Oversight Report: Chicago PD Doesn’t Care Its Officers Are Involved With Right Wing Extremists

Legal Issues

from the thin-blue-line-erased-yet-again dept

The city of Chicago’s Inspector General is back at it, pointing out things are very, very wrong with the Chicago Police Department. Not that anyone needed any reminders. A long history of disinterest in disciplining misbehaving officers has led to everything from an off-the-books black site operation to more than 100 misconduct charges being racked up by officers involved in a single wrong house raid.

Like lots of other law enforcement agencies, the Chicago PD has officers who are members of far right extremist groups. A lot of this came to light during the FBI’s investigation of the January 6 insurrection, where it was discovered that law enforcement officers from all over the nation traveled to Washington DC — not to help secure the Capitol building or protect those inside, but to engage in criminal activity of their own.

The Chicago PD is no exception. This latest report details how many officers are involved with far right groups like the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters. It also details how little the PD has done to root out the potential insurrectionists in its midst. (via Chicago Fox affiliate FOX 32)

The report [PDF] leads off with the responses it received from the Chicago PD as well as the mayor’s office. There’s no good news/bad news thing going on here. It’s all bad news, and the lack of accountability apparently will begin at the top:

In a written response attached at Appendix B, the Mayor’s Office reports that “the Johnson Administration and the Chicago Police Department remain fully committed to rooting out extremist, anti-government, and biased organizations in our law enforcement ranks. There is no place in the CPD for those who participate in such organizations.” The Mayor’s Office further says that it is“committed to working with CPD and across departments and agencies to ensure that there is a comprehensive and meaningful approach to preventing, identifying, and eliminating extremist, anti-government, and biased associations within CPD” and says that it will “work with” a variety of entities in this pursuit. OIG appreciates the Mayor’s Office’s response, but notes that the Mayor’s Office neither accepts OIG’s recommendation nor commits to any specific action at all.

“Fully committed” up to the point the response was sent to the OIG’s office. No further commitment has been stated or noted.

After detailing the history of and harmful acts committed by far right extremist groups (the three detailed are the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters), the OIG moves on to point out that the CPD has, in the past, rooted out cops with ties to bigoted extremist groups. You know, like the KKK, to name just one.

More than half a century ago, CPD initiated an investigation into the alleged memberships of multiple CPD members in the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). One such member was Officer Donald Heath, the admitted grand dragon of the KKK in Illinois at the time.

[…]

In the Police Board’s findings, they found Heath and two other CPD members violated Rule 2 by being associated with an extremist group, the KKK, and fired them.

That was 50 years ago. Apparently, being involved with white supremacists (or entities that embrace those views along with their own stated goals) was an offense worth of termination. Five decades later, things have not improved. They’ve gotten worse.

As the OIG notes, allowing officers to join extremist groups — especially ones that consider lawbreaking an essential part of their “resistance” and consider themselves to be, if not actual white nationalists, closely aligned with their philosophies — further damages already tenuous relationships with the communities these officers serve. Looking the other way only encourages more officers to associate with extremists, which is the sort of thing that leads directly to officers committing federal crimes while attempting to overturn a lawful national election.

Here’s the sort of thing that’s far more common now, despite the rules on associating with extremist groups having gone unchanged over the past five decades.

BIA [Bureau of Internal Affairs] reached a finding of Not Sustained on the allegation that the accused [officer] was a member of a “far-right terror group,” determining that no evidence existed that the accused officer committed any misconduct on duty. However, BIA’s analysis failed to acknowledge that relevant CPD rules explicitly apply to both on- and off-duty conduct. Additionally, BIA’s analysis did not consider whether the officer’s membership in the Oath Keepers, by itself, constituted a violation of CPD policy.

OIG recommended that BIA reopen the investigation to conduct any necessary additional investigative activity including, but not limited to, re-interviewing the accused member to determine what, if any, rules, regulations, or policies of CPD he refused to obey because he believed them to be illegal or unconstitutional according to the precepts of the Oath Keepers.

