Where thugs go to get a job

 

The best thing to do is to not get involved with cops

 

In 1986, pretty Jane Prichard, 28, of Clarksburg, Md. was a graduate student at the University of Maryland. As part of her program, she was to conduct botany experiments in the field. On September 19, a Saturday, she drove up to the Blackbird Forest State Park, in Delaware, 115 miles from her home, to conduct her work. She arrived at around 7 a.m.

She had been to the park many times and had spent many hours there in past.

A squirrel hunter named Michael P. Lloyd recalled seeing her at 10 AM.

At 5:30 p.m, an elderly New Jersey couple who were camping in the forest went for a walk and found Prichard’s body sprawled near her truck, a 1980 Chevy Blazer. She was partially disrobed, with a gunshot to her back. The body was about 20 feet from her equipment, and the shot to the back would indicate that she had gotten away from her attacker and ran for the truck when she was shot with a shotgun. There was no sign of a struggle.

Detectives figured that Jane’s murder was a crime of opportunity and the suspect was one of the 25 to 50 hunters that were at the park that day, as it was the start of squirrel hunting season. She worked undisturbed for a while because she had an opportunity to set up her equipment. Then the intruder arrived. She was sexually assaulted or in the process of being sexually assaulted when she ran for her car.

Michael P. Lloyd, the squirrel hunter was home watching the news when he learned about the murder. He had been there that day and recalled seeing Jane Prichard. He phoned the police and gave them a description of a man he had seen there. "I thought it was my civic duty." He said later. When the police asked him to comedown to the scene of the crime, he did. He said he saw Prichard talking to another hunter at around 10 AM and that the man was a white male, around 5'9" with a medium build and wearing a brown jacket and blue jeans. He helped them to create a drawing. But instead of thanking him, the police made him their number one suspect.

Remarkably he was charged with first-degree murder and weapon possession. Mike Lloyd, a janitor, was released from prison after ten months after his bail was reduced to $10,000. The next day the state announced it would drop the charges for lack of evidence. What actually happened was that the cops case fell apart when DNA testing of a hair found at the scene proved conclusively that he could not be the killer.

"I would never make that mistake again" (Trying to help the police) Mike Lloyd said when he was released from prison. "My advice is, 'Don't get involved. When I first got out I had to pinch myself," he said. "It wasn't till Sunday when I drove my truck that it finally dawned on me. Yeah. I'm out."

Bsically he got off ....scot free

 In 2011 Jennifer Webb, a 32 year Buena Vista Michigan woman discovered she was five months pregnant. She didn't reveal who the father was married.  In August of that year, Jennifer’s body was found, strangled to death with an extension cord. Police initially ruled it a suicide, but something wasn’t right about the death scene. It looked stage. Further investigation proved the officer who reported finding the body, Kenneth T. Bluew, was the unborn child’s (She eight months pregnant) father and had killed Jennifer, staging the killing to look like a suicide. He was serving life in prison with no hope of parole until November 3, 2014, Saginaw County Circuit Judge Darnell Jackson "reluctantly" reduced the cop's sentence due to an order from the Michigan Court of Appeals.

And how much did this cost the county?

 John McNally, Alexandria, Va. (Murphy, McGettingan, McNally & West, Alexandria, Va., Jonathan Shapiro, Zwerling & Shapiro, Alexandria, Va., Stephen W. Bricker, Bricker & Zerkin, Richmond, Va., on brief), for appellants.

Robert Lyndon Howell, Asst. County Atty., Alexandria, Va. (David T. Stitt, County Atty., Peter D. Andreoli, Jr., Asst. County Atty., Fairfax, Va., on brief), for appellees.

Before BUTZNER, PHILLIPS and MURNAGHAN, Circuit Judges.

Plaintiffs are two couples whose respective residences were searched by officers of the Police Department of Fairfax County, Virginia, without search warrants or consent, but on the supposed authority of a valid arrest warrant for another person suspected but not found to be in either of the residences.

The plaintiffs brought an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the officers who conducted the search and their police chief seeking declaratory, injunctive, and monetary relief. The district court dismissed on the basis that the searches were constitutional by reason of the arrest warrant.

 

In accordance with the opinion of the Court of Appeals, the court hereby declares that the searches complained of in this suit violated the plaintiffs' rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, in that they were conducted without a search warrant, and did not fall under any of the exceptions to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement.

Reasonable or probable cause to believe that a person for whom an arrest warrant has been issued is on premises belonging to a third party, standing alone, is not sufficient under the Fourth Amendment to authorize an invasion of the privacy of that person's home.

 Furthermore, it is the order of this Court, consistent with the opinion of the Court of Appeals, that defendants, their agents, employees, and all members of the Fairfax County Police Department are hereby permanently enjoined from conducting searches of third parties' homes in search of persons for whom they may have an arrest warrant, without first obtaining a properly issued search warrant for those premises, unless consent or exigent circumstances are present.

