The city of Chicago and the Illinois Attorney General’s Office negotiated an agreement to shift oversight of CPD’s stop-and-frisk practices into a consent decree governing the department.

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.”

The city and its lawyers will now have to convince a jury that two officers did nothing wrong when they fired 16 shots at Darius Cole-Garrit, 21, at 9:30 p.m. Aug. 19, 2014, after a brief foot chase on the city's Far South Side.

The board reached an 8-1 decision to suspend Officer Daniel Otero for 270 days for violating a CPD rule which prohibits “any action or conduct which impedes the Department’s efforts to achieve its policy and goals or brings discredit upon the Department.”

The 22-26 vote represented a rare, if not unprecedented, decision by the City Council to reject a proposed settlement after it was endorsed by the Finance Committee and the mayor. 

The probe by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability remains ongoing. Hours after the sexual misconduct allegations became public, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration moved all of the migrants out of the Ogden (10th) Police District headquarters, which patrols Lawndale and Little Village, where the officers under investigation are assigned to work.

The City Council’s Finance Committee voted 10-9 to endorse the settlement, which now heads to a final vote at the full City Council meeting. In all, the City Council will consider paying $8.5 million to resolve four lawsuits that allege a wide range of police misconduct.

The proposed settlement is set to be considered next week by the City Council’s Finance Committee on Monday. A final vote of the City Council could come on Wednesday.

The number of people shot in Chicago dropped more than 10% in the first six months of this year, as compared with the same period last year, according to police data. The number of shootings is down 6.4%, according to police data.

The lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois accuses the Chicago Police Department of making more than 1 million traffic stops between 2016 and 2022 based on dubious evidence of minor violations that took direct aim at Black and Latino Chicagoans but spared White Chicagoans.

The number of homes searched by Chicago Police officers dropped nearly 90% since 2019, the same year a botched raid left social worker Anjanette Young handcuffed while naked and pleading for help, according to new data.

The seventh semiannual report from the team led by attorney Maggie Hickey urges police brass and city leaders to “urgently address” staffing shortages, a lack of supervision for officers and poor data collection, analysis and management.

The agency’s substantial backlog — made up of cases more than 18 months old — is compromising COPA’s ability to investigate more recent complaints alleging significant misconduct by Chicago Police officers, Chief Administrator Andrea Kersten said.

Chicago Police Department leaders offered no “legitimate rationale” for the racial disparity to the independent monitoring team charged with enforcing court-ordered reforms.

In all, the payments approved Wednesday are equivalent to 11% of the city’s annual $82 million budget to cover the cost of police misconduct lawsuits.