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In this Oct. 20, 2014 frame from dash-cam video provided by the Chicago Police Department, Laquan McDonald, right, walks down the street moments before being fatally shot by CPD officer Jason Van Dyke sixteen times in Chicago.(Photo: AP)

CHICAGO Black Lives Matter activistsand other civil rights organizations filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday in an attemptto force court-monitoring of the embattled Chicago Police Department's reform efforts.

The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of Northern Illinois comes after Mayor Rahm Emanuels administration said earlier this month that it had floated a proposal to the Justice Department to install an independent monitor to oversee reform efforts in the police department. The Emanuel proposal would not require the police department to enter what is known as a consent decree, which requires court monitoring. That proposal is under review by Justice Departmentofficials.

The plaintiffs include the groupsBlack LivesMatter Chicago, Blocks Together,Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, Justice for Families, Network 49, Women's All Points Bulletin and 411 Movement for Pierre Loury as well as six people who say they have faced excessive forceby Chicago cops.

The City of Chicago has proven time and time again that it is incapable of ending its own regime of terror, brutality and discriminatory policing, the plaintiffs argue in the lawsuit. It is clear that federal court intervention is essential to end the historical and ongoing pattern and practice of excessive force by police officers in Chicago.

The Justice Department completed a 13-month investigation in January of the police department days before President Trump was inaugurated. The investigation, which was spurred by widespread protests in the city following the court-ordered release of video that showed a white police officer fatally shooting a black teen as he ran from cops, found that the nations second-largest police department was beset by racial bias, excessive use of force and a cover-up culture within the ranks.

The Justice Department forced more than a dozen troubled police departmentssuch as the ones in Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimoreinto consent decrees during the Obama administration. But Trumps attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has said that he worries the decrees undermine police and that he will avoid using them.

Emanuel, who is under intense pressure to takesteps to reform the department, had expressed support for entering a consent decree during the Obama administration. But earlier this month, his administration indicated that an independent monitor might be the best step to take, considering Sessions aversion to taking the step.

City officials planto hold a news conference later Wednesday to discuss the lawsuit.

Even before the release in November 2015 of police video of the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, Chicago Police faced mistrustin large swaths of Chicagos black and Latino communities. (The officer who fired the shots, Jason Van Dyke, was charged with first-degree murder on the same day as the video's release and is awaiting trial.)

The city council offered a formal apology and set aside millions of dollars for reparations for the more than 100 people who allegethat police officers under former police commander Jon Burge's committed horrific abuses against them. The suspects were subjected to mock executions and electric shock and beaten with telephone books as their interrogators flung racial epithets at them. A Chicago Police Department review board ruled in 1993 that Burge's officers had used torture, and he was fired.

The police department and American Civil Liberties Union in August 2015 entered an agreement on monitoring how officersgoabout conducting street stops of citizens in the nations third-largest city. The agreement came after ACLU published a study that showed black Chicagoans were subjected to 72% of stop-and-frisk searcheseven though theymake up only about a third of the city's population.

Chicago has paid more than $600 million in settlements and legal fees related to accusations of police misconduct since 2004. In the last two years, at least 99 cases were filed by people alleging excessive use of force by Chicago Police, the plaintiffs contend.

Prior tothe Justice Department issuingits scathing report about policing in Chicago at the end of the Obama administration, the city and police announcedseveral reforms, including implementing a field training officer program for new cops, revising the departments use of force policy and began the process of issuing police body cameras.

But the plaintiffs contend that Chicagos long and troubled history underscores why court-monitored oversight of changesis necessary.

Absent federal court supervision, nothing will improve. Internal revisions to the (Chicago Police Department)accountability and operational structures have failed to ameliorate conditions on the ground for those subjected on a daily basis to police abuse, the plaintiffs wrote in the lawsuit. (Chicago Police Department) policy changes, implemented over the years are superficial changes in name only.

Follow USA TODAY Chicago correspondentAamer Madhani on Twitter:@AamerISmad

Read more:

49 shot in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend and that's a sign of progress

Chicago police use excessive force, scathing Justice Department report finds

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Black Lives Matter, activists sue for court oversight of ...

Black Lives Matter and other civil rights groups filed a class-action lawsuit Wednesday against the city of Chicago to push for court oversight in reforming the nations second-largest police force, reports The Associated Press. The suit comes after the Department of Justice in January released a blistering report documenting systemic racism and a culture where officers cover up for each other.

Absent federal court supervision, nothing will improve, the lawsuit says, according to The AP. It is clear that federal court intervention is essential to end the historical and on-going pattern and practice of excessive force by police officers in Chicago.