  The defendant Chief of Police is hereby directed to inform all Fairfax County police officers of this Order, and to take such steps as are reasonably necessary to ensure compliance with it.

 

 

Fairfax police chief plans to hire more officers, modernize department

  

It isn't about implementing a series of changes within the department.

It isn’t about undergoing procedural-justice and implicit-bias training.

It isn’t about a use-of-force training program.

It’s about the low quality of men and women the Fairfax County Police hire. It’s about their thug mentality.

I’m not wrong. It’s part of the departments mentality. Look at the punk who used a taser on a guy within seconds after arriving on the scene. Look at the mountain of law suits facing the department. Look at the fact that every third year of so, the cops murder someone.

Change the entitled, punk attitude and watch how much changes for the better for all of us.

Young people, considering a job (its not a career its a job) with the police? Well read this because police departments are FILLED with people like this guy...do you really want to be around people like him?

 

 

Judge denies motion to drop assault charges against Fairfax Co. police officer

Neal Augenstein | 

Despite harsh criticism of Fairfax County, Virginia, prosecutors, a circuit court judge has denied a defense motion to drop assault and battery charges against police officer Tyler Timberlake, who used a Taser on a disoriented man on June 5, 2020.

Timberlake’s lawyer, Brandon Shapiro, argued the three misdemeanor counts against his client should be dropped because prosecutors failed to turn over evidence the suspended officer could use in his defense.

In a July 2 ruling, Circuit Court Judge Brett Kassabian said prosecutors, in the office of Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano, “failed to promptly and timely disclose exculpatory evidence,” and didn’t turn over the names or statements of any expert witnesses who support Timberlake’s argument that he used the stun gun on a man he mistook for another Black man who he knew was a PCP user with a history of fighting police.

However, the judge said the prosecution’s shortcomings in this case didn’t meet the standard required to throw out the case.

“Fifteen months remain between now and Defendant’s trial, and the court cannot find that defendant was prejudiced by the delay,” Kassabian wrote.

Kassabian said, “The Commonwealth has failed to meet its duty to disclose exculpatory evidence timely.”

While not meriting dismissing the case, Kassabian said prosecutors should be disciplined.

“To turn a blind eye and acquiesce in prosecutorial pronouncements of purported open file discovery not only adversely affects defendant’s rights to a fair trial, but also shakes the public’s confidence in a process that is based on justice and fairness,” Kassabian wrote.

In crafting a measure, Kassabian said prosecutors will not be allowed to have an expert witness — who is allowed to offer opinions — talk about Timberlake’s tactics.

“The Commonwealth shall be prohibited from introducing any expert testimony in its case in chief related to the purported unreasonableness and excessiveness of the Defendant’s actions or deviation from general orders,” Kassabian wrote.

However, jurors would likely be able to hear from a fact witness — for instance, a member of the county police department — who could describe officers’ training.

Descano issued a statement to WTOP and said he’s glad the judge found his office didn’t commit a violation resulting in a dismissal.

“I look forward to providing a jury of Fairfax County residents an opportunity to decide the outcome on the case’s merits. I take seriously the issues raised in the order, have reorganized the team working on this case, and directed them to immediately reexamine all potential discovery elements,” Descano said.

Timberlake remains on administrative leave. A police spokesman said the department’s internal affairs investigation will continue after Timberlake’s criminal case is resolved.

 

Va. officer accused of unnecessarily using Taser contends prosecutors are withholding evidence

Body cam video shows white officer using stun gun on disoriented black man in Virginia

Fairfax County Officer Tyler Timberlake was arrested June 6, a day after using a stun gun on a victim multiple times and sticking his knees on the man’s neck. (Fairfax County Police Department)

By Justin Jouvenal

June 21, 2021 at 7:04 p.m. EDT

A Fairfax County police officer accused of using excessive force, including deploying a Taser, against a Black man has asked a judge to dismiss the case, claiming prosecutors have not disclosed evidence that would bolster his defense.

An attorney for Officer Tyler Timberlake wrote in a motion that he has learned prosecutors have not turned over a lengthy police report, a 911 call, a bystander video of the incident and an interview with the victim.

The attorney also wrote that the issue is part of what he contends is a broader pattern with the office of Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano not revealing potentially exculpatory evidence in the case and misrepresenting what material it has collected.

“The Commonwealth has repeatedly dragged its feet and has deprived Officer Timberlake of his due process and right to a fair trial,” Timberlake’s attorney wrote in the motion.

Descano’s office panned the claims. In a court filing, prosecutors said the office has complied with a judge’s order governing evidence, pointing out that it requires such materials only be produced no later than 60 days before the trial. The trial is scheduled for September 2022, but Timberlake is hoping to move it up to this August.

