Page 20 - May2021
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Finally, the mayor is starting to see the light
A recent article published in the Chicago Sun- Times caught my attention. Specifically, the article started:
Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Thursday it’s a “big deal” to strip an officer of police powers and the Civilian Office of Police Account- ability needs to provide “good justifica- tion” for recommending it for the officer who shot and killed Anthony Alvarez.
The article goes on to quote the mayor as saying:
“It’s a big deal to strip somebody of their police pow- ers. And there’s got to be a good justification for do- ing it. Presumably, COPA believes that there is. But, that conversation really needs to take place between [the Superintendent and COPA].”
Wow! What a drastic change from how the City treated police officers last year. Yes, it is a big deal to strip police officers of their police powers. And until recently, the Department took that step seriously. However, after last year’s riots in the streets of Chicago, the Department chose to ignore its own protocol, and the FOP has been fighting the Department ever since.
On June 16, 2020, the FOP filed (yet another) unfair labor practice charge when the City unilaterally started relieving of- ficers of their police powers for reasons other than the most egregious circumstances, in violation of the parties’ contract and established past practices. The FOP argued that the “strip- ping” of police officers’ powers without affording any due pro-
cess rights amounts to a de facto discipline.
For many years, the Department had been following a direc-
tive titled “Relieving Department Members of Police Powers,” which stated:
A Department member who is the subject of a Com- plaint Register investigation may be relieved of their police powers and re-assigned to a less sensitive position pending the outcome of the complaint
investigation.
Some examples of specific circumstances under
which Department members had been relieved of po- lice powers in the past include incidents involving: mem- bers who had been placed under physical arrest; members who had been formally indicted by a grand jury; members who exhibited behavior indicative of apparent psychological or emotional impairment; members who tested positive for drug use or abuse; members who failed to submit to random or for- cause urine testing for drug abuse; members who were alleged to have committed a felony, crime involving moral turpitude or act of physical violence; members required to undergo or refused to submit to a mandatory physical or psychological ex- amination; and members subjected to a court order, such as an order of protection or as a condition of bond, which precluded the possession or use of a firearm or dangerous weapon. These
are all serious situations.
Further highlighting the magnitude of making such a deci-
sion, a former superintendent issued a memo to all police de- partment units captioned, “Relieving Department Members
   PAT FIORETTO
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