Civilian Police Commission to change City's history of police reform

by Suzanne Hanney

Chicago leads the nation in community engagement with its police department, advocates say, following the City Council’s 36-13 passage of the Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance on July 21.

“Nowhere else do civilians have such significant powers when it comes to policing, including a role in hiring and firing the police superintendent, and in shaping police policy,” the Community Renewal Society (CRS) said in prepared material.

The ordinance creates a new, seven-member, civilian commission that will oversee Chicago Police Department policy, the Chicago Police Board and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA), which investigates officers’ actions.

The new Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability will have the power to recommend candidates for police superintendent and for COPA administrator and also to remove the latter, with city council approval. However, the Chicago mayor will retain the power to hire and fire the superintendent.

The mayor’s final say-so over the superintendent was a compromise made by Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday, July 19; the ordinance passed the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety the next day and the full City Council another day later.

The process of firing a superintendent would begin with a mayor’s written explanation, followed by a commission hearing, the superintendent’s response and a two-thirds City Council vote.

Conversely, the commission could vote no-confidence in a superintendent, which would require the same twothirds vote of the City Council and the mayor’s letter.

“Before, the mayor was the only one with the power to hire and also fire the superintendent. Now she shares that ability and responsibility with the commission and also the City Council,” said Oswaldo Gomez, ONE Northside police accountability organizer.

“The other piece, which I think was even more disputed between mayor’s side and our side, had to do with way polices are created and implemented,” Gomez said.

“Currently, the Chicago Police Department has the sole responsibility of creating and implementing policy. Now, there’s a civilian commission with the mandate to look at policy and see how it impacts the community. This commission, which was created by ECPS, has the ability to reject police department policy or even propose police department policy, even if the department is not in favor of it.”

The influence over policy, as well as superintendent hiring and firing, put Chicago ahead of Los Angeles, Seattle and Oakland, Gomez said. In addition, no other system in the nation will have the community engagement component that Chicago’s civilian police board does: democratically elected councils. The top three vote-getters in a February 2023 primary in each of CPD’s 22 districts will comprise new councils from which the seven-member commission will be chosen. It will take office the first Tuesday in May 2023.

A probationary commission will begin its work on Jan. 1, 2022, after the City Council nominates 14 people, narrowed down to seven by Lightfoot and then ratified by the City Council. Nominations will be due November 1, according to CRS. What is exciting, Gomez said, is that proposed names will not come from the mayor’s office alone.

Police reform has been an issue with the Chicago Police Department since the department was found to have tortured more than 100 people into making false confessions in the 1970s and 80s. Lightfoot won election in 2019 on civilian accountability for police after the killing of Laquan Mc- Donald in 2014 led to the firing of Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy and the election defeat of Cook County State’s Atty. Anita Alvarez. There was new pressure this year after the shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo and the mistaken arrest at the home of social worker Anjanette Young.

Lightfoot did not take action on the original Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability (GAPA) ordinance, proposed in 2018 by Alds. Harry Osterman (48th) and Rod Sawyer (6th). Early this year, a new coalition, Chicago Alliance Against Racial and Political Repression (CAARPR), headed by Alds. Leslie Hairston (5th) and Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th), joined with GAPA to back the ECPS ordinance.

“Lightfoot saw the handwriting on the wall,” Gomez said. “Community organizers, aldermen, the general public were fed up with no response on police accountability from the mayor who had campaigned on it. She had seen how dangerous policing was and how disconnected the community was from the police department and other public safety apparatus. She and the city realized they couldn’t continue doing the same thing and expecting different results.”