Since 2017, Blacks in Chicago filed complaints against police 10 times more than whites and more than any ethnic group, according to a Crusader analysis of data from the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA).
Data also show that officers who are usually accused of police misconduct are young white and Latino male officers, but Black male and female officers have the least number of accusations, compared to their counterparts.
The data was taken from COPA’s online data dashboard that provides statistics on civilian complaints, allegations and closed cases.
Most of the complaints allege civil rights violations and the use of excessive force.
Since 2017, a total of 27,510 complaints have been filed against police and 7,647 or 28 percent of those grievances had been filed with COPA. About 5,928 of those COPA complaints have since been closed and 1,719 remain open.
But when it comes to demographics, Black residents, since 2017, filed more complaints than Latinos and whites combined.
According to COPA, Blacks in the last five years filed 4,458 complaints against Chicago police, compared to 782 for Latinos and 538 for white residents. That’s six times more than Latinos and 10 times more than whites.
When it comes to race and gender, Black males since 2017 have filed more complaints than any other group. According to COPA, of the 4,458 complaints from Blacks, 3,406 came from Black males. That’s more than six times Latino males, who filed 550 complaints and 11 times more than whites, who filed just 300 complaints since 2017.
COPA data also show that Black females since 2017 have filed more complaints than their Latino and white counterparts. Black females filed a total of 1,052 complaints, nearly five times higher than Latino females who filed 232 complaints and four times higher than whites, who have filed 238 complaints since 2017.
More COPA data also show that so far in 2022, Blacks have filed a total of 365 complaints against police, compared to 69 for Latinos and 27 for whites. Of those 365 complaints by Blacks, 277 were from Black males, compared to 53 from Latino males and 15 from white males.
In addition to race, the data also includes complaints by age groups. Black males from all age groups filed more complaints than any Latino and white residents of all ages, male or female. COPA data show that more complaints were filed from young residents under 30 years old.
The most complaints against Chicago police since 2017 came from Black males between the ages of 20 to 29. That age group filed a total of 1,191 complaints. The next highest number of complaints was from 30-to-39-year-old Black males who filed a total of 868 complaints against police. Black males between the ages of 40 to 49 filed a total of 428 complaints and those between the ages of 50 to 59 have filed 219 complaints since 2017.
Black females between ages 20 to 29 filed more complaints than any age group among their counterparts. That group filed a total of 303 complaints against police. Black females between ages 30 to 39 filed 277 complaints.
The data from COPA also includes statistics by race and gender on officers accused of misconduct. Since 2017, white officers had 1,215 accusations of police misconduct, compared to 1,134 from Latino officers.
According to COPA data, of the 1,215 white officers accused of misconduct, 1,068 were male, but Latino male officers are close behind with 1,032 accusations. White male officers between ages 30 to 39 have the highest number of accusations with 587. White males aged 40 to 49 had the second highest number of misconduct accusations with 449.
White female officers led their gender counterparts with a total of 1,215 misconduct allegations since 2017. Like their white male counterparts, those with the most misconduct accusations were from age groups 30 to 39 and 40 to 49.
So far this year, white officers have accumulated 210 accusations, compared to 111 for Latino officers and 66 for Black officers. Those figures include male and female officers in each ethnic group.
Since 2017, Black officers have had the least number of accusations involving police conduct compared to their counterparts.
A total of 782 accusations have been filed against Black police officers. Of that number, 688 were leveled against Black male officers and 114 against Black female officers.
