In a conversation after a routine traffic stop, recorded on a patrol car’s dashboard camera, the officers used a phrase that “could be harmful and hurtful to people,” McCarthy said. The officers are not being named.
Attorney Don Perry said he obtained a copy of the video to prepare for a client’s DUI case about a week ago. He ran across the conversation while watching video of an earlier traffic stop and said he was offended by what he heard.
“I’d describe it as racially insensitive and inappropriate,” said Perry, of Orland Park. “These are people in a position of power, and if that’s their attitude, it makes you wonder, whether subliminal or not, if people they pull over are going to receive fair treatment.”
Perry said he questioned one of the officers about the conversation during his client’s trial Feb. 14, but he had no other contact with the Orland Park Police Department.
McCarthy said he was disappointed and upset when he learned of the video and heard the conversation after the trial. The officers were suspended later that day.
“This is a professional department and we hold employees to high standard,” he said.
Orland Park police declined to release a copy of the video.
The video was recorded in December but no one in the department watched it until last week, McCarthy said.
Though Orland Park police review videos of traffic stops, with officers making 24,000 traffic stops a year it can be hard to keep up, McCarthy said.
McCarthy said 30-day suspensions were rare in the department, but though some called the punishment hefty, he considered it appropriate.
“It was a tough decision, but the right decision,” he said.
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