Chicago Red Squad
A Case Study of Alliance to End Repression v. City of Chicago
Esther Lim, Jonathan Rhodes, and Jacob Shorr
Law enforcement has a long history of gathering intelligence on political organizations and attempting to disrupt groups whose dissenting opinions and activities challenge the status quo. The start of the international labor movement in 1886, when labor strife erupted in the infamous Haymarket Riots, was marked by police use of infiltration and surveillance to squelch dissent from anarchists and labor unions, to communists and radical activists. In recent history, many law enforcement agencies created special police units with a focus on infiltrating subversive organizations and gathering intelligence on political and social groups. These local entities, known as Red Squads, were common across the country during the First Red Scare of the 1920s through the McCarthy era. In the 1960s the Red Squads turned their attention from specifically communist threats to the activism of the Vietnam War and Civil Rights era, spurred on in great part by the FBI and Hoover’s push for files to be maintained on those deemed subversive.
Law enforcement often found itself dealing with a new brand of dissident in the turbulent 1960s. Beyond the nonviolent protests and peaceful marches of the early 60s, the idea of radical revolution had taken hold. In fact, many groups plotted and attempted to bring down the U.S. Government through political dissidence and acts of violence. The City of Chicago became a hotbed of unrest, from underground activism to the well-publicized riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. For example, the Weather Underground Organization, known as the Weathermen, referred to itself as a revolutionary organization of women and men whose purpose was to carry out a series of attacks that would achieve the revolutionary overthrow of the Government of the United States. The Weathermen had hundreds of members and carried out violent attacks on federal offices around the country. Similarly, the Black Panther Party (BPP) was famous for its position that nonviolence could not bring about social change in a society as violent as the United States.
The public nature of the Weathermen and BPP’s armed, civil disobedience, shocked and scared many Americans. The Chicago Police and Federal Bureau of Investigations developed new and drastic tactics to infiltrate and disrupt such groups. Chicago Police Department’s political squad operated for the purpose of “chilling, harassing, intimidating, “disrupting” the organizations and “destroying the left”.[1]
Numerous members of the Weathermen were arrested and the group eventually disbanded. The BPP’s leader, Fred Hampton, became the target of investigation. He was killed while he slept in his apartment by a tactical unit of the Chicago Police, State’s Attorney’s Office, and the FBI. The assassination of Fred Hampton and other police abuses outraged many people who believed that the Red Squads had gone unchecked for too long. Not only were the police conducting operations to disrupt the most radical political activists, they were using similar tactics to infiltrate peaceful groups. It became clear that law enforcement was disrupting the peoples’ exercise of their First Amendment rights.[2] In the early 1970s, a series of lawsuits began to emerge that would challenge, and eventually but an end to, law enforcements unchecked surveillance, infiltration, and disruption of groups with unwelcome political views.
