Politics
Police Oversight Board Planned No Confidence Vote Before Chicago Police Misconduct Agency Chief Resigned
Ex-COPA chief slams allegations as unfair, unfounded
Andrea Kersten, chief administrator of Chicago’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability, appears on “Chicago Tonight” on June 28, 2023. (WTTW News)
The head of the agency charged with investigating Chicago Police Department misconduct resigned two weeks before the city’s police oversight board planned to take a vote of no confidence in her leadership, according to a letter obtained by WTTW News through a Freedom of Information Act request.
“The commission believes that strengthening trust in (the Civilian Office of Police Accountability) now requires new leadership,” Commission for Public Safety and Accountability President Anthony Driver, Jr. and Vice President Remel Terry wrote, saying the commission had identified “critical failures of leadership (that) seriously undermine the quality and integrity of COPA’s work.”
Read the full letter from Driver and Terry.
Andrea Kersten resigned Feb. 13 as chief administrator of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, known as COPA, 16 days after Driver and Terry informed her the commission planned to recommend her termination for a number of failures they said had compromised Chicago’s police accountability system, eroding public confidence in policing and police oversight.
“Over the past year, the commission has had growing concerns about your leadership and judgment and the impact they have had on COPA,” Driver and Terry wrote in the letter dated Jan. 28 that said the commission, known as the CCPSA, had identified “a recurring pattern of conduct that reflects a lack of professionalism and effective leadership.”
The letter gave Kersten until Feb. 27 to submit a letter to the commission addressing their concerns before a vote of no confidence could take place. Kersten’s last day on the job was Feb. 28.
On the same day Kersten announced she would step down, Kersten told Driver and Terry in a letter she had done nothing that merited a vote of no confidence.
“I emphatically reject the allegations against myself and my agency’s work as patently unfounded,” Kersten wrote, calling the probe into her leadership “unfair” and unfounded.
The claims made by Driver and Terry “lack any factual basis; they are conclusory generalizations based on self-serving characterizations of what unknown individuals said about purported incidents,” Kersten wrote.
“These failures call into question CCPSA’s impartiality, motives, dedication to veracity and basis for seeking the no-confidence vote,” Kersten wrote.
Driver and Terry acknowledged in their letter that Kersten had been the subject of intense criticism from those who oppose efforts to hold officers accountable for misconduct.
“But most of the complainants from whom the commission heard gave commissioners no reason to doubt their commitment to COPA’s mission,” Driver and Terry wrote. “Indeed, many stated they were motivated to bring their concerns to the commission precisely because they are committed to robust oversight and effective accountability and believe that COPA’s current leadership is undermining those critical goals.”
However, Kersten said the actions of the CCPSA has “harmed COPA’s reputation” and hindered reform efforts as CPD struggles to comply with the federal court order known as the consent decree that requires CPD to stop routinely violating Black and Latino residents’ constitutional rights.
“Now that a chief administrator has finally begun fulfilling these mandates that became enshrined in the consent decree — to do the hard things that the city asked of it — CCPSA has apparently decided that it wishes that COPA and the city’s accountability system retreat from this reform pathway,” Kersten wrote. “CCPSA has rendered one of the hardest jobs in city government even more difficult.”
Driver and Terry criticized Kersten’s handling of several high-profile investigations, including COPA’s probe of allegations that a Chicago police officer had sexual contact with an underage migrant forced to sleep on the floor of the Ogden (10th) Police District headquarters, which patrols Lawndale and Little Village. COPA opened that probe in July 2023, and closed it in September 2023, after determining the allegations were unfounded.
“Multiple people with first-hand knowledge report that off-the-record interviews were held with witnesses, including a desk sergeant, and leadership requested that case notes not be filed in the Case Management System” in violation of COPA’s rules, Driver and Terry wrote. “In another case, members of COPA’s leadership directed that an investigative note be deleted from the (Case Management System.)”
