Daley backs Weis in decision not to hand over officer complaint list

Mayor Daley today stood behind his police superintendent for refusing a judge’s order to release names of officers with five or more citizen complaints filed against them since 2002.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria Valdez had demanded that Supt. Jody Weis turn over the list to attorneys suing the city over a false arrest allegation. Those attorneys now are asking the judge to issue hefty financial sanctions against the city and order Weis and Corporation Counsel Mara Georges into depositions to explain why they decided to refuse the judge’s order.

One of those attorneys, Flint Taylor, also called for Weis to resign.

“The white flag to the forces of brutality and corruption requires that Weis either immediately resign or be removed by the mayor,” Taylor said.

But Daley, at an unrelated news conference, said today that he supports Weis. He said lists of “CR numbers,” or numbers of complaints registered against the officers, should not be released with officers’ names on them.

“You have policemen who have worked very hard. Yes, there are good policemen who get CRs, unfounded CR numbers. They should not be placed in jeopardy of their whole career. It affects their morale. These are good hard-working police officers.”

Asked about whether the city should have defied a federal judge’s order, Daley said that is a matter for appeal.

Valdez had given Weis until 4 p.m. Friday to comply with her order, but he refused. Weis, in court papers, said that turning over such lists with officers’ names would “compromise officers’ performance, threaten safety, reduce morale and improperly impugn many officers’ otherwise well-deserved good reputations.”

The dispute stems from a lawsuit that Donna Moore brought against the city. Her attorneys are seeking the list — and a similar one specific to excessive force complaints — to try to show a pattern of the Police Department sweeping officers’ misconduct under the rug.

In court papers, Moore’s attorneys pointed out that former Officer Jerome Finnigan, who is in a federal lockup awaiting trial for an alleged murder-for-hire conspiracy, was first identified in 1996 as an officer with repeated complaints filed against him — with 16 of them at the time.

Yet he continued to work as a police officer — allegedly robbing citizens and conducting home invasions — until 2007 when he was arrested.

Moore’s lawsuit accuses Officer Robert Smith of falsely arresting her 11-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter over a playground dispute involving Smith’s son in 2007. Smith “physically attacked” the children before they were arrested, according to the lawsuit.

On Tuesday, her attorneys asked the judge to enter a default judgment in favor of Moore because of Weis’ refusal to hand over the lists.

Moore’s attorneys also have asked the judge to impose financial sanctions against the city to reimburse him and other attorneys for their fees in connection with the case — to be doubled to punish the city and policymakers for their “bad faith conduct.”

Moore’s attorneys claimed Weis’ refusal was part of his “public relations campaign to shed his image as a police reformer and to look ‘tough’ to his officers.”

Weis’ decision to withhold the lists comes while the city is trying to withhold a similar list in another excessive-force lawsuit.

That list includes 662 officers who faced 10 or more citizen complaints between 2001 and 2006. The federal appeals court in Chicago is deciding if the department should make that list public.