Descano’s office also wrote in its response to the motion that it has provided substantial discovery already, including two police reports, crime scene photos, hospital records and Timberlake’s disciplinary records. They say Timberlake’s motion is a ploy.

“These accusations are aimed at distracting from the fact that the defense is the party seeking to ignore the court’s timeline,” Descano’s spokesman, Benjamin Shnider, said in a statement. “Descano holds his team to the highest possible standard with regards to transparency and will continue to fight any effort to prevent a jury of Fairfax County community members from hearing this case.”

The defense claims come after a judge criticized Descano’s office and Fairfax County police for waiting months to hand over exculpatory evidence in a first-degree murder case against an 18-year-old late last year.

Judge says police, prosecutors failed to turn over evidence in timely fashion

They are also notable because Descano won election in 2019 promising to offer defendants greater transparency about the evidence against them, saying it would make the justice system fairer and decrease the chances of wrongful convictions.

“Virginia’s rules force defendants to try to craft a defense without most of the information one would need to do so,” Descano wrote in his election platform.

Timberlake, who is White, is facing three counts of misdemeanor assault and battery for allegedly deploying a Taser and punching a Black man seconds after arriving on the scene of a call in the Mount Vernon area in June 2020.

La Monta Gladney, who did not appear to pose a threat, can be heard and seen mumbling incoherently and pacing in circles in a body-camera video of the incident that was later released by police. Paramedics and another Fairfax County police officer were attempting to coax Gladney into an ambulance before Timberlake pulled up in his cruiser.

Descano and then-Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. quickly condemned the use of force, and Descano’s office filed charges against Timberlake.

Timberlake plans to argue at trial that he mistook Gladney for another man, who has a history of fighting with police, was a PCP user, was known to carry weapons and had outstanding warrants for his arrest, according to the motion to dismiss.

In addition, Timberlake argues that Gladney ignored his commands and actively resisted arrest, a contention prosecutors and an attorney representing Gladney in a civil case said is not evident on the body-camera video.

Timberlake’s attorney wrote that his ability to mount a defense has been frustrated by his lack of access to the case against his client. Before the current motion, the attorney had filed two others seeking evidence that he felt Descano’s office should have disclosed.

In the new motion, the attorney wrote that Descano’s office has had a report by the lead detective in the case for months but only represented that it had two others that were produced by Fairfax County police.

He also wrote that Descano’s office represented in court that it had no statements from Gladney, but the attorney later learned prosecutors had a video of Gladney giving an interview to an amateur journalist about his encounter with Timberlake. The defense believes the video could be used to challenge Gladney’s testimony at trial.

The defense said they have also learned prosecutors have a video of the incident taken by a bystander that was posted to Snapchat. They also want a 911 call they say was made by Gladney which they contend suggests he was on PCP at the time of the encounter.

Descano’s office wrote that whether it has such evidence, Timberlake’s attorney is ignoring the basic fact that the judge has set a deadline for the material to be turned over more than a year from now. The motion accused Timberlake’s attorney of repeatedly attempting to “manufacture” violations of the order to get the case dismissed.

Black man Tasered by White Fairfax County police officer files federal suit

One unusual aspect of the motion is the defense claim that they learned from an “outside source” that prosecutors had evidence they had not disclosed. The defense did not reveal the source in its filing, or say if that person was a county employee, and the attorney, Brandon Shapiro, did not respond to requests for comment.

Under the 1963 Supreme Court decision Brady v. Maryland, prosecutors are required to turn over any evidence that might help exonerate a defendant. Timberlake’s attorney wrote in his filing that he thinks Descano is not living up to his campaign promise. A judge is set to hold a hearing on the motion Friday.

Fairfax County police union worried about staffing shortage

 ....then your game. Stop hiring goons and John Wayne wanna-be's. 

Ha!

 

Ill say it again, they're nothing but a bunch of fucking punks and they're out of control

 Fired D.C. firefighter to get $390K from Fairfax County over wrongful arrest

Elon Wilson spent 21 months in prison after his arrest by former Fairfax County Officer Jonathan A. Freitag

Oct 11, 2021

---

By Janelle Foskett

WASHINGTON — A former D.C. Fire and EMS firefighter will receive nearly $390,000 from Fairfax County, Virginia, to settle a lawsuit alleging a wrongful arrest that resulted in his 21-month imprisonment.

Elon Wilson filed a federal lawsuit in July, three months after a judge vacated his convictions and ordered him freed. The judgment followed an internal investigation into Jonathan A. Freitag, the Fairfax County officer who arrested Wilson

The lawsuit stemmed from an April 2018 incident in which Freitag pulled over Wilson, ostensibly for crossing a yellow line on the road, failing to pull over when signaled and having illegally tinted windows, according to court records. Freitag arrested Wilson after finding oxycodone and handguns in the car. Wilson said they were not his.

