Punitive Again?

Someone to verify please?

• Hey SCC I wanted to comment on a situation that arose out of Area 5. I want to make it aware to all of our Detectives and P.O.'s that a lawsuit was filed regarding an arrest in 2003. The arrest was the result of an offender attempting to shoot at Police Officers on the 5300 block of Congress. Well the short story is that the witnesses in this incident filed the lawsuit and alleged that they were held for 7 hours against their will.
  
  The end result of this suit is that 2 retired Detectives were drug through the trial and found guilty (civil) and were ordered to pay several of these alleged victims a total of $132,000. This total is PUNITIVE and has to be paid by them not the City. Now we all know that this didn't happen but this is Cook Co. and Federal juries hate us so this is the outcome.
  
  So I feel it is important that all of us know when a witness wants to leave, let them leave. None of these dogs are worth a single dime of your money. Interview them on scene and cut them loose.
  
  The bottom line is the clearance rate just went in the toilet.
  
  This should be a wake up call to everybody that thinks this Dept. has your back, well then I ask you to call Dugan and ask if he is going to pay the punitive damages. I mean hey he he said he has your back, lets see what he really means.
  
  Throw out the anchor boys and girls the seas are going to get rougher.
  
  SCC please post this so this does not happen to anybody else.

We also received word that J-Fed has requested that Corp Counsel begin pushing more cases to trial. The reason? Winning trials will improve morale. Unfortunately, Corp Counsel's track record is none too impressive in the actual practice of law (see above) and winning is as foreign to them as World Series titles are to the northside.

In any case, this would seem another death knell. These guys were hanging on to witnesses for pete's sake. The witnesses didn't even miss a meal. The clearance rate should crater over this judgment alone.