The following are excerpts from the Tribune’s interview with Aaron Patterson at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago.
Q–Why are you in federal custody?
A–You want it in big letters or small? (Fired Chicago police Cmdr.) Jon Burge, Mayor (Richard M.) Daley, (Cook County State’s Atty.) Dick Devine and (U.S. Atty.) Patrick Fitzgerald. I guess I rubbed them the wrong way.
Q–You claim you were purposefully documenting police corruption. Why?
A–I (thought) there’s something that we really need to do to shock the system, the public and the media into looking into this issue. I just pulled a stunt. It might be a little bit beyond the usual stunt, but I just felt like I had exhausted all my remedies in trying to bring awareness to law enforcement officials about what was going on in our community. … I felt like I was spinning my wheels or running in place.
Q–What was the goal?
A–It was to expose. Let’s do something real, and get it on tape. We talked about it, here’s the U.S. attorney talking about guns and drugs in the neighborhood. We knew about (convicted former Chicago police officer) Joseph Miedzianowski recruiting gang members to sell guns and drugs in the neighborhood. And (Fitzgerald) didn’t do anything about getting them arrested, those officers who worked for Miedzianowski, or going back to review those cases of guys who are in prison.
Q–Were you trying to be arrested?
A–The stunt was not to get locked up. The stunt was that I wanted to do something that would put them on the spot. At first, I felt initially that these were some rogue cops working with this (informant).
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I wasn’t sure, but I thought that it might have been Devine and the Police Department that was behind him doing what he was trying to do.
Q–When do you contend you realized the informant was using you?
A–I didn’t realize it. It was always in the back of my mind. He broke something down to me. One way or the other, they can get you. And he was saying if I didn’t do the drug transaction with him, maybe one day you’ll find drugs in your house or in your car.
Q–You claim your own tapes of the drug transactions were taken by authorities. Why not have people ready to support your position that you were engineering this?
A–My thing was I documented everything, and as long as I documented everything I thought I covered myself. I had all the paperwork, and I had all the pictures. All the money that was transacted I laid it on the table. I took serial numbers of all the money that was on the table.
Q–Why play with this kind of activity at all, given what you have been through?
A–What have I been doing since I got out here? I thought I could control the situation a little better if I knew who the informant was.
By me documenting everything, I thought I covered myself. At the very last minute, I reached for an envelope of papers (documenting my project) to put something else in it, and I didn’t have time to move it to an undisclosed location before it was taken (from his mother’s home by authorities executing a search warrant).
Q–Are you afraid to go back to prison?
A–I’m not in a hurry to go back to prison for 15 years or 1 year. I don’t want to go to the pen. I just got out of the pen. I don’t mind doing the little overnight things, like before (after being picked up at protests). I don’t want it to happen.
I’m afraid I did this thing, and I wasn’t successful in doing what I was trying to achieve. But (people should know) I will push the envelope and I will use off-the-wall tactics to bring attention to certain issues.
Q–What is your relationship to Chicago’s street gangs?
A–I raised half these guys or I grew up with these guys. I still have a relationship with them. I’m not going to act like I don’t know these individuals. My part in trying to better the community is to work with these individuals and see where their head is at and try to push them in a direction that will be beneficial to the community.
Q–You say you were frustrated on the street. What did you mean?
A–We’re out here trying to save the world, and I don’t think people appreciate anything we say or do. And we’re putting our lives at risk, and we’re just not being successful in pushing these issues out here.
People would tell me, “We see you on the news. We see you in the newspapers,” and this, that and the other. But I don’t see enough successes, you know, with what we’ve been doing. And it’s very frustrating to me, and that’s one of the reasons I did what I did.