Wilson was subsequently fired from D.C. Fire and EMS.

In July 2019, Wilson was sentenced to a little over three years in prison.

Around the same time, Fairfax internal affairs investigators began reviewing Freitag’s traffic stops. Freitag ultimately admitted that he had made “pretextual” traffic stops, using a false reason to pull over a vehicle. In February 2020, Wilson’s lawyer, Marvin D. Miller, filed a motion seeking information about the internal affairs investigation.

 The Washington Post reported that, in April 2021, Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Daniel E. Ortiz vacated Wilson’s convictions and ordered him freed, saying “Freitag’s fabricated grounds for the stop, police report, and warrant made under oath fundamentally tampered with the judicial machinery and subverted the integrity of the court itself.”

Following Wilson’s release, Miller and civil rights lawyer Victor M. Glasberg filed a federal suit against Fairfax on Wilson’s behalf. Fairfax began settlement negotiations and, on Oct. 7, agreed to pay Wilson $390,000.

Freitag had defended his actions in multiple interviews.

 

How very PC of you….once again, the Fairfax County Police play politics instead of working at policing

 

 

Fairfax County Police Remove Arrest Blotter Over ICE Data Sharing Concerns

 Colleen Grablick

 

Community advocates said the list violated a new law that limits local law enforcement’s interactions with immigration enforcement agencies.

Michael Pope / WAMU

Fairfax County’s police department will no longer publish the names and personal information of people arrested for crimes, heeding concerns from advocates that the list endangered immigrant residents.

Earlier this year, the county’s Board of Supervisors passed a Public Trust and Confidentiality Policy, cutting off all voluntary cooperation and information sharing between local agencies and federal immigration authorities. But advocates said the arrest blotter, which lived on the police department’s website and included information like names and last known addresses, continued to violate the law, commonly known as the Trust Policy, by allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to target immigrant residents.

“We believe that [the arrest blotter] violated the Trust Policy, because it’s not necessary to release that personal information,” says Diane Alejandro, a lead advocate with ACLU People Power Fairfax. “It just is, more than anything, a shaming list.”

According to Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesperson for Fairfax County police, the county originally began publishing that type of information online in 2016 in order to limit the amount of calls the department received from residents seeking information about arrests in their neighborhood.

The arrest blotter came down last Friday, after a review of the practice by ACLU People Power Fairfax found the blotter to be non-compliant with the Trust Policy, Guglielmi said. The Washington Post first reported the decision.

The county will still be running a weekly crime roundup on the department’s website, but will withhold names and any other information regarding the individuals arrested.

“Important information will continue to be shared with the community, and arrest data remains easily accessible via FOIA to residents and reporters,” County Supervisor Dalia Palchik, one of the nine supervisors that voted in favor of the Trust Policy policy, wrote in a statement to DCist/WAMU.

Alejandro, who advocated for the passage of the Trust Policy, say ACLU People Power Fairfax supports the continuation of a crime roundup, without the names and personal information of individuals arrested. If someone is truly interested in gathering that information, she says, there are plenty of ways to dig for it on the internet — instead of the police proactively offering it.

“It’s not like folks are being left in the dark,” Alejandro says, adding that arrest information will still be available to members of the public upon a FOIA request. “I think that honestly smacks of racism to suggest that the interests of people who just want to know the name of every person arrested to satisfy their curiosity should take precedence over the lives of immigrants.”

Unlike in D.C. or Maryland’s Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, where the police force is overseen by the top elected official, the Fairfax County Police Department is under the purview of the Board of Supervisors. The Trust Policy, which passed the Board of Supervisors by a 9-1 vote in January, applies to all agencies across Fairfax County’s government. While the provisions of the new law allow cooperation with ICE officials if it is required or requested, the policy bars willful or voluntary local information sharing that would help immigration enforcement track down individuals.

Alejandro says she does not know of any residents that were targeted directly as a result of the arrest blotter, but that she and other advocates “know it happens.”

“We don’t need to hand [the information] to them on a silver platter,” Alejandro says. “We’re not going to volunteer information to ICE, and this is what the police were doing.”

A spokesperson for ICE denied that the agency used the Fairfax County’s arrest information to locate or apprehend any residents.

“ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations does not use police blotter data to identify immigration enforcement targets in Fairfax County, Virginia,” the spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement to DCist/WAMU. “ICE ERO officers use intelligence-driven leads to identify specific individuals for arrest.”

The removal of the arrest list marks the latest step in Fairfax County’s efforts to limit the county’s interactions with federal immigration agencies. In 2020, the county codified a policy that prevents police officers from asking or disclosing a person’s immigration status, or using immigration status as a determining factor when considering to take a person into custody on a misdemeanor charge.

Regionally, Arlington County officials are also considering ways to decrease local law enforcement’s engagement with ICE — last week, the Arlington County Board released the draft of a framework to increase protection of immigrant residents, including proposals to decrease the local police’s contact with immigration agencies.

