Crime & Law
CPD Failed to Document Suspensions, Reprimands: Watchdog
Chicago Police Department officials failed to document more than half of all reprimands of officers and more than a third of all suspensions between 2016 and 2021, according to an audit released Tuesday by the city’s watchdog.
CPD’s inaccurate and incomplete disciplinary histories makes it impossible to trust that police officers are being held responsible for misconduct, Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said.
“Chicago has a fundamental obligation to administer a robust, transparent police disciplinary system in which both members of the public and members of CPD have reason to be confident,” Witzburg said in a statement. “There can be no meaningful, credible accountability — and we cannot hope to foster public trust — if we cannot, at the most basic level, actually ensure that discipline is implemented where we have found misconduct; this is where the rubber meets the road.”
The inspector general’s audit examined all sustained disciplinary cases against CPD officers between April 13, 2016, and April 13, 2021. CPD leaders told Witzburg the department has significantly improved the way it tracks officer discipline.
Officers found to have violated department policy can face four levels of discipline: violation noted, reprimand, suspension and separation.
Former CPD Supt. Eddie Johnson took over CPD in April 2016 and was fired in December 2019. Former Supt. David Brown led CPD from April 2020 until March 2023.
Although police brass “appropriately recorded” orders to fire officers, the audit said, “CPD could not provide documentation for over half of the finalized reprimands and over a third of finalized suspensions.”
Witzburg attributes some of the poor record-keeping to “gaps in the coordination among city departments which is necessary to implement different types of final discipline,” according to the audit.
CPD, the Department of Human Resources and the Office of Public Safety Administration, created in 2020, each have responsibilities when it comes to suspensions and terminations, according to the audit.
Those departments “do not share a common understanding of discipline reporting and recording obligations, jeopardizing the completeness and reliability of discipline records,” according to the audit.
In addition, there is no official record of when officers use banked vacation time to serve suspensions, according to the audit.
That could result in an inaccurate record of the actual length of the issued suspension, which could obscure “a member’s accurate disciplinary history,” according to the audit.
In turn, that could make it impossible for police brass to ensure that officers who are repeatedly found to have violated department rules face longer suspensions and tougher discipline than first-time offenders.
There are no “defined policies or procedures to ensure fair and consistent application” of that option, according to the audit.
Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling has the power to allow officers to used banked vacation days to serve suspensions.
Under the terms of a federal court order known as the consent decree, CPD must change the way it trains, supervises and disciplines officers.
Six and a half years after the consent decree was implemented, CPD had fully complied with 22% of its requirements by the end of June, according to the court-appointed monitoring team charged with keeping track of reform efforts.
In response to the inspector general’s audit, CPD General Counsel Scott Spears said it relies on “old data that does not reflect the current state of how CPD maintains police disciplinary records.”
“CPD has made substantial progress in these areas since 2021, which the report does not reflect or evaluate,” Spears wrote.
The Bureau of Internal Affairs now uses a new case management system to maintain disciplinary history data, Spears wrote.
Spears also defended allowing CPD members to use vacation, compensatory time, personal days or other earned time to serve suspensions.
That “still penalizes a member,” Spears wrote.
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
