Crime & Law
CPD Brass Inconsistently Disciplined Officers for Using Racial Slurs: Watchdog
(Michael Izquierdo / WTTW News)
Chicago Police Department officials acted inconsistently to discipline officers for using racial slurs against members of the public between 2021 and 2024, according to an audit by the city’s watchdog.
During its regular review of closed disciplinary investigations conducted by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability and the Bureau of Internal Affairs, the Office of the Inspector General found that 16 of 19 officers found to have used slurs were suspended for 30 days or less, according to a report published Sept. 30.
One officer was suspended for 60 days, while two others — who officials found violated several department rules — face termination, according to the report.
Approximately half of the officers found to have used racial slurs were urged to undergo training to improve their “cultural competency,” with neither of the city’s two agencies charged with investigating police misconduct explaining why that recommendation was — or was not — made, according to the report.
“CPD must ensure consistency and fairness in disciplinary recommendations for sustained findings involving the use of racial slurs by documenting all aggravating and mitigating factors, including the CPD members’ prior disciplinary history,” the report concluded.
Representatives of both COPA and BIA agreed with the inspector general’s recommendations and vowed to improve their handling of complaints about officers who have used racial slurs, according to responses included with the report.
One of the officers facing termination used anti-Black and anti-gay slurs while threatening his girlfriend, kicking in her front door, refusing to leave, damaging her belongings and being drunk, according to the report.
The other officer department officials say should be fired was captured by his car’s dashboard camera using anti-Black and anti-gay slurs before and after being dispatched to a car crash, according to the report. The officer also directed an anti-Black slur at a dispatcher, records show.
That officer has been the subject of 50 complaints since he joined the department in 1995, including a 2022 complaint where he was found to have used racial slurs toward Black women, according to the report.
The report was authored by Public Safety Inspector General Tobara Richardson while she served as the city’s interim watchdog after the departure of former Inspector General Deborah Witzburg.
Inspector General David Glockner’s spokesperson acknowledged that his office published the report on the office’s website without issuing a news release or publicizing it on the office’s social media channels. However, the report’s findings were included in its monthly bulletin, the spokesperson said.
Under Witzburg, the inspector general office warned in an April report that department officials inconsistently stripped officers accused of serious misconduct of their police powers.
Chicago must have “a police disciplinary system in which both members of the public and members of the department have reason to be confident,” Witzburg said at the time.
In 2017, a probe by the U.S. Department of Justice found Chicago police officers repeatedly used racial slurs against members of the public and on social media but were rarely held accountable for their actions.
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
