Answering The Tough Question Of Who Polices The Police

When Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel fired his police superintendent Tuesday, he acknowledged the problem that's been dogging law enforcement since the days of the first beat cops: How do we ensure that we are effectively policing the police?

Of course, departments have internal affairs investigators, and some police also answer to civilian oversight boards.

But since Ferguson, there's been a growing sense that the real conflict of interest is higher up — at the level of the local prosecutors.

For prosecutors and grand juries, the decision to charge a cop is different from deciding whether to charge a civilian. There are good legal reasons for this — after all, cops are allowed to shoot people, if circumstances warrant. But there are also subtler differences, says Jonathan Witmer-Rich, an associate professor at Cleveland State University's law school.

"Prosecutors do not seem to approach police shooting cases the way that they approach ordinary shooting cases," he says.

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