Chicago Corruption Update: City Hall often fights to keep files secret in police abuse suits

The Chicago Tribune reports:

Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration routinely fights turning over information in federal civil rights lawsuits against Chicago police officers, often leaving a judge to step in and order the city to disclose potential evidence, a Tribune investigation has found.

Although typically not the type of issue that draws attention outside legal circles, the city's handling of these lawsuits speaks to the police accountability issues that have intensified in recent months and have cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. Whether by bureaucratic negligence or stonewalling by city agencies, the Law Department places the interests of the Police Department and its officers above the public good, according to plaintiffs' lawyers and even some former city attorneys.

It's an implicit policy, those critics say, that corrodes an already weakened relationship between the city and the people it serves.

A Tribune analysis of nearly 450 lawsuits alleging police misconduct since Emanuel took office found that in more than 19 percent of the cases — nearly one in every five — a federal judge ordered the city to turn over police reports, personnel files or other potential evidence it withheld from plaintiffs.

The story MSNBC and Barack Obama will not be talking about.