By Jeremy Gorner and Dan Hinkel
Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — The president of the largest Chicago police union on Thursday blasted a new report that recommends broad reforms within the department, calling the report one-sided and unfair to officers.
Dean Angelo Sr., president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said he thinks members of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s hand-picked Police Accountability Task Force made up their minds about police before studying the issues. The report, written in occasionally scalding language, cites statistics and historic events as it calls out the department for alleged racial bias and indifference to the problems of residents.
The nearly 200-page report, released Wednesday, faults the city and the police union for allowing officers to escape accountability for misconduct. The report comes amid a U.S. Department of Justice civil rights investigation spurred by the release of video of a white police officer fatally shooting African-American 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. The task force report called the release of the video a “tipping point” in police-community relations.
“I believe they had an agenda or a built-in bias going in,” Angelo said. “And I don’t see the need to do that when the Department of Justice are the subject matter experts, not the task force.”
For their part, task force members said in a meeting with the Tribune Editorial Board on Thursday that city officials should make reforms before federal officials force changes that could be more onerous and expensive.
Emanuel has not spoken publicly about the report since being briefed on it Wednesday afternoon. In a statement from a spokesman, his office said the mayor has been focused for months on implementing reforms to “re-earn the trust that’s eroded over a number of decades.”
The mayor has faced withering criticism from residents and activists who have accused him of indifference to police brutality, but he has also been confronted with surging homicide and shooting numbers that have come as the police have cut the number of investigative stops they make.
The report, which encourages the dismantling and replacement of the city’s police oversight agency, focuses heavily on changes that could be made to union contracts. Those suggested changes include allowing anonymous complaints against officers and removing the right of police to amend their statements after reviewing video or audio recordings during the investigative process, according to the report.
Angelo called criticism of the union contracts “completely inaccurate and way off base.” He said that when he met with three of the task force members, they didn’t raise many concerns about the contract “outside of some generalities.”
At the editorial board, task force members stressed that many recommendations would not require changes to the union contracts and could be adopted immediately. They cited recommendations involving expanding training and promoting early intervention when police accrue numerous complaints. Lori Lightfoot — the head of the task force who also chairs the Chicago Police Board — said the union contracts are not “the boogeyman of all that ails the Police Department.”
“The collective bargaining agreement gives a lot of space for the leadership to make changes if they choose to,” she said.
Task force members noted the city has been reluctant to release information following police shootings, and the report encouraged more transparency. Lightfoot and Joseph Ferguson, the city’s inspector general and a task force member, suggested the city could promptly identify police-involved in shootings. The department has previously avoided doing that, citing a union contract provision that bars the city from identifying officers accused of misconduct unless they’ve been criminally convicted or the Police Board has imposed discipline.
"(A police shooting) is a public act, taken in public, using public authority, by public officials,” Ferguson said. “That’s the public’s information.”
In a statement about the report, Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said newly appointed Superintendent Eddie Johnson and some of his command staff will “carefully review and consider” the task force recommendations.
“The department welcomes additional recommendations, and we plan to continue to bring about important reforms to best serve the residents of Chicago,” Guglielmi said.
Copyright 2016 the Chicago Tribune