Mayor
says he can't talk about disabled girl's lawsuit against police
A day after a federal court likened the Chicago Police
Department’s handling of a mentally ill woman to throwing her in a lions den,
Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he wants to talk about the issue but can’t until
Christina Eilman's lawsuit is closed.
The federal appellate court on Thursday rejected an appeal
by the city that led to a two-year delay in the case. The lawsuit was filed
nearly six years ago, in the months after the then-21-year-old former UCLA
student was gravely and permanently injured in an assault that occurred after
police arrested her at Midway Airport and released her 7 miles away in one of
the city’s most crime-ridden neighborhoods.
Emanuel’s office has been forced to pay an increasing amount
of attention to the financial cost of police misconduct lawsuits, mostly for
cases that originated under the administration of former Mayor Richard Daley.
Emanuel said he can’t fully address the issue with regard to the Eilman case because
of the pending litigation.
"There's a review to that, and I can't comment on it
given it is both -- any comment on that process right now, while that's at
trial. At the end of that, I want to speak to the general question” raised in a
reporter’s questions Friday.
In stark language that legal experts said was
constitutionally sound but possibly offensive, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals ruled Eilman's family can proceed with a lawsuit claiming Police
Department negligence placed her in danger that led to her sexual assault and
catastrophic injury.
The three-judge panel ended more than 18 months of silence
on the issue and rejected the city's attempt to stop the case. The lawsuit has
had so many delays, the reputed gang member convicted of attacking Eilman
before she plummeted from a seventh-floor window was paroled from prison
Wednesday.
The city's appeal had asked the court to dismiss the case
against 10 police officers, arguing the police had no responsibility to take
care of Eilman, who had been arrested after creating a disturbance at Midway
Airport in May 2006.
Rather than dwell on the question of police responsibility
for providing medical care, the judges said there was evidence of a clearer
constitutional violation, that officers had taken Eilman from a relatively safe
place — Midway Airport — and ultimately left her in a dangerous place seven
miles away, at 51st Street and Wentworth Avenue.
In reciting the narrative of what happened that night, Chief
Judge Frank Easterbrook suggested the police showed little regard for the
danger they were putting Eilman in when they released her.
"She was lost, unable to appreciate her danger, and
dressed in a manner to attract attention," Easterbrook wrote, noting she
was wearing a cutoff top and short shorts. He added "she is white and well
off while the local population is predominantly black and not affluent, causing
her to stand out as a person unfamiliar with the environment and thus a
potential target for crime."
After she wandered away from the police station, Eilman was
lured into the last standing high-rise of the Robert Taylor Homes, where she
was assaulted before plummeting from a seventh-floor window. She suffered
massive trauma, including a severe brain injury, shattered pelvis and numerous
broken bones. She now lives with her parents near Sacramento and requires
around-the-clock care.
Legal experts said the ruling is consistent with
well-established federal law.
"Contrary to what most people think, the police don't
have a constitutional duty to protect people from harm. But they do have a duty
to not put people in harm's way, in other words not to make things worse, and
that's what the court found here," said Craig Futterman, a law professor
at the University of Chicago Law School, who has led both litigation against
the Police Department as well as research into the department's oversight
practices.
"It's a jury call. But there is a constitutional duty,
and that's been established for a long time."
David Franklin, a constitutional law scholar at DePaul
University College of Law, agreed that the court's ruling pointed out an often
misconstrued point about the Constitution.
"Where the police crossed the line from merely not
providing help to actively doing harm was by dropping her off near the Robert
Taylor Homes wearing skimpy clothes and without her cellphone," Franklin
said. "Even though it was a private individual who physically injured her,
the police can be held constitutionally liable for leaving her much worse off
than they found her."
Franklin also noted that some may find the court's language
troubling.
In the opinion, Easterbrook also referenced an earlier 7th
Circuit opinion noting that throwing someone into a "snake pit" would
violate their rights.
"As for the court's potentially offensive analogy
between Taylor Homes and a 'lions' den' or a 'snake pit,' well, I suppose
that's why federal judges have life tenure."