 

 

Fairfax County should get off its ass and do the same as Newsom.

 

 

California Gov. Newsom signs sweeping police reform bills

More than three dozen groups representing police officers opposed the legislation, according to a report

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a series of police reform bills Thursday to address law enforcement misconduct that would strip officers of their badges for a range of incidents, among other measures.

Surrounded by lawmakers and the family members of victims killed by police officers, Newsom signed four bills he touted would increase transparency. During his remarks, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said there is a "crisis of trust" when it comes to law enforcement.

"We're delivering concrete solutions from banning dangerous holds that lead to asphyxia to multiple other mechanisms that improve accountability and oversight and transparency," he said.

 But more than three dozen groups representing police officers opposed the legislation, claiming it subjects law enforcement officers to double jeopardy with vague definitions of wrongdoing and calls for the use of an oversight panel that would potentially be biased and lacking in expertise about law enforcement, The Los Angeles Times reported.

Senate Bill 2 "merely requires that the individual officer ‘engaged’ in serious misconduct – not that they were found guilty, terminated, or even disciplined," the California Police Chiefs Association wrote in a letter to state lawmakers, according to the Times.

Another bill, Assembly Bill 26, was opposed by the California Association of Highway Patrolmen, which said it participated two years ago in an effort to change the state's use-of-force policies, the Times reported.

The Assembly bill calls for officers to intervene if they suspect a fellow officer is using too much force against a suspect, but the police group argued that in fast-moving incidents, an officer arriving at the scene of an incident might not have enough information to determine if the force is excessive, according to the newspaper.

With Newsom's signings, California joins 46 other states that have laws on the books allowing officers to be fired for acting criminally and for incidents involving racial bias and excessive force. The reforms also raise the minimum age for police officers from 18 to 21, ban some restraining techniques and limit the use of rubber bullets during protests.

"I'm here as governor of California mindful that we're in a juxtaposition of being a leader on police reform and a lagger on police reform," Newsom said from a park gymnasium in the Los Angeles suburb of Gardena. "We have a lot to be proud of but there's areas where we have nothing to brag about."

 While signing the legislation, supporters chanted "Say his name," in reference to Kenneth Ross Jr., a 25-year-old Black man who was killed in 2018 when an officer shot him at the same Gardena park where the Thursday event occurred. An investigation determined the officer, Michael Robbins, acted lawfully when he shot Ross.

Ross' mother, Fouzia Almarou, said she hopes the bill prevents the loss of life, particularly for people of color.

"This bill means a lot because it's going to stop police from attacking and targeting and being racist towards Black and brown people," she said. 

Sandra Quinto Collins, the mother of Angelo Quinto, brushed back tears as she thanked lawmakers for passing the reforms. Quinto died when a San Francisco police officer pressed his knee against his neck during a mental health response call last year.

"To lose a son, to lose a brother, sister, dad — that pain, that intensity, that expression is reflected not just in the words of these two remarkable women and their families, but we hope reflected in this legislation," Newsom said.

The bill's signing came after failed negotiations in Congress halted a bipartisan police reform plan.

Good, go ahead and bleed.....we need new blood in the Police Department anyway..don't defund the police, reteain the police

 

'We've been bleeding officers': Fairfax police union says officers need to be paid better

---

by Nick Minock

Thursday, September 23rd 2021

FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (7News) — The President of the Virginia Police Benevolent Association’s Fairfax County Chapter is sounding the alarm.

“We’ve been bleeding officers left and right,” said Ali Soheilian.

Soheilian and the union’s board sent a letter to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisor’s this week warning the Fairfax County Police Department is more than 100 officers short and they are losing more by the week. They are calling this is a staffing crisis.

The union said the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors needs to take positive action.

In their letter, the Virginia PBA said patrol officers are pressed to more each day while they cover the workload of officers who have left. All of that while violent crime is rising rapidly in their jurisdiction, according to their letter.

The letter claims morale is down at the police department and officers in Fairfax County are leaving the department for better paying jobs at police departments in nearby Prince William and Loudoun Counties.

The PBA board is requesting the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to take swift action by approving better pay for officers.

“When you tell these officers that they are not worth the money you are basically telling them what you value and what you don’t value as a county board of supervisors,” said Soheilian. “It’s a quick fix. They’ve skipped over us with cost of living adjustments and market rate adjustments raises in terms of 14 percent over the years.”

“If something doesn’t change eventually, they are going to have to stop staffing certain positions,” Soheilian added. “Your specialty units that investigates major crimes might be impacted. We might have to pull officers from different resources to staff the street because what’s happening is you’re going to get overwork, tired officers that are responding. It could impact your response times as we’ve seen it impact agencies across the nation.”

