I wish to praise the articles by John Conroy, “Town Without Pity,” and Michael Miner, “Cops Want Watchdogs Leashed,” which appeared in the Reader January 5. Both articles were timely and informative. They examine the recurrent problem of police brutality, and how public officials treat police use of excessive force lightly.

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I recently researched and published an article looking at police brutality in five cities: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, and Houston (“Police Brutality in African-American and Latino Communities,” The Latino Studies Journal, Vol. 6, No. 3, Sept. 1995, pp. 30-47). Interestingly, police and city officials nationally label the charges of police brutality as exaggerated and unfounded. Moreover, they claim it’s minor, that citizens waste valuable time complaining about simple things like “handcuffs on too tight.” But these same police and city officials refuse to allow researchers and the public to examine their records of citizen complaints about police brutality. This “code of silence” insulates police from public accountability.

Cities are paying staggering millions of dollars in verdicts and settlements to individuals each year because of police brutality. These extremely high payments suggest that police brutality is of a serious nature and has increased significantly from previous years. For example, New York paid $85,060,906 from 1990 to 1994 to individuals largely for police brutality. Los Angeles paid $45,961,363 from 1990 to 1993. Dallas paid $40,624,626 from 1992 to 1994. Chicago paid $23,386,304 from 1990 to 1994. These cities are paying between $3.1 and $17 million each year to citizens in verdicts and settlements due to police brutality. Houston officials adamantly refused to release payout figures. City officials, of course, do not admit wrongdoing in verdicts and settlements. But why would these cities pay out such large sums of money if citizen complaints of police brutality were frivolous?

Columbia College Chicago