Mayor Lori Lightfoot has appointed an interim leader to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, the agency that investigates police misconduct.
Andrea Kersten, 42, was appointed Monday, according to COPA spokesman Ephraim Eaddy. Kersten previously held a top post at the office under the leadership of Sydney Roberts, who resigned two weeks ago.
Lightfoot had been openly critical of COPA’s ability to complete investigations in a timely manner under Roberts’ leadership.
She was particularly outspoken about COPA’s more-than-18-month investigation into the raid on a wrong home that forced a crying and pleading Anjanette Young to stand naked before Chicago police officers.
Lightfoot denied demanding Roberts’ resignation. But she has also made no secret of being “extraordinarily unhappy with the way that they’ve handled a number of things.”
“COPA needs to be much more responsive. Much more mindful about the fact that it carries a very important position and role in police accountability. We’ve got to make sure that they move forward in a thorough, but expeditious way because, as everyone knows, justice delayed is justice denied,” the mayor said on the day Roberts resigned.
Lightfoot, in the coming days, will announce the process for selecting a permanent replacement, a spokeswoman for the mayor said Tuesday.
Kersten, a former prosecutor, started at COPA as a supervisor in the legal department and worked her way up. She developed the protocols COPA uses to investigate domestic violence allegations against cops.
Sun-Times City Hall Reporter Fran Spielman reported last week that police reform advocates are mobilizing to stop Lightfoot from appointing the chief operating officer of the Public Building Commission to run COPA.
Lori Lypson’s only experience in investigating police wrongdoing was more than 20 years ago when she spent a year as supervising investigator for the Chicago Police Department’s Office of Professional Standards, a predecessor agency of COPA.
Lightfoot was the chief administrator of OPS at the time.
Lightfoot and Lypson teamed up again in May 2005 at the city’s Department of Procurement Services.
At the time, Lightfoot and longtime friend Mary Dempsey were sent into Procurement Services by Mayor Richard M. Daley to clean up the mess after the Hired Truck and minority contracting scandals.