7News took these staffing concerns to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman.

“I don’t see this as a Fairfax County problem. Clearly it’s a nationwide problem,” said Jeffrey McKay.

McKay acknowledged the staffing challenges at the police department and defended what the county currently pays its officers.

“I believe we are very competitive to our peer jurisdictions and that’s something we look at annually in our budget process,” he said. “We’ve been focused on recruitment efforts We never stop looking at pay. We want to recruit the best officers. Our board will continue to do what we always do which is look at this every year and make sure Fairfax County remains competitive in police pay.”

 

 

 

Analysis: Here’s how Chicago’s most powerful police union preserves tradition of problematic leadership

  

Analysis: Here’s how Chicago’s most powerful police union preserves tradition of problematic leadership

By Emanuella Evans and Adeshina Emmanuel | September 13, 2021

Timeline: Chicago FOP presidents’ turbulent relationship with race and police reform

Injustice Watch reviewed the tenures of past FOP presidents elected by Chicago police, from the civil rights movement to the Black Lives Matter era. We found a history of police union leaders making inflammatory statements, antagonizing racial justice and police reforms, and shielding allegedly brutal cops from accountability.

And then in the spring, Catanzara said the cop who killed 13-year-old Adam Toledo was “heroic” and described the killing of 22-year-old Anthony Alvarez, shot in the back by another Chicago cop, as “a 100% good shooting.”

A growing chorus — including dozens of community groups, Chicago city councilmembers, and state lawmakers — have demanded that Catanzara either resign or be fired. The police department, too, has attempted to remove Catanzara.

In February, Police Supt. David Brown suspended Catanzara and filed charges with the Chicago Police Board alleging that he violated nearly a dozen department rules. Some of the charges stem from inflammatory social media posts, including a 2017 Facebook post in which Catanzara referred to Muslims as “savages” who “all deserve a bullet.”

He made the comments in reference to a video of a woman being stoned, also adding that “this is the life many want to bring to this country,” though he later claimed in another post that his comments were not specifically targeting Muslims.

Still, Catanzara’s words are not surprising within the history of the FOP.

 Injustice Watch reviewed the tenures of each of the eight past FOP presidents elected by Chicago police and found a pattern of leadership defined by inflammatory public statements, resistance to accountability, and antagonism to racial justice and police reforms. Police union leaders also tend to stand by police officers who have killed civilians, from Fred Hampton and LaTanya Haggerty to Laquan McDonald and Toledo.

Illinois FOP President Chris Southwood said by defending officers’ actions in violent encounters, Catanzara, like his predecessors, is doing exactly what rank-and-file cops elected him to do.

“That’s his job as the president of Chicago Lodge 7,” Southwood said, “to stand up for his membership, especially in situations where they’re being portrayed as doing something wrong or terrible.”

“All I did was follow the lead of previous presidents”

 

The defining issues of Dean Angelo Sr.’s three-year tenure as FOP president was the police killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald and the subsequent calls for reform. Angelo staunchly opposed the demands emanating from a wave of protests, blaming the “anti-police movement” for cratering member morale and jeopardizing public safety. Nonetheless, Angelo was voted out of office in 2017 by members who found him too accommodating. (Illustration by Veronica Martinez for Injustice Watch)

Our research spanned six decades, from the civil rights movement to the Black Lives Matter era. We reviewed dozens of news clips, FOP newsletters, academic studies, and interviewed experts who shed light on FOP presidents’ problematic history. Retired Chicago Police Department Sgt. Shawn Kennedy, the information officer for the National Association of Black Law Enforcement Officers, said the problem has deep roots.

“When you look at modern-day policing, you have to look at the foundation in which law enforcement was built upon,” Kennedy said. “It was built upon systemic racism and white supremacy, so when you look at police unions, they are there to maintain the status quo.”

Why I’m terminating my membership with the Chicago police union

Chicago police officer Julius Givens pens an open letter to John Catanzara, president of the Fraternal Order of Police's Chicago chapter.

Many Black officers don’t feel represented by Chicago Lodge 7, Kennedy said. In addition to actions such as endorsing Donald Trump as president, the union has previously backed hiring policies that have helped prevent Black officers from joining the force and uphold a majority white union membership.

Dean Angelo Sr., the sixth president of the FOP, said many officers don’t feel represented because they don’t realize everything that is done by the union to secure their livelihood.

“The purpose of your job as the head of a union is to protect the greater number of membership,” Angelo said. “I’m not saying they didn’t experience racism, but I don’t know that it was 25 or 30 years of systemic racism that they faced. I tend to look at that with questionable eyes.”

 

Since the FOP opened its Chicago lodge in 1963, only white men have served as the labor organization’s president. While demographics alone do not determine how police unions function, or their impact, Craig Futterman, a longtime police critic and director of the Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project at the University of Chicago, argues that white police leadership has largely wielded its power in ways that uphold white supremacy and police impunity.

