The current fight for decades of police misconduct files has its roots in a police department, police accountability system, and a political system that had no interest in holding police officers accountable for their actions.
In this interview from our Facebook Live interview series we talk with Jared Kosoglad, the lawyer for Charles Green, and author of the now famous FOIA request that may finally pry open decades of police misconduct files from the clutches of the Chicago Police Department.
Green was convicted of participating in a quadruple murder back in the mid 1980s when he was 16 years old. The conviction is at the very least highly questionable. One of the actual shooters the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office was able to convict had his conviction overturned by the Illinois Supreme Court a few years prior to Green being able to himself free from the Illinois Department of Corrections. Green served 24 years before winning his releases from prison.
Since his release Green is said to be fighting to get his conviction overturned while also trying to piece together his life as best as someone can when they are still convicted of a quadruple murder.
In his efforts to represent Green Kosoglad field a request for copies of the police misconduct records with the Chicago Police Department (CPD) under Illinois’ Freedom of Information Act. As is typical the incompetent Chicago Police Department faield to respond to the request in the 5 working days that is mandated by law. Their failure barred the CPD from using the overly burdensome exemption to defend against having to fulfill the request. So Kosoglad sued the Chicago Police Department for failing to fulfill the request. Almost 5 years in to the litigation Kosoglad won a court order mandating the CPD provide the records to Green.
This judge’s order has set off a chain reaction of events that has led the city to offer at least two different financial settlements with Green so they will not have to make the tens of thousands of misconduct records public. The current offer that is pending in front of the city council would pay Green $500,000.
This is the context around our conversation with Jared Kosoglad. A technical issue prevented us from including Charles Green in our discussion like we planned. We sincerely apologize to Charles and hope to have him back on the show in the near future.
Our Facebook Live Interview Series is streamed on our Facebook Page every Wednesday. We feature interviews on topics not adequately covered in the mainstream media.
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