Page 6 - July2021

We wanted to have our 32-foot trailer, our mobile kitchen, rolling by now. Delivery has been delayed, but we hope to have it this month.
It’s already painted. The color schemes are ready to go. It’s all blue with black accents. It will be dark, electric blue. It’ll be eye-popping to say the least.
As I reported a few months ago, the trailer will be equipped to hold barbecues, community events and provide aid to officers throughout the state and even the country. Instead of standing in front of a roll call and giving a speech to members, this will allow us to have smaller conversations multiple times with cop- pers. It’s more personal. Hopefully, they will feel like we actually
give a damn, that we’re talking with them and not at them.
The first location we will visit relatively soon after we get it will be the 6th District. That will be our first barbecue function because there is a sergeant there who rejoined the FOP because he believes in what we’re doing. He came back to be a member
and gave us $1,000 out of his own pocket to support the trailer. And I’m really excited to take it to New York for the 20th anni- versary remembrance of 9/11. We’re also going to take it down to Indianapolis for the National FOP Biennial Conference in Au- gust. Part of our vision is to give Lodge 7 more of a presence, and
the trailer will keep the ball rolling.
President’s Report: Report Shorts National News
I went to Washington, D.C., on June 15 to speak at the general membership meeting for D.C. Lodge 1. When I was at a National FOP meeting in Kansas City recently, I had asked the Lodge 1 president and vice president if they could let me know when I can come down and talk to their membership and apologize for my comments about Jan. 6 in person, just because I felt it was the right thing to
do. So they picked that day to go down there.
I got to say my piece. I got that off my chest because it weighed heavily on me. I didn’t want anybody that actually is involved in the Lodge to be like, “Yeah, fuck that guy,” which wasn’t the case
at all.
And I spoke about my feelings that it’s time for the National
FOP to push back. We cannot wait. We are being told that we have a seat at the table in Washington, D.C. Well, it must be a re- ally long table. And we’re all the way at the end in a soundproof booth.
I wanted them to hear that, because there’s no reason that George Floyd bill should have passed. If we had proper notifi- cation that it was being called for a vote, we could have affected enough votes to change it and kill it in the House. They wouldn’t even be discussing it in the Senate.
I think we can move our seat closer to the head of the table. As I explained to everybody in the room, my allegiances and my first priority is getting our contract across the finish line. Who knows what the future holds after that.
Trailer Hitch
Last Words
About the canceled days off grievance arbitration
We expect the decision by mid-September. We’re liter- ally trying to attack it from a rainbow perspective of how it affected officers in totally dif- ferent situations from totally different perspectives, throw everything at the arbitrator at once and say, “This isn’t just as simple as I need my family time. I’m physically exhausted. I liter- ally paid for babysitters because I thought I was going to have my days off canceled. Then they gave them back to me and I didn’t. Then I was out of money.” We have story after story of how
there was such a different spec- trum of issues attached to this willy-nilly policy. That’s what we’re going to present and see what the City’s response to it all is.
More about the failings of Kim Foxx
They could put such a lid on a lot of this shit if they were will- ing to throw Kim Foxx under the bus and realize this isn’t a prob- lem we’re going to solve with even 20,000 police officers. Un- til you keep criminals in jail, this is not going to stop as long as they get to remain on the street and continue their violent ways.
They will get guns no matter how much we restrict them.
They refuse to say the crimi- nal justice system is broken and the people in charge of it need to be replaced. If they did, they would not only have a whole lot more respect from this desk, but the membership behind it. But they just refuse to do it be- cause it would be throwing one of their own under the bus no matter how incompetent she is. And she’s probably realistically more responsible for the crime in this city than even the mayor or the superintendent.
6 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ JULY 2021