“I continue to believe that people cannot both work for the government and defraud the government,” Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said.

“Any student of CPD’s modern history can recognize that there have been these groups of officers that have contributed more than their fair share of harm and misconduct,” Inspector General Deborah Witzburg told WTTW News Wednesday.

The City Council’s Finance Committee on Wednesday is set to consider the proposed settlement, which calls for taxpayers to pay $20 million and the city’s insurance company to pay $2 million. A final vote of the City Council could come Jan. 21.

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability determined police were not justified in stopping the man’s car and should not have searched him or his car after handcuffing him in Chicago’s River North neighborhood on March 18, 2024.

Chicago police officers have faced pointed questions from residents and elected officials for more than six months about their actions during a series of increasingly aggressive immigration enforcement actions ordered by President Donald Trump.

A final vote on the proposal by the full City Council could come as soon as Jan. 21.

“I think New Year’s Eve was a testament that we did not need an additional tool in order to ensure that our young people were where they need to be and that our parents and adults who are part of these young peoples’ lives — that they are also held accountable for their whereabouts,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said.

The city of Chicago spent $250.8 million on overtime for members of the Chicago Police Department during 2025 — 151% more than the Chicago City Council set aside for police overtime as part of the city’s annual budget, according to records published by the city’s watchdog.

The proposals, set for a vote at the 10 a.m. Wednesday meeting of the Public Safety Committee, were prompted by the killing of 14-year-old Armani Floyd on Nov. 21 during a large gathering downtown after the city’s annual Christmas tree lighting. Eight others were injured in a separate shooting just blocks away.

The report published by the Chicago Police Department acknowledges that the number of times officers used force against members of the public “continues to trend upward.”

With only a handful of days left before the calendar turns to 2026, Chicago is on pace to see its lowest homicide total since at least 2014.

Supporters of the gunshot detection system said it helped officers save lives when shootings were not reported to emergency services. ShotSpotter was never used to dispatch paramedics.

The city budget, which will take effect Jan. 1, will double CPD’s overtime budget from $100 million to $200 million, the first increase since 2020, when the budget for police overtime went from $95 million to $100 million, records show.

The Illinois Supreme Court is set to weigh in next year on whether serious Chicago Police Department misconduct cases must be heard publicly.

Are Chicago police officers being held accountable for misconduct? And the years-long battle over police discipline makes its way to the Illinois Supreme Court.

Officer Elmer Carrillo Jr. is the first CPD officer to be terminated for failing a drug test since Illinois legalized the recreational use of marijuana, and is the first to be fired by the Police Board in nearly a year and a half amid a protracted legal battle, records show.