Page 13 - FOP September 2016

Chicago Sun Times columnist Mary Mitch- ell wrote about a grandmother whose 14-year- old grandson was shot and killed in the Austin neighborhood.
“The police ride past the guys with big shirts who carry the guns,” the grandmother said. “They need to kick in some of these doors. The guns are right here under your nose. How do you get the guns off the street? You ride around
and stop these guys.”
In the not-so-distant past, the police would have
We are used to making notifications on our private cell phones, but now we have to step back and realize that, even though it is your private cell, the records of your use for po- lice work are discoverable. It is going to be a hard habit to break, but we must return to the way police work was done before the advent of cell phones. When you have a crime scene, ask the zone to make notifications or request a ser- geant with a department-issued cell phone to make the notifications. If those two options fail, you have to drive to
the station to use the landline to make all required no- tifications. No one can make you use your cell phone for police business unless it is a department-issued
A perfect storm
GREG BELLA
stopped those guys or kicked in that door. That was
before Black Lives Matter (BLM) started its cam-
paign to stop proactive policing. That was before months of BLM protests and attacks on the police.
That was before the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a report that the departments “stop and frisk” policy is disproportionately concentrated in the black community, and that African Americans were subjected to “72 percent of all stops.”
No one in the media bothered to say the ACLU report was wrong because each of those street stops was done in high-crime areas. The Rand Research Group is weighing in on policing. Its study shows that the Strategic Subjects List is not a fair or an accurate predictor of who will commit crime. Lori Lightfoot, Jesse Jackson, Father Pfleger, Rahm Emanuel – the fools we call politicians – the community leaders all have an opinion on how we should police, yet not one of them has any idea how to do our job.
These so-called community leaders should not try to fix something they know nothing about; they should fix the broken families, fix the broken community and stop the killings. Let the DOJ do its job; fix the Department? You can bet it will.
Mitchell says, “The community is caught in a standoff between the Chicago Police Department and the Depart- ment’s critics.” She is wrong. There is no standoff. The crit- ics have won and the result is now the world we live in. It is sad the children are paying the price. BLM started this disaster and now its members are nowhere to be found. Cell phone use
In the Paul O’Neal shooting, the family’s attorney went to court and the judge issued an order to preserve all cell phone records from the officers at the scene of that shoot- ing. In the McDonald shooting, CNN went to court seeking an order to obtain the cell phone records of all officers at the shooting scene. The court granted CNN the order and ruled CNN is entitled to all cell phone calls and texts that are job-related, including texts from officer to officer at the time of the shooting. The court also ruled that your private calls and texts, outside of police work, are not discoverable.
I know some will argue that there is an expectation to pri- vacy, and this should be fought all the way to the Supreme Court. The reality is that the records will be made available and cops are going to get hurt. Once someone is harmed, we can take legal action. But do you really want to be that case?
cell phone.
Our attorneys advise that when there is a po-
RECORDING
Secretary
lice-involved shooting, turn your cell phone off and don’t turn it on until you leave the scene. Don’t text or call about the facts of the shooting or you will find yourself answering to the department and possibly answering in court about your conversations. This applies to every officer from beat cops to detectives. We have had one Town Hall meeting at the FOP about this for the peo- ple who work at Homan Square, and we are planning other meetings around the city. Don’t put yourself at risk; there is
too much to lose.
Police oversight
The media has been reporting that the C.R. by affidavit, will be removed, and Pfleger and Jesse Jackson will sit in on contract negotiations. All of these reports are erroneous and without merit. The C.R. by affidavit is in the Collec- tive Bargaining Agreement, and a state statute to remove it must be negotiated and the state law changed. In contract negotiations, the Lodge negotiating team meets with the city negotiating team. Then, as the process moves forward, the Lodge core group meets with the city core group. The Lodge will not meet or negotiate with Pfleger or Jackson... period.
Building Maintenance
I confess I don’t know what the budget is for building maintenance, but whoever is in charge should be fired. You would be hard-pressed to find a police facility that is not in need of repairs, and we have safety complaints that have still not been addressed. We have facilities with water drip- ping from ceilings, bed bugs, broken urinals covered with plastic for years, craters in the parking lots, broken floor tiles, no air conditioning at the academy for a week when the temperature outside is 98 degrees, floors wet from hu- midity–and this is just to name a few. If we as police officers don’t do our job, or don’t do it correctly, the city is quick to strip and discipline us. So how is it that other city employ- ees are not held to the same standard? This is unaccept- able, and I don’t think we are asking for too much. 55-Medicare insurance
If you are planning to take advantage of the free retiree healthcare, you must retire before June 1, 2017. You must submit your PAR form by Oct. 1, 2016 and be 55 years of age by the date of retirement. If you retire after June 1, 2017 you
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