Page 31 - APRIL 2019 FOP MAGAZINE

State of the Union
It’s been a long road filled with lots of long days, but President Graham and the Lodge 7 leadership are determined to keep the Chicago FOP moving forward
Y esterday was another 18-hour workday for Lodge 7 President Kevin Graham. He started by addressing matters related to con- tract negotiations at 5:30 a.m. and ended by visiting a roll call in 019 that left him heading home at 11:30 p.m.
The long days are part of the job, but the best part of the job for Graham and the Lodge 7 leadership team comes when visit- ing the roll calls. If you recall, 10 days after being sworn in as president on April 12, 2017, he showed up on a Friday night at a roll call in 015 to meet with the officers working on tac teams.
This is how he has been delivering on perhaps the foremost objective for Chicago FOP Lodge 7: To be the voice of all police officers working in the city and trying to make sure they are being treated fairly. It has been a daily grind and not always a successful one. But in the two years since the Graham-led leadership team took over, Lodge 7 has fended off a federal consent decree, scored a number of triumphs against the Chicago Police Board, upgraded legal defense, advocated for officer safety, pushed back against a biased news media, anti-police groups and elected officials and pushed 24/7 to respond to members.
As he embarks on the final year of his current term, President Graham took a few moments from another busy day to respond to questions about the triumphs and tribulations, the checkpoints and challenges impacting the current state of the union.
How do you look back on things when you took over two years ago?
I remember thinking that I have a lot of work to do.
We came in here with so many things that were looming, in- cluding a federal consent decree, which we later held off. With the help of (First Vice President) Pat Murray and (Second Vice President) Marty Preib, we went to Washington, D.C., to make our case to the Department of Justice. And they listened to us.
I realized that there were a number of issues that had to be addressed immediately. We were facing Jason Van Dyke’s trial and it seemed like every officer who had come before the police review board during previous 18 months had been fired.
Regarding the state of the union in 2019, what are you positive about?
We have a number of good attorneys who are slugging it out in the courtroom for the FOP. Tim Grace and Jim Thomp- son have been leading the charge, and as we speak, Tim won a case in front of the police board last night. Jim McKay, Will Fahy, Todd Pugh and Tom Breen showed how our attorneys are working together to gain the acquittal of our three officers in the Laquan McDonald investigation. And Darren O’Brien and Jen- nifer Blagg were just outstanding in Jason’s sentencing. Because of them, we have high hopes for Jason’s appeal.
For the first time, we’ve held the media accountable. And un-
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Things have not been perfect, but we’ve done pretty well.
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