The Alliance to End Repression was created in the early 1970s as a response to the ongoing violations of civil liberties occurring in Chicago at that time.[3] Though these abuses were widespread, the assassinations of Black Panther leaders, Mark Clark and Fred Hampton, specifically triggered the formation of the Alliance.[4] On December 4, 1969, Clark and Hampton were brutally murdered in their sleep in their own home by the Chicago police.[5] These assassinations were carried out by the Chicago police, but planned with the aid of the Federal Bureau of Investigation as well as with the aid of an informant placed within the Black Panthers. [6] According to John Hill, the executive coordinator of the Alliance, these assassinations were regarded as the “ultimate in repression” and necessitated a response from the community.[7] As a result, the Alliance was formed as a broad coalition of various religious and community groups.[8] The Alliance was created with the sole aim to “attack repression wherever it was” because “[t]here were so many wrongs that needed to be righted.”[9]
The Alliance directed their attention to various civil liberties violations in Chicago, which included the activities of the “Red Squad.”[10] The Red Squad was the informal name for the Subversive Activities Unit of the Chicago Police Intelligence Division.[11] This unit was entirely separate from the intelligence unit that gathered information on criminal activity.[12] Instead, this unit was focused exclusively on gathering information on lawful political activity.[13] The Alliance was aware of the Red Squad’s activities because members of the Red Squad would openly harass different organizations or members participating in those organizations.[14] For example, at demonstrations or protests, Red Squad members would harass the participants using information they had gained about their personal lives; or Red Squad members would have photographers take pictures of all those attending meetings related to different community organizations; or Red Squad members would even slip the media derogatory information about different people and organizations; or Red Squad members would break into organizational offices and steal some of their files and equipment.[15] Due to the blatant violation of the First Amendment by the Red Squad the Alliance decided that its best course of action was to file a lawsuit against the Red Squad.[16]
Though the violations of the Red Squad may have been blatant, there were very few attorneys that wanted to supervise this lawsuit.[17] In general, in the early 1970s the courts seemed to be unwilling to impose limits on the police methods of collecting information or on the kinds of information the police collected.[18] In 1972, the Supreme Court had held in Laird v. Tatum that the mere existence of government surveillance does not create the grounds for a lawsuit.[19] In 1971 in New York the federal case Handschu v. Special Services Division was brought to curtail the surveillance tactics of the New York City Police. Although Handschu eventually resulted in a Consent Decree similar to the Chicago Consent Decree, the defendant’s ability to put the case in limbo on the discovery issue until 1979 was seen as a minor victory for the police, and indicated a major problem for the Chicago plaintiffs in their ensuing case.[20]
As a result, most attorneys regarded this type of lawsuit as a “high risk” case.[21] When an attorney from the Alliance brought this case to the Illinois American Civil Liberties Union in 1973, there was difficulty finding an attorney willing to supervise this lawsuit.[22] Finally, Richard Gutman, an attorney who had come to work for the ACLU immediately following law school, volunteered to work on this case.[23] This decision ultimately defined Gutman’s legal career. In the book, The Price of Dissent, Gutman explains,
I’d rather have this than any other kind of case I can think of. I didn’t become a lawyer to practice law as an end to itself. I became a lawyer because that was the way I saw myself participating politically. … I decided that I could best contribute as a lawyer. When I learned of this case, I knew how important it was. A unit of government whose purpose is political repression, that does nothing but target lawful political dissent—to me, that’s an extremely important type of litigation. It’s something that affects all political groups, everyone.[24]
On November 13, 1974, the Alliance to End Repression, et al. v. City of Chicago, et al. was filed as a class action lawsuit.[25] This lawsuit was brought under 42 U.S.C., Section 1983 as a civil action.[26] The plaintiff class initially consisted of eighteen named individuals and fifteen named groups, as well as included all those who were similarly situated.[27] The original defendants included the commanders of the Intelligence Division, those referred to as the Unknown Agents of The Chicago Police Department, two specifically named police officers, and the direct superiors to all these defendants, including the Mayor of the city.[28] The plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief, as well as compensatory damages due to the violations of their rights under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eight, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.[29] The complaint included a general allegation of “unlawful intelligence gathering activities” of the Chicago Police Department’s Intelligence Division.[30] This division was allegedly under the general order to gather individuals on either individuals or organizations who pose “a threat to the security of the country, state or city.”[31] The complaint alleged that under this general order this division engaged in a continuing pattern and practice involving the following activities: (1) surveillance and intelligence-gathering on individuals and organizations engaged in lawful activities; (2) unlawful wire-tapping and other forms of electronic surveillance; (3) unlawful entry and seizure; (4) dissemination of derogatory information concerning plaintiffs; (5) summary punishment and harassment, and (6) infiltration of private meetings and political organizations by informers and provocateurs.”[32] In summary, the activities were said to have a chilling effect of the plaintiffs’ exercise of their First Amendment rights.[33]
