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 I, like many, was frustrated with the National FOP response to the verdict in the Chauvin trial, which included the statement, “Our system of justice has worked as it should, with the prosecutors and defense presenting their evidence to the jury, which then deliber- ated and delivered a verdict. The trial was fair and due process was served.”
Do I agree with what Derek Chauvin did? No. And I think I’ve said it a few times now. It was a justified use of force up until the point that George Floyd stopped breathing. At that point, it became ex- cessive.
To say he got a fair trial is disingenuous at best. For a settlement to be read during jury selection for $27 million, to say that didn’t have some effect on jurors in any way, shape or form, I think is
short-sighted. You want to add Maxine Waters’ ignorant comments on top of that during the trial, President Biden chiming in and the fact that the jury was not sequestered when another person was shot by the police, even accidentally, and that only inflames emo- tions. It has to have some effect on a jury. There’s no way you can say otherwise.
Should he have been convicted of something? Absolutely. Be- cause I believe he had a duty to stop using force once the offender stopped resisting. I can see both sides of that argument. I see where the National FOP is trying to come from but their messaging was totally confusing at best and not received well by the membership. That the justice system process played out I would say was proba- bly a more accurate description than it was a fair process.
We have been negotiating with the City about the definition of excessive use of force and how to discipline for it. We think there is a lack of understanding from the other side about what those situ- ations entail, not really ever having been involved in them and not knowing what goes down in those situations.
I challenged all the aldermen to go through the shoot-or-no- shoot simulation and I don’t know that anybody other than Ray Lo- pez actually did. I brought that up to the city council two years ago during the public speaking section when they were talking about a settlement to a gangbanger. I was talking about the instant life- and-death decisions officers have to make and that maybe every alderman should be forced to do it before signing off on these set- tlements automatically every single time.
And like I said, I know Alderman Lopez did and he was pretty
candid. He was dead within 10 seconds because he didn’t shoot, so I think that would be eye-opening. It should be quite similar to our force review unit, who have to go for extended training about what use of force entails. I think the aldermen should be forced to take a little course on that too and understand just how combative a subject can be. Let them see firsthand just how deadly these en- counters can be when you’re handcuffing the officers from actually doing police work. But they won’t take up that offer, either.
I once had to deal with a petite woman who put up a hell of a fight with me personally, and I’m not a little guy at all. So when someone is determined to not go to jail, it makes it very difficult for an officer, single-handedly, to take control of that subject without it getting ugly sometimes. And you can’t wait for backup sometimes. But nobody takes that into account.
President’s Report: Report Shorts The Verdict
Force the issue
  Last Words
 About Lodge 7 representing members...
We’re bringing a totally different approach to what the FOP means, because we have representatives who have been through the mud, through the shit. The administration we have now, we know what it’s like to fight, to get into shootings. So it’s a totally different dynamic, and it’s a firsthand account of what really matters and how difficult this job can be for everybody that wears a badge.
About the split-second decision to shoot...
The reality is eight-tenths of a second is less time than it would take for me to slap you in the face. That’s how much reaction time an officer has to make that decision. And if you only fire one shot, that is amazing
trigger control. I don’t know how much more perfect of a response our officers can do than what they have been doing in moments like that. About how all the shootings and violence have been ravaging the city...
I keep telling them, you might get reelected, but what are you go- ing to be boss of? You’re going to be the boss of a barren town because without tax revenue from the high-end stores, from the high-end con- dos downtown and all that real estate, you have nothing. You have no roads. You have no bridges. You have no police department. You have no public safety.
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My heart still goes out to that officer in the Toledo shooting. He’s still struggling from that decision he had to make. I hope he will return to duty one day, but I don’t know if that’s a given. He was that shaken up by the incident. And it’s not because he did something wrong.
It’s because of the age of the kid. He was a gangbanger and, you know, it’s like it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that he was shoot- ing at cars passing by. It doesn’t matter that a 13-year-old was out at 2 a.m. Nobody wants to talk about that.
I don’t know when this stops or how this stops, but all I know is our officers are going to be supported. We will be there any way we can emotionally for our members. We will never forget them. My goal as the leader of this organization is to make sure that the officer’s narrative gets out accurately. We will not sit there and let people try and look at it from a different perspective than the media is going to spin.
Like I said, it’s personal. You never know when the person you are chasing is going to shoot, and my personal experience is what happened to my class commander at the academy, Brian Strauss.
Brian Strauss was killed in an alley by a gangbanger at 2 o’clock in the morning, June 30, 2001. We’re coming up on the 20-year anni- versary of Brian’s death. Just a couple of shots as he stepped into the alley and identified himself. One gets Brian in the vest. The other one gets him in the face. And he’s dead right there.
This was a 16-year old offender. So I’m so sick of hearing that with 16-year-olds or 13-year-olds, you have to do something differ- ent because of their rights. What are they doing with guns, anyway? Guns don’t ask for IDs when the trigger is pulled.
So what must never be forgotten as we honor Marco Di Franco, Clifford Martin Sr., Ronald Newman, Titus Moore, the brothers and sisters from the Cook County Sheriff’s Office and throughout Illi- nois, Brian Strauss and the 551 Chicago Police Officers lost in the line of duty is this: We never hesitate to make those split-second decisions. And that’s what saves so many lives.
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