Chicago Top Cop's Termination Is A Police Reform Game Changer

Chicago top cop Eddie Johnson will go down in history as a police misconduct unicorn. He got fired for telling lies, a practice that was expected of police superintendents, if not encouraged, by City Hall for generations.

In the end, Johnson's self-inflicted demise will foster police reform in ways that the 16 shots police officer Jason Van Dyke fired to kill Laquan McDonald never did.

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Because unlike Laquan McDonald's murder, Johnson's misconduct scandal was a seemingly victimless sin.

And for that, the city’s investigation can center on what University of Chicago law professor Craig Futterman, who has studied Chicago police misconduct for nearly 20 years, calls the “reflexive machinery of denial that operates every time an officer is accused of doing something wrong” and target the underlying system in the police department used for “covering up the big, small and everything in between.”

So, let’s not get distracted by the unsavory circumstances that preceded beat cops discovering Johnson slumped behind the wheel of his police vehicle in the wee hours of Oct. 17 after having a “couple drinks” that Mayor Lori Lightfoot politely categorized as “intolerable” ethical lapses without offering specific details because, she said, to do so wouldn’t be “appropriate or fair to Mr. Johnson’s wife or children.”

We all know what that means.

What’s important are the despicable details about police efforts cover for the top cop documented in Inspector General Joe Ferguson’s investigative report, police and city sources said.

Under normal circumstances, the truth about an act of police superintendent stupidity such as this might remain secret forever or, at best, get boiled down to an investigative summary.

But these aren't typical times. This fall, the City Council approved an ordinance that gives the public an opportunity to fully examine the inspector general’s investigative findings on what Lightfoot called “the most high-profile and consequential investigations in our city.”

Sources said Lightfoot, who campaigned on a promise to bring transparency to corrupt city government, plans to order the release of every detail in the Inspector General report.

When that happens, Chicagoans will see the body cam video from the night Johnson took a nap behind the wheel, get details about the “other person” who was with him, learn about a 911 call reporting him slumped over in the police vehicle that was made from a city-government phone, the existence of CPD “boss car” that isn’t equipped with a GPS tracking device and so much more, sources said.

We’ll even learn more about Johnson’s lies, which include a calm assertion that he was the one who called for an investigation into the incident when the probe was launched while he was “sleeping off” the night before, sources told Patch.

The inspector general’s office isn’t done conducting interviews and unravelling a tangled web of emails, text messages and cell phone calls connected to how “higher-ups” handled Johnson’s scandalous drive home. But Lightfoot's reaction to a sneak peak of the report is already expected to inspire a string of retirements and a massive leadership shakeup at police headquarters.

At a news conference announcing Johnson’s termination, Lightfoot said this moment must be a “turning point for the Chicago Police Department and the way things are done in this city.”

Lightfoot has already put Chicago police brass on notice that the IG investigation remained ongoing and that some of them will be called in for questioning, according sources familiar with the meeting at police headquarters.

Her message was clear: If you lie, you’re going to get fired.

There’s nobody at City Hall to protect you.

That changes everything.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting and Emmy-nominated producer, was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN. He was a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots."

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