Inspector General Deborah Witzburg’s determination that Gardiner violated the city’s Governmental Ethics Ordinance is the “first-ever finding of probable cause in an inspector general ethics investigation of a sitting member of City Council,” officials said.
Deborah Witzburg
The inspector general’s probe found that while the officer’s former partner was moving out, the officer “told them to call everyone they loved and tell them goodbye” and told them they were going to kill them and their family if they appeared at the apartment later that same day.
Benjamin George, a construction worker, said his life was upended on Aug. 19, 2019, when he stopped at a 7-Eleven store in Jefferson Park and mistakenly picked up a cell phone left on the checkout counter that did not belong to him.
“The record is clear that Gardiner engaged in both content-based and speaker-based restrictions on his Facebook page, according to the ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman. The Court thus finds Gardiner in violation of the First Amendment.”
That toll is set to grow in the coming weeks, as the Chicago City Council considers paying $25 million to resolve separate lawsuits filed in 2016 by two men who spent a combined 34 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of killing a basketball star in 1993.
The unanimous vote by the interim Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability caps an effort that began in 2017 to stop the Chicago Police Department from using databases to track Chicagoans they believe to be in a gang.
Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said city officials and police brass are “ill-equipped to evaluate and improve response times, simply because, more often than not, we have no information on when the police arrive to respond to an emergency.”
Chicago spent $197.7 million to resolve lawsuits alleging more than 1,000 Chicago police officers committed a wide range of misconduct in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Of that total, $91.3 million came from settlements involving 116 officers whose conduct led to multiple payouts.
A city watchdog report has found Chicago Police Department rules that require the reporting of officer misconduct have been underenforced and are in some cases conflicting — issues which contribute to the existence of a so-called “code of silence.”
“We are writing enormous checks and leaving a tremendous opportunity for reform on the table,” Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said. “It is a staggering amount of money.”
“These are the rules that stand between us and government illegitimacy,” Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said.
It took less than five months for the Chicago Police Department to exhaust the $100 million earmarked for overtime set by the Chicago City Council as part of the city’s 2023 budget, according to data obtained by WTTW News through a Freedom of Information Act request.
City Council Gives Inspector General Term Limits, Approves Purchase of Motel for Unhoused Chicagoans
Inspector General Deborah Witzburg backed the term limit, saying it will protect the watchdog’s independence and bring “stability, order, independence” to the office.
The former mayor failed to uphold her fiduciary duty to the city, misused city property by identifying herself in campaign emails as the mayor of Chicago and solicited campaign contributions from employees she supervised, according to the city’s watchdog.
Ald. Jim Gardiner (45th Ward) could face a $40,000 fine for violating the city's ethics ordinance.
Limiting the city’s watchdog to two terms would bring “stability, order, independence” to the office, which oversees all city departments and contractors as well as the mayor’s office, City Council and its committees, current Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said.