That prompted complaints to be filed with Inspector General Deborah Witzburg, according to the letter from Driver and Terry.
Kersten told the CCPSA during a closed-door meeting on Dec. 9 that she was unaware of those allegations, according to the letter from Driver and Terry.
That represents “a failure sufficiently to ascertain knowledge about those allegations or a missed opportunity to hold members of your leadership team sufficiently accountable,” Driver and Terry wrote.
However, Kersten wrote that there is no evidence that the off-the-record interviews even took place.
The commission latched “onto some purported, isolated mistake, then unfairly extrapolates it to be a seminal flaw in my leadership,” Kersten wrote.
In October 2024, WTTW News reported that COPA identified a troubling pattern of undocumented and aggressive traffic stops on the city’s West Side at least a year before four police officers shot and killed Dexter Reed shortly after he shot and wounded an officer on March 21, 2024, but took no action.
After that story was published, Driver told WTTW News that the CCPSA had “a responsibility to ensure that COPA operates at the highest possible standards” and takes the necessary steps “to help Chicago achieve the accountability system we all deserve.”
“This failure may have put Chicago residents at greater risk of harm and resulted in a missed opportunity to address a frequent source of complaints,” Driver and Terry wrote. “This demonstrates a failure of leadership, compromises public safety, and undermines COPA’s mission to address patterns of police misconduct, and make policy recommendations to improve CPD and reduce incidents of police misconduct.”
Kersten does not address the details of that incident in her letter, but defends her record of examining systemic issues facing the police department.
Driver and Terry also blasted Kersten for her public statements about open probes, saying they created “the perception that COPA lacks objectivity and sometimes reaches conclusions before it has gathered and evaluated all the evidence.”
“For example, in the Dexter Reed case, you made public statements that questioned whether police officers involved in the case had been truthful,” Driver and Terry wrote. “While the commission agrees with the need for transparency, the subsequent media tour that followed the video’s release called into question COPA’s judgement and impartiality in the investigation, directly jeopardizing COPA’s ability to fulfill its core mission to conduct just and fair investigations.”
That echoes criticism leveled against Kersten by Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling, who said Kersten acted “irresponsibly” by publicly questioning whether the officers lied about why they stopped Reed’s car shortly before the fatal shooting.
Officers told COPA investigators at the scene of the fatal shooting they stopped Reed because they believed he was not wearing his seat belt, a violation, according to reports signed by the officers involved and released by COPA because they are public records.
In a letter to Snelling, Kersten suggested those reports contained false information.
“Specifically, COPA is uncertain how the officers could have seen this seat belt violation given their location relative to (Reed’s) vehicle and the dark tints on (his) vehicle windows,” Kersten wrote. “This evidence raises serious concerns about the validity of the traffic stop that led to the officers’ encounter with (Reed).”
Kersten wrote that her statements about the Reed shooting were “fully accurate.”
“Under my leadership, we have strived to show the people of this Chicago that we are living up to our obligation to be transparent,” Kersten wrote. “Indeed, my transparency efforts were not a based on a whim or self-promotion, as detractors of reform and transparency claim. It was what the city and its communities had been demanding for decades.”
Driver and Terry wrote Kersten also adequately failed “to address a workplace culture that harms employee morale, risks driving away experienced and qualified staff members, and raises concerns among some staff members about the quality and integrity of COPA decision-making.”
Kersten wrote that when she took over COPA in 2021 she “inherited an organization burdened by the turmoil, distrust and inefficiency.” After the police murder of Laquan McDonald, former Mayor Rahm Emanuel created COPA to replace the Independent Police Review Authority. Between 2007 and 2016, IPRA probed more than 400 police shootings. The agency ruled just two were not justified.
The CCPSA launched a nationwide search to find Kersten’s replacement and promised to consult with Mayor Brandon Johnson. The commission’s nominee must be confirmed by the Chicago City Council after a hearing before the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, according to city ordinance.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
