Chicago police to disband elite unit

[kurth]

Chicago police to disband elite unit
By DON BABWIN, Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO - The Chicago Police Department will disband an elite drug and gang unit under state and federal investigation for allegations ranging from armed violence and home invasion to kidnapping and plotting a murder-for-hire, officials said Tuesday. "The recent incidents involving officer misconduct have been disheartening and demoralizing, especially to the officers who serve this department honorably every single day," said interim Police Superintendent Dana Starks.

Seven members of the Special Operations Section have been charged with belonging to a rogue band of officers who used their badges to shake down residents and intimidate people. All have pleaded not guilty. One of those officers, Jerome Finnigan, was charged two weeks ago with plotting to hire someone to murder another member of the unit to keep him from talking to the government...

Also last month, three members of the unit were stripped of their badges and assigned to desk work after surveillance camera video at a bar contradicted officers' version of a search and arrests there. Officers said in a police report that they searched Reymundo Martinez outside the bar in March 2004 because he was drinking on a public street, and arrested him when they found a plastic bag of cocaine sticking out of his sleeve. But video from inside and outside the bar, obtained by the Chicago Tribune, showed more than two dozen SOS members raiding the bar and searching everyone, and showed them arresting Martinez inside...

In March, department veteran Anthony Abbate was charged with beating a female bartender after a surveillance camera video of the incident was shown around the world. Allegations soon followed that another group of off-duty officers beat up four businessmen in a bar — an incident that led to charges against three of them. Abbate and the other officers have all pleaded not guilty...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071009/ap_on_re_us/chicago_police_corruption;_ylt=AihHUiA19Ptpjk_Ko2wyzZlH2ocA

[gateley]

1. Whoa. I thought Mark Fuhrman was bad. These guys will all be recruited by Blackwater. nt

[wellst0nev0ter]

2. And I Thought "The Shield" Was Just A Work Of Fiction

Well, it was based off the Ramparts scandal, so. . .