The roughly 130-page lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago, attempts to amend a draft agreement between the city of Chicago and Department of Justice to enact reforms without federal court supervision. Groups involved in the suit are seeking to end a historicand ongoing pattern of violence and excessive force by city officers, according to the report.

About 15 lawyers from Chicago and New York are representing six African-American plaintiffs, who said they were subject to abuses at the hands of Chicago cops, in the suit, reports theChicago Tribune.

The suit, which documents brutality cases including the 1969 killing of Black Panther Fred Hampton, argues that racial discrimination influences police interaction with the public and officers regularly beat as well as shoot Blacks with little risk of punishment. One male plaintiff claimed that he was thrown to the ground and beaten by police, writes the Tribune.

Tensions between Chicago cops and residents boiled over in 2015 when police were forced to release dashcam video of the the 2014 shooting death of 17-year-oldLaquan McDonald.The video showedJason Van Dykeshooting the teen 16 times, sparking protests and calls for police reform. The shooting also prompted a Justice Department investigation of the 12,000-officer force in 2015, notes NBC.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel,whosaid a new police oversight agency was created and the police department was implementing new practices to hold cops accountable such as body cameras, agreed to a consent decree when the damning Justice Department report was released in January. The draft deal between the city and DOJ was negotiated in Washington in June, but does not include an agreement for any court-appointed monitor to govern the reform process, writes NBC.

Complicating matters further is an uncertainty about whether the Department of Justice under the Donald Trump administration is committed to sweeping reforms, as opposed to theBarack Obamaadministration which advocated for court-mandated reforms. Attorney General Jeff Sessionshas publicly said that he is not a fan of consent decrees as agreements to spur reforms.

Craig Futterman, a University of Chicago law professor and the lead attorney in the BLM-led lawsuit, says that the plaintiffs hope Emanuel will work with the civil rights groups to create a comprehensive plan for reform that the court will oversee, according to the News.

Do you think the court will grant oversight of police reforms? Let us know what you think in the comments section.

SOURCE: Associated Press,NBC News, Chicago Tribune,

SEE ALSO:

Chicago Cops In Laquan McDonald Case To Return To Work

Chicago Police Announce New Use Of Deadly Force Policy

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Black Lives Matter Sues Chicago For Court-Monitored Police ...

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) Black Lives Matter is a movement, not an organization that can be sued by a Louisiana police officer who was injured at a protest after a deadly police shooting, a prominent activist's attorney argued Wednesday.

DeRay Mckesson's lawyer, William Gibbens, urged U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson to dismiss a Baton Rouge police officer's lawsuit against Black Lives Matter and the Baltimore-based activist. The judge said he would rule "within the coming days" after hearing from attorneys.

Mckesson was one of nearly 200 protesters arrested after the July 2016 shooting death of Alton Sterling, a black man shot and killed by a white officer during a struggle outside a Baton Rouge convenience store.

Gibbens said Black Lives Matter doesn't have a governing body, dues-paying members or bylaws. At best, the lawyer argued, it's a "community of interest."

"This is a movement, and there isn't a person who is responsible for it, or the leader or the founder of it," he told the judge.

The unidentified officer claims a piece of concrete or "rock like substance" struck him in the face during a July 9 protest over Sterling's death. The officer's lawsuit says he lost teeth and received injuries to his jaw and brain.

Donna Grodner, an attorney for the officer, argued Black Lives Matter is an "unincorporated association" that can be held liable for her client's injuries.

"It's organized. They have meetings. They solicit money. They have national chapters," Grodner said. "This shows a level of national organization."

The suit doesn't accuse Mckesson of throwing anything, but it claims he "incited the violence" on behalf of Black Lives Matter. The suit also claims Mckesson "was in charge of the protests" and he was seen and heard giving orders.

The officer's attorneys sued Mckesson individually but also served him and three other activists with the suit as alleged "agents" of Black Lives Matter. Gibbens expressed concern about the implications for Mckesson if the court agrees to enter a "default judgment" against Black Lives Matter in the officer's favor.

"This really could be leading us down a rabbit hole," Gibbens added.

Mckesson, who declined to be interviewed Wednesday, has described himself as a leader of the Black Lives Matter movement.

"No organization started the movement," he said during an interview last year.

The officer suing Mckesson is identified only as "Officer John Doe" in the suit, saying the anonymity is "for his protection." A court filing last year cited the July 2016 sniper attack that killed five Dallas police officers and a shooting 10 days later that killed three law-enforcement officers in Baton Rouge as reasons for concealing the officer's identity.

Mckesson was arrested near Baton Rouge police headquarters on a charge of obstructing a highway. East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore said his office wouldn't prosecute roughly 100 protesters who were arrested on that same charge, including Mckesson.