Read More

 

The Chicago police union is trying to put its members on the state’s torture inquiry commission

Two bills introduced by Republicans in the state legislature are "a smack in the face," says one torture survivor.

“There is no enlightened history of police unions and police union leadership,” Futterman said. You have a long history of an overtly racist police union and overtly racist union leadership that has been protected, served racist interests within the police force, [and] has not represented officers of color and particularly Black officers,” Futterman said.

He and other experts said the presidents’ leadership exemplifies the ways that police unions function as truth-denying bodies that perpetuate violence and act as barriers to police reform, racial reconciliation, and justice.

“The problem with police unions is that it all seems to be very narrow-minded thinking about the best way to protect police, which is essentially to close ranks, not share information, to deny systemic problems,” said Kim Ricardo, a law professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s law school who has represented plaintiffs in police brutality cases and published scholarly writing focused on reparations law and social movements.

Our timeline of Chicago FOP Lodge 7’s past presidents, which you can read here, takes a deeper look at their tenures, focusing on their words and leadership during tenuous times and examining how their actions have strained the relationship between police and Chicago communities, specifically overpoliced Black neighborhoods that have suffered the brunt of state violence and police misconduct.

 

Chicago’s first police union president started his tenure during the height of the civil rights movement. As organizers like Martin Luther King Jr. put the spotlight on the vicious segregation and police brutality in northern cities, including Chicago, Joseph J. LeFevour aggressively defended officer misconduct and attacked prominent movement leaders. After nine years as president, LeFevour ended his term in 1972. He died in 1984.

The first president of the FOP, Joseph Lefevour, accused Martin Luther King Jr. of inciting violence in the city. When King’s assassination sparked riots in Chicago’s Black communities, Lefevour applauded then-Mayor Richard M. Daley’s shoot-to-kill order to police responding to the chaos.

 

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In the post-civil rights era, the second and longest-tenured FOP president, John Dineen, opposed efforts to diversify the police department. He was one of several union leaders over the years to express support for disgraced former police Cmdr. Jon Burge. And their support has continued, despite mounting evidence that Burge tortured scores of mostly Black men from the early 1970s to the early 1990s.

After former police officer Jason Van Dyke shot and killed McDonald in 2014, Angelo remained one of Van Dyke’s most vocal supporters, even offering him a job as a janitor at the lodge after he was suspended from the force.

“All I did was follow the lead of previous presidents, where we brought in people that were found in circumstances that were headlines and that did not put the officers in the best light,” Angelo said. “Did it turn off the community? The community was already turned off.”

Angelo is the only past FOP president interviewed for this story. Injustice Watch reached out to all living FOP presidents by phone, email, and certified mail.

In a response sent by mail to Injustice Watch, Kevin Graham, FOP president from 2017 to 2020, wrote, “The fraternal order of police works hard for its members and the public. It is essential that workers are treated fairly by their employers.”

Other past presidents either did not respond to requests, were unreachable, or had passed away.

A political playbook

FOP presidents wield considerable power as the leaders of a labor organization that elected officials have to reckon with from city hall in Chicago to Illinois’ statehouse in Springfield. The union represents a formidable political bloc that includes current and retired cops, their families, and others who support police or align with FOP stances.

Peter Pihos, an assistant history professor at the Western Washington University with research in policing, race, and politics in Chicago, said police union leaders’ largest political impact is in helping to push a law-and-order approach to public safety. This makes it harder for politicians to address the root causes of crime in social, economic, and political systems for fear of being called “soft on crime.”

“They really set the marker for others to also use this kind of often dehumanizing, very racist language and frameworks,” Pihos said.

The FOP has a history of endorsing and financially backing political candidates who will protect their membership while opposing those who run on criminal justice reform platforms. The union helped get former State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez elected in 2008 and 2012 before Kim Foxx defeated her in a landslide victory in 2016. Alvarez’s critics alleged she was beholden to police and lenient toward cops accused of wrongdoing. She infamously waited more than a year to charge Van Dyke after he shot McDonald 16 times.

The union also has a history of negotiating contracts that organizers and police accountability experts say make it harder to hold cops accountable, and lobbying lawmakers about policies that govern how the city handles police misconduct complaints, investigations, and records.

“Any type of policy, procedure, [or] law that’s going to strengthen the accountability and transparency of police officers, the unions are going to fight it,” Kennedy said.

However, Angelo said politicians are to blame for the relationship between the police and communities because they choose police department leaders, vote on contracts, and create policy. “Laws are put into place and officers follow it. … You have inexperienced people with no knowledge of the job dictating how the job should be done,” he said.

New deals, same old FOP?

