23 July 2014

In response to the City of Chicago releasing CR information, I spoke with our attorney to see what course of action could be taken to stop the release of this material. Unfortunately, the unions have no standing in the matter. This stems from an Illinois Appellate Court decision that the City has accepted, thereby ending this litigation. No local court will grant an injunction in opposition to a case that has already been ruled upon by a higher court. I also spoke with FOP President Dean Angelo who is as frustrated with this issue as I am. The FOP stated that they do not have any legal grounds or position to file an appeal or otherwise intervene.

All of this means, is that lists of Police Department members, who have had a number of CR numbers during a specified time period, will be released to requestors due to the Freedom of Information Act. These lists contain no more than officers names, CR numbers, and findings. Let’s face it. We all know that working police officers have a tendency to receive complaints. People that get arrested are not happy to be customers of the district lock ups. Parents are not happy that their “little angels” were arrested. They complain and an investigation ensues, and in almost all of these complaints, the officers are cleared. We’ve all been subjects of this process. To be on a list of officers that were subjects of CR investigations during a certain time period simply means that you were the working police at that time. It means nothing else. We know that we were doing our job, and at the end of the day, we can be proud of what we did. No FOIA request, or press clipping can take that away from us.