In response, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss the complaint based primarily on the argument that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue due to a failure to present a justiciable controversy.[34] The defendants relied heavily upon Laird v. Tatum, where the Supreme Court held that the plaintiffs did not present a justiciable controversy in the absence of any specific allegations of violations of their First Amendment rights.[35] The Court explained that the mere existence of an intelligence gathering and distribution system and its general effect on the plaintiffs could not sustain the complaint.[36] As a result, the defendants argued that the complaint in the case at hand also did not present a justiciable controversy and should be dismissed.[37]
While the parties waited for the judge’s decision regarding the motion to dismiss, all discovery related to this case was halted.[38] During this time, Gutman determined it was crucial to attempt to discover other ways to expose the activities of the Red Squad.[39] Gutman explains that the “first major breakthrough” occurred as a result of Gutman’s involvement in a separate lawsuit against the Chicago Police.[40] During the discovery portion of this employment discrimination lawsuit, Gutman received a payroll list including the name of all the officers and other relevant information, including their assignments.[41] While reviewing the list, Gutman came across the classification of “Assignment Unknown.”[42] He noticed that there were eight names given this assignment and immediately recognized two names—Howard Pointer and Geno Addams.[43] Pointer was a leader of Operation PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity) and, after the Alliance lawsuit was filed, had voluntarily confessed to its founder Jesse Jackson that he was a Red Squad cop.[44] Addams happened to be an active member of the Alliance.[45] With that payroll list, Gutman had discovered that the Alliance itself had a police informant among them.[46]
He further investigated the other names and found that three other community groups had been infiltrated by the police.[47] He then promptly informed the media of his discovery.[48] This led to multiple headlines in the Chicago newspapers and prompt public outcry.[49] Although Mayor Daley continued to stand behind the actions of the Chicago Police Department, the State’s Attorney at that time, Bernard Carey, recognized one of the Red Squad police officers as one of the men who had previously participated in a demonstration outside of his home.[50][51] According to Gutman, Carey was furious when he realized one of the demonstrators was a paid police officer and thought that Mayor Daley was using the police officer to turn community groups against him.[52] State’s Attorney Carey then convened a Cook County grand jury to investigate the Red Squad.[53] At this time, the parties were still awaiting the district court’s decision regarding the motion to dismiss.
The continued media exposure from March through May of 1975 was significant because it finally drew public attention to the activities of the Red Squad. However, it also revealed the existing double standard. Though there were previous incidents of radical groups being spied on, infiltrated, or harassed by the police, the public and the media had paid very little attention.[54] Gutman explained, “They think: ‘It’s probably good that the government watches them.’ But when it’s mainly white mainstream-type groups, all hell breaks loose.”[55] After these exposures, the Red Squad was completely discredited and voluntarily abolished.[56] This all occurred still before the ruling on the motion to dismiss.
On May 16, 1975, the court soundly rejected the defendants’ arguments and denied their motion.[57] The court found the Laird holding to be completely inapplicable to this case due to the complaint in this case containing allegations that the plaintiffs were specifically targeted as objects of surveillance by the defendants.[58] The court proceeded to outline six separate sections detailing the specific allegations of a variety of police misconduct directed against the plaintiffs.[59] In addition, the court found that this ongoing course of conduct was substantially more intrusive and widespread than any previous comparable cases.[60] The court further concluded that if the allegations contained in the complaint could be proven through facts, then the defendants would indeed to be entitled to relief.[61]
On March 25, 1976, the district court certified two plaintiff classes, one consisting of individuals and the other of organizations, in the Alliance case.[62] The plaintiff class consisting of individuals included:
all residents of the City of Chicago, and all other persons who are physically present within the City of Chicago for regular or irregular periods of time, who engage or have engaged in lawful political, religious, educational or social activities and who, as a result of these activities, have been within the last five years, are now, or hereafter may be, subjected to or threatened by alleged infiltration, physical or verbal coercion, photographic, electronic, or physical surveillance, summary punishment, harassment, or dossier collection, maintenance, and dissemination by defendants or their agents.[63]