Politics
Key City Panel Advances Plan to Give COPA Power to Probe Chicago Police Conduct During Immigration Raids, Protests
(Michael Izquierdo / WTTW News)
A key City Council panel on Tuesday advanced a proposal to give the agency charged with probing police misconduct the authority to investigate whether Chicago Police Department officers and leaders have violated city law by helping federal immigration agents.
A joint session of the Immigrant and Refugee Rights Committee with the Police and Fire Committee voted 19-3 to advance a measure that explicitly gives the Civilian Office of Police Accountability the authority to investigate whether CPD officers have violated the Welcoming City ordinance, which prohibits all city employees from helping federal agents enforce immigration law in nearly all cases.
Alds. Derrick Curtis (18th Ward), Anthony Napolitano (41st Ward) and Jim Gardiner (45th Ward) voted against the measure, which now heads to a final vote by the City Council on Feb. 18. Several of the City Council's most conservative members voted for the proposal, including Alds. Silvana Tabares (23rd Ward) and Nicholas Sposato (38th Ward).
Mayor Brandon Johnson called the proposal a “common-sense measure” designed to “maintain the trust that we have built between law enforcement and immigrant communities throughout Chicago.”
“It is critical that the people of Chicago understand that we take violations of our welcoming city policies seriously, and they deserve a swift and transparent investigation into any alleged violations,” Johnson said during a City Hall news conference shortly before the vote. “It is not enough to be a welcoming city on paper.”
Chicago police officers have faced pointed questions from residents and elected officials since June about their actions during a series of increasingly aggressive immigration enforcement actions during what the Trump administration called “Operation Midway Blitz.”
Both Johnson and Snelling have said CPD officers have complied with the Welcoming City ordinance. Snelling has said CPD must respond to all calls for help, and has a responsibility to keep the peace at all times, while ensuring Chicagoans can exercise their right to protest.
In an unusual letter to members of the City Council, Snelling said Tuesday CPD supports the proposal, saying it “furthers transparency around CPD’s response to incidents stemming from civil immigration enforcement.”
“CPD has a duty to cooperate with agencies tasked with investigating misconduct,” Snelling wrote, adding that “the department understands that our operational response to incidents stemming from civil immigration enforcement by federal authorities are a matter of high public interest and concern.”
CPD officials will act “solely to deescalate, ensure public safety and restore peace,” Snelling wrote. “This is how the Chicago Police Department has responded and will continue to do so in the future.”
CPD representatives told WTTW News on Jan. 7 that Snelling would not weigh in on a proposal to expand the department’s power to enforce the city’s curfew in an effort to stop teen gatherings because “draft ordinances are out of the control of CPD, and we have no comment on any proposed ordinances.”
A spokesperson for the department on Tuesday did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Snelling’s decision to weigh in on the draft ordinance that would expand COPA’s authority, an apparent violation of the previously announced department policy.
LaKenya White, COPA’s interim chief administrator, told alderpeople Tuesday that her agency had the capacity to investigate alleged violations of the city’s Welcoming City ordinance. Forty complaints involving CPD’s interactions with federal agents have been filed since June, White said.
Read More: What Does It Mean That Chicago Is a Sanctuary City? Here’s What to Know
Elected officials, residents and immigrant rights advocates have said they repeatedly witnessed CPD actively helping ICE agents detain dozens by clearing the way for agents to make arrests by blocking streets, protecting ICE vehicles and “escorting” ICE agents to their destinations, making it easier for them to “abduct” people.
More than 2,000 Chicagoans signed a petition demanding that the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability hold a hearing about the issue and start drafting new rules to hold officers accountable for aiding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol agents.
Better known as the CCPSA, the board has the power to set CPD policy.
During that hearing, dozens of Chicagoans pleaded with the board to order CPD to stop federal agents from “terrorizing our neighborhoods.”
Unwilling to wait for the CCPSA to act, Alds. Andre Vasquez (40th Ward) and Jessie Fuentes (26th Ward) proposed an amendment to the 2017 ordinance that created the Civilian Office of Police Accountability to allow it to probe alleged violations of the city’s Welcoming City ordinance.
Six members of the CCPSA support giving COPA the power to probe potential violations of the Welcoming City ordinance, according to a letter.
Calls for the City Council to act intensified after federal agents shot and killed Renee Nicole Good on Jan. 7 and Alex Pretti on Saturday in Minneapolis. Their deaths heightened tensions over the aggressive immigration raids launched by President Donald Trump to carry out the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history.
Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino, and the agents under his command, falsely depicted ordinary Chicagoans as professional agitators determined to mount a violent resistance to federal agents enforcing immigration law, U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis ruled in November.
In Chicago, agents under Bovino’s command called 911 to report that they were being attacked by protesters repeatedly, bringing officers to the scene of dozens of tense confrontations.
The most recent incident occurred on Dec. 17, when Bovino and dozens of agents returned to Chicago after an absence of several weeks.
An agent, traveling north on Lake Shore Drive, called 911 and told a dispatcher that a car was trying to force them off the road.
CPD activated a helicopter and stopped a man who had been following the federal convoy and gave him a “verbal warning” about driving while using a cellphone in response to that call, records show.
Bovino later praised CPD for helping his agents.
Omar Luna, the man who was stopped by police, said he was recording the agents’ activities to warn others of their presence, a claim proven by the video he uploaded to social media.
Snelling and police brass have also faced intense criticism from federal officials, who accused his command staff of ordering officers not to immediately respond to a call for help from Border Patrol agents on Oct. 4 after they shot a 31-year-old woman five times.
The shooting sparked intense protests that ended after federal agents deployed tear gas against a crowd of residents and more than two dozen police officers.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
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