Page 15 - October 2019 FOP

Field Representative’s Report
Didn’t think it could get any worse?
Read on.
Recently, I had the honor of attending the annu- al Candlelight Vigil held at Gold Star Families Park, adjacent to Soldier Field. The ceremony there re- minded everyone what all police officers and their families could face on any given day during their careers. Mayor Lightfoot and Superintendent Johnson both addressed the families of the fallen officers and those who were in attendance. At that time, their words seemed both moving and sincere.
“Seemed” is the key word in that last sentence. Fast-forward a couple of weeks, and I now realized that those words were nothing more than lip service given the Depart- ment’s recent announcement that it will employ a Point and Report policy beginning Nov. 1.
What is the Point and Report policy? Simply put, it is a poli- cy dreamed up by a group of non-police designed to appease certain special interest groups while putting police officers in harm’s way. If you read the propaganda the Department has put out, you will discover that this was a negotiated agreement between the City and the Illinois attorney general. They must have left out the part about the FOP being involved in the ne- gotiations process. No, wait. My mistake.
The FOP was not allowed to be a part of these discussions. Why would they want input from the people it is going to af- fect? Make no mistake about this. Police officers are going to be hurt or possibly killed by this ridiculous policy.
What is the reasoning behind this policy change? There have there been complaints about Chicago Police Officers pointing their firearms at citizens. Care to take a guess how many complaints? A thousand? No. Five hundred? No. One hundred? Guess again. If your next guess was around 30, you get extra points in the next promotional exam. Three of those complaints were sustained. That’s right, three. Now, you can understand why we need this policy. Chicago Police Officers are out of control.
I am puzzled by Mayor Lightfoot’s disconnect from the plight of the modern-day Chicago Police Officer. After all, every Mon- day morning she is greeted with another list of former Chicago residents who now reside at the morgue. Who does she think is going to end the mayhem? The special interest groups she con- tinues to cater to? This shouldn’t have surprised me, though. After all, she indirectly displayed her utter disdain for Chicago Police Officers by disparaging FOP First Vice President Patrick Murray when she referred to him as “the FOP clown” at a city council meeting and then refused to apologize.
What puzzles me even more is Superintendent Johnson’s stance on this issue. I mistakenly believed that at some point in his career he had to have been a “working” police officer. He has to know, even if he won’t publicly admit it, that this policy is going to cause some officer to hesitate and that that hesi- tation might result in injury or death to that officer, another
Officer(s), or even some citizen(s). Even with this knowledge, he had the audacity to include the following comment in a Q-and-A sheet about this policy: Officer Safety is Paramount – Officer safety is a topic that the Superintendent takes personally and was key in his decision to draft this policy. I’ll let you judge this statement for yourselves.
Any working copper knows the ramifications of this policy. We have explained it ad infinitum at contract negotiation ses- sions. Those explanations obviously fell on deaf ears.
I am going to close with one more question. What are the primary goals of every Chicago Police Officer? Obviously, one is to serve and protect the citizens of the city of Chicago, but another primary goal of every Chicago Police Officer is to go home at the end of every tour with all of your bones intact, your eyes in their sockets and every drop of blood in your veins and arteries. This policy cannot assure either of these goals.
I can assure you that we will do everything we can to contin- ue to protect the safety of our officers.
RICH AGUILAR
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CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ OCTOBER 2019 15