, mostly Black males, were subjected to torture to coerce confessions.
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