 

John Catanzara is the first FOP president to be elected while stripped of police powers, after having them stripped in 2018 for a report he filed against the former police superintendent. Since joining the police department in 1995, Catanzara has racked up at least 35 misconduct complaints and been suspended about half a dozen times. (Illustration by Veronica Martinez for Injustice Watch)

This summer has seen several major developments in city hall that will have a big impact on the FOP and its members. But even though the changes are seen as progress on several fronts, in many respects, the FOP president has sung a familiar tune.

In late July, the Chicago City Council voted to establish civilian oversight of the police department. On the eve of the vote, Catanzara complained during a public safety committee hearing that giving civilians more power to influence policy “is absolutely absurd and dangerous and reckless” and maintained that the city already has enough layers of police oversight.

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The tentative contract agreement between the FOP and the city also includes reforms that could enhance oversight and accountability. In late August, police officers voted in favor of a new eight-year contract with the city affording them a 20% pay hike over eight years. On Tuesday, the city council workforce committee gave the labor deal the green light, setting it up for a Sept. 14 vote before the whole council, in which at least 26 alderpeople must sign off.

During the committee meeting, the city’s legal team walked the council members through 10 key accountability reforms in the draft contract. The agreement would remove the ban on the investigation of anonymous misconduct complaints and allow disciplinary records older than five years to be preserved. It would also eliminate a requirement for people alleging misconduct to submit sworn affidavits and allow CPD to recognize officers who report misconduct.

 

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Negotiators for the city and the FOP say these changes would bring the contract in line with federally mandated reforms spelled out in Chicago’s 2019 consent decree. But several key reforms pushed by advocates in recent years — including an end to the 24-hour delay that cops are afforded before speaking to investigators following a shooting and a requirement that they disclose any employment outside the police department — didn’t make it into the draft deal.

Ald. Mike Rodriguez (22nd Ward) questioned this omission.

“I am still concerned about a number of items here,” Rodriguez said. “I, for one, think it’s important  — particularly given the sensitive nature of police officers’ work — that they don’t come to work tired.”

The workforce development committee voted unanimously to endorse the deal, which would resolve most of the central issues between the city and the FOP. But the two sides could still continue negotiations over areas in which no agreement has yet been reached.

Ahead of the full city council vote, organizers are urging a careful review of the agreement.

“We need the community to scrutinize line by line,” said April Friendly, mass liberation organizer at The People’s Lobby. “Any little T-crossing, I-dotting, comma-adding inside of the existing system’s contracts is still not really going to save or mitigate harm for our communities.”

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Meanwhile, a contentious debate is brewing around the mayor’s vaccine mandate for city workers, of which Catanzara has been one of the fiercest critics. In late August, after Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced a Covid-19 vaccine mandate for all city employees, Catanzara made comments to the Chicago Sun-Times that critics interpreted as comparing the mandate to the Holocaust.

Infectious disease experts interviewed by Injustice Watch said unvaccinated police officers put the public at risk because they’re constantly in contact with people, making them likely to contract the virus and likely to spread it. The city’s Black and Latinx communities, which tend to be the most policed, have suffered disproportionately amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

On Sept. 3, before Labor Day weekend, Catanzara gave members an update in a nearly seven-minute video, of which he spent almost three discussing the pending contract and the FOP’s plans to fight the vaccine mandate. He spent the remaining four minutes opining about a recent incident in which a Black woman found walking her dog on the lakefront after hours was violently accosted by a white police officer. She had allegedly failed to comply with his order to leave the area. The police union president called for the officer, who was put on desk duty pending an investigation, to be reinstated “effective immediately.”

“He didn’t throw her to the ground and arrest her like he would have been entitled to do. … I don’t care how bad it would have looked, he would have been justified in doing that,” Catanzara said.

He continued: “It is the recurring theme in police shooting after police shooting; any police incident across this country, [with] few exceptions, is all about a lack of compliance by the subject the police are encountering to start with.

“If that mindset changes, we will not have incidents like Mike Brown, like Laquan McDonald, you name it; there’s name after name after name, and the reoccurring issue is a lack of compliance.”

As the nation continues to envision solutions to racism and police violence, from reforming to defunding or abolishing police, the FOP and its presidents are likely to remain prominent fixtures in the conversation, for better or for worse.

Sarah Wild, an activist with the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, emphasized that issues with the police union are impossible to separate from broader problems with the department.

“The problem of the police and the issues with community control and abolition become the real issue,” Wild said, noting that organizers are continuing to push for more robust community control of the police, including democratic input into the department’s budget and the FOP’s contract. “The union is an expression of the bigger issue.”

Update: On Sept. 14, a group of community organizers and police accountability advocates held a rally in front of City Hall before the contract vote. They urged council members to reject the agreement, calling for the city to work more accountability measures into the deal before giving it the green light. But the city council ultimately approved the contract, with only eight council members rejecting the deal.

Olivia Louthen and Aviva Waldman contributed reporting and research.