Contradicting comments of his police superintendent a day earlier, Mayor Richard Daley on Tuesday said his decision to seek the relaxation of a federal decree limiting police intelligence gathering efforts is linked to the recent Oklahoma City bombing, not to concern over possible violence at the 1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
However, he also acknowledged that discussions by members of his administration with the American Civil Liberties Union over a negotiated easing of the restrictions predated the bombing by several months. The ACLU was a plaintiff in the suit that led to the court decree.
“This basically stems from the Oklahoma situation. We want to get on the same par with other cities,” Daley said in response to a question.
And when asked a follow-up question about what role his intentions to avoid a repeat of the violence-scarred 1968 convention played in the discussions, the mayor said, “None.”
His responses directly contradict comments made Monday by Police Supt. Matt Rodriguez, who said the reasoning for re-examining the 1981 court decree was prompted by his desire to prevent the possibility of terrorism or other violence in the city next year.
Since Rodriguez’s comments raised the specter of the nationally-televised 1968 convention, where police fought with Vietnam War protesters and a super-secret police unit called the Red Squad conducted illegal spying activities, Daley quickly tried to get past the issue Tuesday.
“The Vietnam War is over,” he said.
Administration officials said they hope to amend the decree, which disbanded the Red Squad and forbids police from spying on individuals or groups conducting peaceful activities, so that police could film demonstrators if necessary to develop lists of those who threaten violence and pass those names on to federal agencies.
Daley said that in addition to avoiding terrorism such as struck Oklahoma City, he wanted police investigative powers expanded to “deal with organized crime, to deal with gangs, and to deal with narcotics organizations in the city.”
“We believe in the 1990s that we have to unleash that restriction,” he said.
Daley made his comments at the dedication of a $70 million business park on the city’s Northwest Side. The 580,000 square-foot park, in which the state donated the land and the city provided some seed money, will produce 2,700 jobs, according to city officials.
The site is bounded by Montrose Avenue, Irving Park Road, Narragansett and Oak Park Avenues. It is the former site of the Chicago-Read Mental Health Center. The first tenant in the park will be Eli’s Chicago’s Finest Inc., a maker of cheesecakes. Construction on its 50,000-square-foot facility begins in the fall.
