CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — The Chicago City Council may have triggered a court fight after it rejected an arbitrator’s ruling that would allow officers accused of the most serious cases of wrongdoing to have their cases decided by closed-door arbitration, rather than by police board hearings, as currently happens.
The Fraternal Order of Police argued that Illinois law protects those rights, but Chicago alderpersons have suggested changing the law — and Mayor Brandon Johnson didn’t argue.
“If you’re asking this body to just simply accept something because it’s law, that would be the antithesis to how this stage even exists,” he said. “Could you imagine if women just accepted the law and did not continue to pursue justice? Black folks, or brown folks, or Asians?”
Following the vote, Chicago FOP President John Catanzara said “the fight is not done.”
“They don’t care about labor law, and it's very obvious,” he said. “Every single one of those no votes [was] a vote against labor, and that should frighten everybody. Today it’s us; tomorrow it could be your union.”
During discussion at City Council, Southwest Side Ald. Silvana Tabares (23rd) insisted that the FOP is in favor of transparency in the arbitration process, even though the proposal is for closed doors.
“The union has put forward items to increase transparency in the arbitration process, acknowledging that no officer should be above the law, but neither should they be below it,” she said.
Rogers Park Ald. Maria Hadden (49th), meanwhile, scoffed at those who said the City couldn’t afford a losing court fight over transparency in the arbitration process.
“If you’re concerned about us spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a lawsuit, then maybe you would agree that we need to hold bad police officers accountable — publicly,” she said.
On last week’s edition of “At Issue,” Chicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg told WBBM that members of the Chicago Police Department and members of the public deserve “a transparent disciplinary system.”
Even if the City doesn’t have cooperation from the FOP, Witzburg said there are steps that Chicago can take to ensure the process is more transparent.
The mayor said the key is that the rest of the police contract represents the product of hard work and good agreement between the City and the FOP.
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