Mckesson and other protesters sued the city of Baton Rouge and local law enforcement officials over their arrests, accusing police of using excessive force and violating their constitutional rights. Last month, a federal judge preliminarily approved a proposed settlement of the class action. Mckesson is one of nearly 80 arrested protesters who are eligible for cash payments ranging from $500 to $1,000 if the settlement gets the court's final approval.

Mckesson and Black Lives Matter also were named as defendants in a federal lawsuit that Larry Klayman founder of the conservative group Freedom Watch filed last year in Texas after the sniper attack on Dallas police officers. Klayman also sued former President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other political figures, accusing the defendants of inciting a "race war" against police officers.

Mckesson's lawyers argued Klayman should have known his claims were frivolous. A judge's ruling on June 2 said the plaintiffs didn't provide the court with any support for their "proposition" that Black Lives Matter is an entity capable of being sued. All of Klayman's claims against Mckesson and Black Lives Matter have been dismissed or withdrawn.

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Can Black Lives Matter be sued? Federal judge to decide

MINNEAPOLIS (KMSP) - Music legend Stevie Wonder took part in a north Minneapolis "Conference on Peace" on Saturday, focusing on ending youth gun violence.

Wonder focused on the recent verdict of St. Anthony, Minnesota police officer Jeronimo Yanez, acquitted Friday in last summer's killing of Philando Castile during a traffic stop. He urged the crowd to help bring peace to their communities.

It is in your hands to stop all the killing and all the shooting wherever it might be. Because you cannot say Black Lives Matter and then kill yourselves, Wonder said. Because you know, weve mattered long before it was said. But the way we show all the various of people color matter is by loving each other and doing something about it not just talking about it.

IN-DEPTH:Officer Jeronimo Yanez found not guilty in shooting of Philando Castile

Various speakers, including civil rights leader BenjaminChavis, all focused on city street violence between young people.

Part of the solution, they said, centers around finding alternatives to street warfare for young people trapped in the cycle of poverty. Speakers reminded parents how large a role they play in guiding their children's lives.

About 100 people participated in the conference at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church.

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Stevie Wonder to Minneapolis youth: 'You cannot say Black Lives ... - KMSP-TV

On a gray day last October, teachers across Seattle wore a shirt that read BLACK LIVES MATTER.

They knew there might be criticism. John Muir Elementary in south Seattle had done this in September and received a bomb threat and hate mail from across the U.S.

But they did, and the day was, by most accounts, uneventful. Some kids got it most didnt. Just another school day.

And then, a backlash, but this time not from outsiders. White parents from the citys tonier neighborhoods wrote to their principals to say they were displeased. A Black Lives Matter day was too militant, too political and too confusing for their young kids, they said.

Some danced around their discomfort, others snarked in ALL CAPS. These parents would not talk to us, so we made a public records request for their emails.

Their names were blacked out, which is why they are not named here.

Wrote a parent at Laurelhurst Elementary: Can you please address why skin color is so important? I remember a guy that had a dream. Do you remember that too? I doubt it. Please show me the content of your character if you do.

From Eckstein Middle School in Wedgwood: What about red and black or yellow and white and black? How does supporting Black Lives Matter help that gap?

And from Bryant Elementary in Ravenna: Im writing to share what my 9-year-old daughter told me about what she learned in class regarding the Black Lives Matter discussion. She said she felt bad about being white. And that police lie and do bad things.

These three schools are in northeast Seattle, one of the whitest, most affluent corners of the city. They are also in staunchly liberal neighborhoods dotted with rainbow yard signs that say All are welcome.

This is what Ive come to call Seattles passive progressiveness, said Stephan Blanford, a Seattle school board member whose doctoral research focused on race and public education. We vote the right way on issues. We believe the right way. But the second you challenge their privilege, you see the response.

Blanford is black and represents the Central District, the historic African-American heart of the city. He wasnt surprised by the emails from parents after the Black Lives Matter day. Middle-class white parents have asked him for help getting their kids out of Madrona Elementary, which is 44 percent black.

No one will say to me, We dont want our kids to go to a black school, but I believe thats frequently the underlying reason, Blanford said.

Black Lives Matter emerged from a Twitter hashtag in 2013. The movement gained momentum as videos emerged of police officers killing black men, and from there became a rallying cry against racism. Those three words say that black lives havent mattered enough in this country, and they should.

Reaction to the Black Lives Matter day might have been more muted had Sarah Talbot, the principal atLaurelhurst, not sent an email afterward to parents.

I heard from a few parents concerned about what teacherswerentsaying, Talbot wrote.

They werent saying anything about lives the lives of students, parents and families who are not black. I worried about that too. Would our Native students feel left out, since they face the same (or worse) effects of systemic racism in schools and outside of schools that black students face? What about the majority of the students in our school who are white? They also live with the effects of a society that unfairly prioritizes their lives.

