Approval of a sweeping police reform bill in the waning hours of Illinois’ lame duck legislative session turned up the heat on the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police on Wednesday to cut a contract deal with Mayor Lori Lightfoot or risk having it imposed on them.
Championed by the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus, the 764-page bill passed the House and Senate on Wednesday and is headed for Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk.
It doesn’t eliminate qualified immunity for police officers, which would have made it easier for officers to be sued for actions they take on the street. But the other reforms in the bill will dramatically strengthen Lightfoot’s hand in negotiations with the union representing rank-and-file Chicago Police Department officers, whose contract expired nearly four years ago.
“The city hopes this incentivizes the FOP to come to a quick agreement that will permit retroactive payments to police officers as well as memorialize accountability proposals that we’ve made,” the city’s chief labor negotiator Jim Franczek told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Police officers would need to be licensed by the state. No longer would police disciplinary procedures or protections be the subject of collective bargaining. Negotiations would effectively be confined to wages, benefits and working conditions.
Anonymous complaints against police officers would be permitted, stripping away the requirement that accusers sign a sworn affidavit. Inspector General Joe Ferguson has argued that too many investigations are dropped because accusers are afraid to sign their names to complaints.
No longer would officers be allowed to wait 24 hours before making a statement after a shooting. Nor would they be allowed to view video of that shooting before being questioned.
The bill also includes a host of other criminal-justice reforms, including ending cash bail. In 2017, Cook County Chief Judge Tim Evans reformed the county’s bail system by encouraging judges to set bond as low as possible, but the legislation goes far beyond that push.
Under the bill, criminal defendants will no longer be required to post any cash bail to be released before trial. The only exceptions would be those defendants whom judges deem a risk to public safety or a risk to flee before trial.
Body cameras would be mandatory for all police officers in Illinois and cops would be held accountable for turning them on, along with the audio. Body cams are already worn by most Chicago Police officers, although there have been repeated and high-profile incidents in which the audio is missing.
But outside Chicago, body cams are hit-and-miss. That’s prompted the Illinois Fraternal Order to Police to call the statewide body-cam edict an “unfunded mandate” at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has severely strained local revenues.
The reforms swept through the lame duck session like a tidal wave after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers over Memorial Day weekend forced a racial reckoning across the nation.
Two Legislative Black Caucus members, Chicago Democrats Sen. Elgie Sims and Rep. Justin Slaughter, drafted the legislation. Although the Illinois Senate passed the bill at 4:45 a.m. Wednesday, both have insisted it was not rammed through, pointing to the 30 hours of hearings they held on criminal justice reform.
A law enforcement coalition that includes the Illinois FOP State Lodge, Chicago FOP Lodge 7, the Illinois Sheriff’s Association and the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police begged to differ.
“In the dark of night, Illinois legislators made Illinois less safe,” their joint statement said.
The group said it had been negotiating “in good faith” with Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul on a bill “that would make great strides to modernize law enforcement,” only to have the rug pulled out from under them with reforms they had not agreed to “dumped into this monster bill.”
“The result is a betrayal of the public trust that gives many more advantages to criminals than the police,” the statement said.
“It ties the hands of police officers while pursuing suspects and making arrests, and allows criminals to run free while out on bail.”
That ominous warning that the legislation “makes communities less safe” comes against the backdrop of skyrocketing Chicago violence. Chicago ended 2020 with 769 murders, a more than 50% increase over the year before and one of the most violent years in a generation. Carjackings are up by more than 135%.
Pritzker now has 60 days to either sign the bill, issue an amendatory veto or do nothing, allowing the legislation to become law automatically.
That means John Catanzara, fiery president of the Chicago FOP, has a small window to cut a deal with Lightfoot, with whom he has done constant battle. They’re continuing to negotiate over a new contract. The old one expired in 2017.
City Hall sources said that, at a minimum, Catanzara must accept the disciplinary and accountability changes Lightfoot won from an independent arbitrator in a separate contract for police supervisors.
That award allowed anonymous complaints against police supervisors to be investigated whenever the inspector general, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability or the Chicago Police Department’s Bureau of Internal Affairs determine there is “objective evidence” to support the claim.
To end the code of silence that former Mayor Rahm Emanuel famously acknowledged after court-ordered release of the Laquan McDonald shooting video in 2015, the city also is seeking language encouraging police officers to report wrongdoing by fellow officers and allow CPD to reward them.
The Lightfoot administration also wants it noted in the official record whenever a police representative or attorney for the accused “interferes with or interrupts” interrogations.
The city is also seeking a change to the “lie-or-die” edict known as Rule 14. It would allow the city to consider all statements made by an accused officer — before and after he or she views a video of the incident — in determining whether that officers lied under oath.