OIG also recommended that BIA conduct and document an appropriate analysis of whether the accused member’s membership in the Oath Keepers violated any of the Department’s Rules and Regulations, including but not limited to Rules 2 and 3. BIA accepted OIG’s recommendation and reopened its investigation. After meeting with OIG to discuss the case, BIA reclosed the investigation leaving its original findings unchanged.

All three of the groups mentioned in this report have their own mission statements that assert members will choose to ignore or disobey laws they don’t agree with and, if need be, utilize violence to achieve those aims. No cop shop should desire to employ people who think only certain laws should be respected and consider all the laws they don’t personally like to be optional.

There’s also the citation of “Rule 2.” Rule 2 has been on the PD’s books for years. It’s the same one that was used more than 50 years ago to fire two officers for being members of the KKK. Without rewriting the rule, the official stance at the CPD is that simply being a member of groups like this is not, in and of itself, a violation of this rule. CPD officials have made this declaration despite the rule expressly forbidding all kinds of things that might make the department look less trustworthy:

This Rule applies to both the professional and private conduct of all members. It prohibits any and all conduct which is contrary to the letter and spirit of Departmental policy or goals or which would reflect adversely upon the Department or its members. It includes not only all unlawful acts by members but also all acts, which although not unlawful in themselves, would degrade or bring disrespect upon the member or the Department, including public and open association with persons of known bad or criminal reputation in the community unless such association is in the performance of police duties. It also includes any action contrary to the stated policy, goals, rules, regulations, orders, or directives of the Department.

The report then notes it can only find one case where this rule was applied to an officer in recent years. Conveniently enough, it was used to discipline a recruit (the most expendable of law enforcement officers) for saying something that could be construed as gang-related.

CPD has recently applied Rule 2 to a member’s association with a group—specifically, a street gang—undermining any suggestion that it is unable to do so. In August 2023, a CPD Lieutenant recommended termination of a CPD Recruit for using “street gang terminology” in violation of Rule 2 and Rule 6- “Disobedience of an order or directive, whether written or oral.” “In less than two weeks after being hired by CPD, the request was granted and the Recruit was separated from the Police Department.”

It was alleged that the CPD Recruit, while standing in formation in a hallway at CPD’s Education and Training Division, stated, “on BD, y’all gonna make me bug up in this bitch. I’m trying to hold this hood shit in but y’all bringing it out on me on BD,” after allegedly being bumped into by another recruit and their duffle bag. The CPD Lieutenant in their termination request wrote that they were aware of the phrase “On BD” to be “common street gang terminology used by members of the Black Disciples street gang to swear upon their allegiance to said gang…”

That is a justifiable application of Rule 2. But it only seems to apply to (presumably) black recruits or those who use gang terminology used by black gang members. The CPD has told the OIG’s office Rule 2 just doesn’t apply to (presumably) white police officers who wear Three Percenter insignias while on patrol or spend their free time hanging out with bigots and white nationalists who have plainly stated they’ll break the laws they don’t like and physically harm those trying to enforce the disliked laws.

There’s a good chance CPD brass considers membership in the Proud Boys, et al to be a feature, not a bug. After all, plenty of police officials have openly stated they won’t enforce laws they don’t like (mainly things like gun control efforts or sanctuary city statutes). And there’s no law enforcement agency in the land that doesn’t generously deploy double standards to protect the worst officers they employ. The fact that these extremist groups direct most of their animosity against liberals, minorities, and LGBTQ+ persons is just icing on the cake. It aligns with the implicit biases that have plagued law enforcement agencies since their inception.

The refusal of the CPD to treat this issue seriously shows it’s unwilling to reach across the divide it’s created to earn the trust of the communities it serves. The mayor’s office is no better, offering up nothing but vague statements about doing something while offering up nothing in the way of actual improvement. This report highlights a problem and serves the purpose of making the public more aware of endemic law enforcement issues. Unfortunately, Chicago residents are likely already well-aware how much they’re being underserved by the PD and city leaders. In the end, it’s just documentation of business as usual. And no one with the power to change things for the better seems to have any interest in actually making that happen.

Filed Under: chicago, chicago police department, extremists, oversight, police accountability, police misconduct