Melrose Park cops blistered in lawsuit
The Melrose Park Police Department
has been on our radar for months, thanks to a deputy chief whose side business
was selling uniforms and radios to his own agency — without bids.
But our antenna was raised even
higher by a new federal lawsuit filed by a Melrose Park cop against the western
suburb’s municipal government. If even half the allegations are true, wow.
Consider this excerpt:
“[An] officer in a dispute over
services with a prostitute made a 911 call to cause his fellow Melrose Park
officers to assist him in forcing the prostitute to give him back the $100.00
that he had given her, yet the Village did not take action against the officer.
In another case, an officer shot his police car; two more committed a burglary
making off with a golf cart; but yet no action by the Village.”
The officer suing, Phillip Negron,
also alleges racial discrimination due to his Latino heritage.
We can’t speak to the veracity of the
accusations, and village officials did not have much to say in response (“It’s
pending litigation,” a spokesman said.) But we know all too well that Melrose
Park’s government is, in many ways, trapped in the past and needs to
professionalize and modernize.
Had enough?
Write to the Speaker of the House, U.S.
House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515 and demand federal hearings into
the police problem in America. Demand
mandatory body cameras for cops, one strike rule on abuse, and a permanent DOJ office on Police Misconduct.