A story that’s big in Chicago is now being reported in the national news. Here’s the report from ABC 7 Chicago:
CHICAGO (WLS) — Chicago police officers seen on video inside Congressman Bobby Rush’s office on the South Side has sparked an internal investigation into the incident.
Surveillance pictures from inside Congressman Bobby Rush’s campaign office at 54th Street and Wentworth Avenue, which had been looted earlier, show more than a dozen Chicago police officers lounging in the office for hours, sleeping, popping popcorn, all while looting was going on throughout the city.
“They even had the unmitigated gall to make coffee for themselves and to pop popcorn, my popcorn, in my microwave while looters were tearing apart businesses. Within their sight and within their reach,” Rush said.
Needless to say Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is distressed:
She offered an apology on behalf of the city, saying those officers have done incredible harm, including confirming the perception that many have on the South Side that police simply did not care that minority communities were being looted.
“It is a personal embarrassment to me,” Lightfoot said.
The Fraternal Order of Police has fired back a response:
Meanwhile, Chicago police union leader, John Catanzara, tells the I-Team officers were deployed to Congressman Bobby Rush’s campaign office after a request for protection from Rush’s staffers. Catanzara says the officers were told to make themselves at home.
I doubt we’ve heard the last of this story. If the official records suport the officers’ story, the mayor and Rep. Rush may be left with egg on their faces. Or the cellphone records. Or it may be another strike against the CPD.
That Mayor Lightfoot chose to air the matter publicly before trying to resolve it internally may actually become the story and it’s too early to tell whether that’s good or bad. Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass remarks:
Mayor Lori Lightfoot is now praising U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush for that gift of a video that helps her kick the Chicago police union in the teeth.
I still don’t think she’ll ever forgive Rush for that despicable slur during her 2019 mayoral campaign. Anyone voting for Lightfoot for mayor, Rush said, would have on their hands “the blood of the next young black man or black woman who is killed by the police.â€
But Rush knows how to make amends. He threw her a life preserver just when she needed one. And she unwrapped it for the media on Thursday:
It was that video showing Chicago police lounging, sleeping and eating popcorn inside a Rush office on the South Side. It’s coming out just as Lightfoot was shrinking under criticism for being unprepared for the chaos and looting that broke out of the massive George Floyd protests.
It was a perfect gift. It gave her an opportunity to direct anger away from City Hall toward a new enemy — the Chicago Police Department and its rank-and-file union, the Fraternal Order of Police.
“There will be a reckoning with the FOP,†Lightfoot said. “And I think that moment is now.â€
She wants police officers to be licensed. If she gets that into law, it might make things easier for City Hall to get rid of cops it doesn’t like. This could give her some cover when Black Lives Matter demands that Democrats who run the big cities begin defunding the police.
I don’t know what licensing police officers would accomplish that can’t be accomplished through better management other than taking a hot potato out of the mayor’s hands and handing it to the state.
Mr. Kass concludes:
I wish Lightfoot had thoroughly investigated this one before she torched the cops at a news conference. But under pressure she needed to focus attention away from City Hall.
And she trusted Bobby Rush.
We’ll see what emerges from this matter. So far I have been unimpressed by Mayor Lightfoot’s political acumen.
There’s the narratives and then there’s the real truth. But if you pile on as many narratives as fast and furious as you can on a situation, the truth gets smothered beneath all the conflicting BS. What Lightfoot really needs now is ‘focus groups’ to get internally polling on how to spin the fracas (yes, I’m being cynical).
My preliminary hypothesis is that she’s relying too heavily on identity and biography and not enough on accomplishment while picking the wrong friends politically.
We have police licensing here in Colorado. Certification is pulled for criminal felony convictions or convictions from a list of serious misdemeanors. I don’t think it’s had much effect on police conduct. For example, we also have a “fleeing felony” law here that basically allows cops to use deadly force and shoot suspects in the back if the officer believes they have committed or might commit a felony. So if a cop has, for example, reason to believe someone may have a gun, and that person runs, the cops can just shoot them in the back and kill them.
New legislation – which will almost certainly pass next week – is going to greatly limit that, ban chokeholds, and add additional things that will get cops decertified, including losing a civil rights lawsuit.
While I agree better management would be ideal, management has been unable or unwilling to do any extensive reforms in the face of police unions. So at this point, I think reform must come from state legislatures.
I’m afraid that’s guided by the same wishful thinking that leads reform-minded people to long for federal oversight for one state/local process or another. I think the problem is one of incentives rather than where the oversight takes place and I think it’s a rare problem that receives more scrutiny and better resolution by freeing those with incentives to solve the problem from the responsibility and handing it over to those without such incentives.
I agree it’s primarily about incentives. How do they get changed? Police leadership and local leadership have had ample opportunity but have failed to make the necessary changes. What alternative is there except for state legislatures to get more actively involved? I don’t know about Illinois but here the outer bounds of police conduct are already defined in state law. To me it seems straightforward for the legislature adjust the standards.
As I see it there are only two ways: heroic leadership or persuasion. Since I’m skeptical of heroic leadership I think that persuasion is by far the best way.
The present crisis began as an exercise in persuasion and was effective but to my eye the persuasion period ended right about the time that the first riots began.
Who must be persuaded though?
One possibility is police unions. I don’t see anything persuading the unions that doesn’t involve coercion or a fait accompli that they have to accept.
Another is local politicians. They have, for the most part, given into the mob and are “persuaded” more than anyone – but do they have the authority and ability to actually make the necessary changes? History suggests they don’t.
People generally. Polling indicates that most people think there is a need for policing reform. But average joes and Janes don’t have much skin in the game and will quickly lose interest.
Heroic leadership is almost non existent. You also need followership. What evidence do we have that police are persuadable? Not a whole lot. If they dont police a small area in Chicago and a lot of black people get killed not many people care. If they stop policing the wealthier areas of the city? I bet the city folds to whatever demands the police make. I think we solve the national debt issue before we get significant police reform that sticks. Time is on their side (police) if they are patient.
Steve
I agree. That’s one of the many reasons I find the “great man” theory suspect.