But then I remembered that atLaurelhurstElementary, we have a 20 percent difference in the growth of black students reading skills when compared to the average growth of all students at our school."

After school, a mom learned that her 5-year-old was asked to stand up in front of his class and talk about Black Lives Matter and his shirt. By the end of the day, he had taken it off and shoved it in his cubby.

TheLaurelhurstBlog, which doesn't name its writer, wrote to media a week later: Many parents contacted theLaurelhurstBlog and found the email disturbing, divisive and offensive, and one called it racially biased."

The blogger continued, Talbot says there is injustice and there are gaps but where are her examples? Since she didnt provide any, is it her own invented bias that she is bringing to the community, creating divisiveness?

Director Blanford urged me to interview Jill Geary, the school board director representing northeast Seattle. Geary is a white mom of five with a daughter at Laurelhurst Elementary; maybe she could explain parent thinking, he said.

Geary doesnt see herself as a total insider, however. She was once an administrative law judge who focused on special education; years ago she refused to join other parents in trying to oust a program for highly traumatized kids at Laurelhurst.

She sighed a little as she explained:

They would prefer to be all lives matter, because then their child is included in the conversation about mattering, she said. What they dont think is, would a black mother feel like her child matters, based upon the way that history, the nation, the city, the institutional structures, have treated her child? Thats not the process theyre using.

Geary shared a story from earlier in the year: A sticker that read HCC = APPartheid was placed outsideThurgood Marshall Elementary. HCC stands for Highly Capable Cohort; APPartheid is a play on what the program was called before APP, or Advanced Placement Program.

The sticker's message: The gifted program is overwhelmingly white. Last year,1 percent of the program was black, even though the district was 16 percent black.

We got very angry emails about that, as though we had sponsored it, Geary said. They were upset their kid was being shamed for being in HCC. I think thats the same instinct.

Read: Where are the black kids in Seattle's gifted program?

When Geary spoke with a parent upset about the Black Lives Matter day last fall, she said, I know your child matters. You know your child matters. But Im not sure that we as a society have made it clear that we believe black children matter in the way that white children matter.

But Geary said caring a lot is part of the culture at affluent schools like Laurelhurst, where parents have time and money to get involved.

Theres a portable on the playground, and we are arming ourselves to get rid of it, Geary said. I hate to say it, but that is privilege amplified.

I asked Jennifer Harvey, a religion professor in Des Moines, Iowa, to read these emails and share her thoughts. Harvey recently had an opinion piece in The New York Times titled, Are we raising racists?

As a white person myself, I hear and I know how white people think about race,and I wasn't surprised to see just a basic lack of understanding of how racism functions, Harvey said. This would not be unique to Seattle liberal whites, nor among liberals who didn't vote for Trump. These kind of sentiments are very deep seated.

She continued: What I see when I read these emails is this utter failure to value black life. Because if you value black life you go, Oh my god, even if I don't understand this,why is it that African-Americans need to have this movement for black lives, and what is it like to be a 10-year-old child who's black?

It's like there's this total white vortex that just screams out from these emails, whether they are being nasty intentionally or just saying,'I don't get it.'They make me really sad.

Not that all parents bristled at the Black Lives Matter day. Several cheered on the school in their emails. And when I contacted members of the Laurelhurst PTA members, two moms replied that they supported it.

But there was also a mom heartbroken by how the day had played out for her son.

I was feeling scared to drop them off at school, [my son] in particular, being at Laurelhurst as a brown student in a sea of white peers and white staff, she wrote to Principal Talbot.

That morning, the mom and her son talked about what his Black Lives Matter shirt meant. He told me he felt scared, the mom wrote.

As we parked, he said, Mom! I just got a good idea. If I get white paint and put it all over my body to cover the brown so they cant see it, then people will stop killing us black and brown people.

I cried so many tears of sadness, fear, anger and feelings of lost hope yesterday morning, she said.

After school, she learned that her 5-year-old was asked to stand up in front of his class and talk about Black Lives Matter and his shirt. By the end of the day, he had taken it off and shoved it in his cubby.

I asked him why, and he said because he was tired of people asking him about it and wanting to take his picture, the mom wrote. I was so angry all I could do was pick him up, hug him so tightly and said, I can see why you chose not to wear it. That sounds uncomfortable and unfair.

When I told Director Blanford this story, he said it made sense the boy was overwhelmed. In his day-to-day experience as a student, he's probably pretty invisible, and then all of a sudden, hes the celebrity in the classroom."

Referring back to the critical parents, he said, The intersection of class and race always has the potential to be explosive. This was a nice powder keg, and it just needed the match."

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