Page 4 - December 2015

4 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ DECEMBER 2015
CR Lists Revisited and Rereleased
On Nov. 10, an extensive list of Complaint Register (CR) Numbers was posted online. Contrary to Members’ concerns, this list is not
- a batch of new CRs. In fact, these
The Department and the Corporation Council attempted to argue the importance of maintaining complaints against our Officers beyond the five- year limit. Our closing paperwork was filed on Nov. 20. We continue to remain hopeful that the arbitration and the court decision will be favorable for the membership. The language of our contract was agreed to by both parties (the City and the Lodge), signed off on in negotiations, ratified by the membership and unanimously approved by the Chicago City Council. Until the case is over and the decisions become final, we remain frus- trated that the media and others continue to be consumed with complaints against the police. The general claim for the need to post these CRs cries for more transparency and stronger Police Officer examination because the fact is they are sharing a significant amount of CRs...56,370.
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CRs resulted from litigation sur- rounding a 2009 Freedom of Infor- mation Act (FOIA) request. In the August 2014 FOP Newsletter Presi- dent’s article, we discussed this list and also shared our legal position. Rather than reprint the entire arti-
cle, we invite readers to view the original on the Lodge website. While our court case remains pending and our position has not changed, we continue to fight any future release of CRs that vio- late our contract. We strongly believe the Depart- ment must comply with the agreed-to language under Section 8.4 (Use and Destruction of File Material), which clearly states:
We cannot leave this subject without speaking to the overall significance, or lack thereof, when it comes to these CRs being released for public review. When the list of CRs is accurately exam- ined, and the examiner takes into consideration the complete population of active Officers, what appears on the surface to be significant winds up being anything but. The 56,370 CRs that were included in this most recent release were collected over more than an 11-year span. When you take into consideration the population of Officers working on the street during this same time span, and then take into account the amount of com- plaints that were filed, the “severity and concern” of this report is greatly diminished. When the numbers are accurately crunched, the average amount of allegations filed against an individual Officer winds up being fewer than two complaints per Officer, per year. That’s correct ladies and gen- tlemen, fewer than two complaints against each Officer over each year an Officer works. Once bro- ken down and truthfully examined, the total com- plaints against the total population tells the true story. Now you tell me how significant those num- bers are?
All disciplinary investigation files, disci- plinary history card entries, IPRA and IAD disciplinary records, and any other disci- plinary record or summary of such record other than records related to Police Board cases, will be destroyed five years after the date of the incident or the date upon which the violation is discovered, whichever is longer...
There are certain exceptions to the destruction of CR files that extend beyond the five-year limit, but maintaining a list of CRs that encompass an Officer’s entire career is in direct violation of our Agreement.
In any case, the posting of the allegations on the “Invisible Institute” website is completely separate of, and has no direct impact on, the Lodge’s litiga- tion we have been engaged in since last year. To those readers who may not remember the specifics of this proceeding, Judge Flynn stayed the further release of CRs that are older than the five years the contract allows. Judge Flynn also allowed the stay to continue until the arbitration process exhausted itself. Last June, the Lodge put forward an argument to Arbitrator Roumell about why the contract needs to be followed and the files need to be destroyed.
Sergeant Promotion Update
During the past several weeks, the Lodge has actively engaged in fighting for a much more fair