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CHICAGO LODGE 7
Official Magazine
President’s Report
FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE CHICAGO LODGE #7
EXECUTIVE BOARD
KEVIN GRAHAM
President
PATRICK J. MURRAY
First Vice President
Martin Preib
Second Vice President
Jay R. Ryan
Third Vice President
Greg Bella
Recording Secretary
Michael P. Garza
Financial Secretary
John Capparelli
Treasurer
Dean C. Angelo, Sr.
Immediate Past President
Sergeants-at-Arms
William Burns James Jakstavich Michael Mette
Trustees
Harold Brown Andrew Cantore Mark Donahue William Dougherty Pat Duckhorn Sergio Escobedo Fernando Flores Joseph Gentile Danny Gorman Ken Hauser Rick King Frank Quinn Carlos Salazar Ron Shogren Mark Tamlo Daniel Trevino Michael Underwood
Field Representatives
Robert Bartlett Rich Aguilar
Politicians, the media, COPA and the public have a lot to learn
Greetings, FOP brothers and sisters.
I want to discuss education. No, not schools.
It has been a very busy month concerning the consent decree. Lodge 7 has ex-
changed language with the Illinois Attorney General’s Office to make sure that police officers’ rights under the FOP collective bargaining agreement are protected. Such an agreement is common in almost all consent decrees.
This consent decree is different, however, because as far as we know, it is the first time that the state’s attorney general has tried to put a police department under the scrutiny of a federal judge. As I have said, this is a waste of taxpayer dollars, and it is a waste of City resources. Furthermore, it is an insult to the hardworking police officers
who put their lives on the line for the City every day.
The narrative of systemic police corruption prompting the need for a consent decree is false.
It does not hold up to reasonable investigation. In fact, this narrative, pushed by a corrupt media machine and ambitious politicians, is costing lives. A recent study about the “ACLU Effect” points out that reforms based upon this narrative are costing the lives of the people these police critics are always claiming they are fighting for.
The real problem in Chicago is that criminals are getting a pass. New bond policies under Cook County State’s Attorney Kimberly Foxx, for example, allow offenders to get back on the street too easily.
Then there is the narrative claiming a code of silence within the Department. We have been accused by the president of the police accountability board, Lori Lightfoot, that there is a code of silence. As I have stated, this is ridiculous.
Why doesn’t she discuss the mounting evidence of biased, crooked investigations at COPA, the agency that once promised transparent investigations? Why hasn’t she discussed the third-party investigators that COPA kept hidden in the Rialmo shooting? Why doesn’t she discuss the mount- ing evidence of false allegations against the police in the Chicago news media?
Lightfoot portrays herself as a reformer, but that is not how our members see her. We see her as another politician building a career on the backs of hardworking officers.
Chicago Lodge 7 has been working diligently to protect our both active and retired members from unfair accusations. It is not only active members facing scrutiny from the public, supervisors, the media and politicians. It is also our retired members.
Many of our retired detectives are being called to answer questions about cases they investi- gated many years ago. If you are called on such a case, please contact the Lodge. Should you need representation, we do not forget about our members simply because they are not patrolling the streets anymore.
I do have one request: Whether you are an active police member or a retired member, keep a close eye on the politicians who claim to support law enforcement yet show no signs of backing us up. We can no longer afford to have those people as elected officials claiming to work for the public interest.
Many politicians support law enforcement and have done so time and time again. They are friends who are thinking about what is best for society. The politicians who don’t like the police don’t get that we are out there putting our lives on the line every day. We are hoping to make it to our pension, but there are no guarantees. Putting on a vest, checking your gear and doing your best to come home at night to your family is not exactly like going to the office. But our members already know that.
I only wish that people in positions of authority could get a glimpse of the hardworking and in- credibly honest police officers who keep the City safe every day. That’s the education that is really needed for the politicians and members of the public who just don’t get it. d
KEVIN GRAHAM
CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ APRIL 2018 5