Page 32 - June2020 FOP Magazine

Members of the Chicago FOP Executive Board stand together for a team photo at the Lodge 7 installation dinner.
had less than half that. In May, a rash of Department discipline led to 12 officers being stripped of their police powers.
Accordingly, the Lodge was flooded with calls from members realizing that their livelihood or their freedom could be snatched away. Second Vice President Dan Gorman had been the only of the union’s seven field representatives who had worked in the office previously, so there hoped to be a learning curve to re- spond to such a rush.
But there was no time.
“The anti-police narrative had become so strong that members wanted us to come out swinging,” Gorman explained. “John has been giving them what they have wanted for the past decade. Some thought that he should have some out swinging from the beginning. But like I said before, he has a method to his mad- ness. He had a method of waiting for the right time.”
The need for such a response is what compelled Dan Goetz to run for trustee. Elected to his first term, the patrol officer in 025 has seen what the lack of leader- ship from the upper echelon of the De- partment and the mayor’s office is doing to street coppers.
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INSTALLATION CONTINUED FROM PAGE 31
the Lodge response to the mayor’s desire to eliminate sworn affidavits and autho- rizing anonymous complaints, the FOP president noted that in addition to being against state law, that would basically paralyze officers’ ability to do their jobs. Which has come up as a course of action.
“I’m not telling them not to do police work,” Catanzara told the Sun-Times. “But I hope they just slow down and de- cide, ‘Is this necessary?’ before they do it.”
Installation conversation
The installation dinner captured an understandably subdued aura, consid- ering it had to be postponed nearly four months, due to the pandemic. Board members attending took a moment to enjoy a meal with their families – some- thing few Chicago Police Officers have had enough of – but the event also pro- vided a timely exhale in the midst of nonstop responding.
A sensationalized media benchmark to measure any new administration is the eminent “first 100 days.” Lodge 7 has
32 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ JULY 2020