'Lightfoot Effect' Looms Over Cops Facing Police Board Dismissal

CHICAGO — Police union boss John Catanzara put in his retirement papers before the Chicago Police Board could take a vote on his pending termination over the filing of false reports, and too many misconduct allegations to list.

“There was never a possibility under God’s green earth that I was ever going to give this mayor the ability to utter the words, ‘I fired him,’" Catanzara said after testifying before the Police Board in a termination hearing Monday.

Strip away Catanzara's bluster — and grand delusion that he's now a viable mayoral candidate — and it seems the Fraternal Order of Police boss has realized the days are gone when the politically appointed Chicago Police Board rarely voted to fire cops.

Former top cops Jody Weis and Gary McCarthy, for instance, both tried to fire Catanzara, only to be rebuffed by a Police Board vote. For Catanzara, his latest termination hearing felt different.

“It was pretty evident very early on that this cake was already baked," Catanzara said, which suggests he considers himself a political target of a mayor out to get him.

An analysis of Police Board data seems to tell a different story, which Catanzara's former colleagues might want to pay attention to if they ever find themselves in his position.

The percentage of cops facing termination hearings who ultimately kept their jobs has significantly decreased under Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who predicted the police union would face a "reckoning."

Between 2006 and 2018 — under former mayors Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel — just 55 percent of officers facing termination hearings separated from the department. About 20 percent of them resigned, and 35 percent were fired.

Since Lightfoot took office in 2019, about 81 percent of officers facing dismissal are no longer on the job. About 34 percent of officers recommended for termination resigned, and 47 percent were fired.

Could it be that cops are losing faith in a police misconduct system that for generations was rigged in their favor thanks to union contracts, state laws and police-friendly political appointees due to, well, the Lightfoot Effect?

After all, 57 percent of police officers facing termination on misconduct charges so far this year resigned before giving the Police Board a chance to decide whether they should be fired.

That's the highest percentage of officer resignations prior to a Police Board decision since 2006, except for 2016, the first full year Lightfoot served as Police Board president.

That year, 93 percent of cops facing termination departed the police department payroll. About 47 percent of them resigned prior to a Police Board ruling. The rest were fired.

For generations, the Police Board has been a mayor-appointed jury that often sided with cops accused of termination-level misconduct against the wishes of police superintendents.

During his tenure as top cop, McCarthy frequently complained to me that being required to get Police Board approval to fire officers accused of gross misconduct was a serious roadblock to police reform.

Police Board statistics show that between 2006 and 2018, the Police Board only approved 35 percent of termination recommendations, and just 20 percent of officers resigned before a ruling.

Since 2019, the guilty rate on Police Board termination cases jumped 23 percentage points — to 47 percent.

Lightfoot told me it shouldn't be a secret to Chicago cops that she expects officers to live up to the standards of their sworn oath to serve and protect — and expects them to be held accountable when they don't.

"The business as usual of returning unfit officers to the street has to stop. It costs the city a billion-plus dollars and counting [in legal fees and court settlements]. Taxpayers deserve better," the mayor said.

"We trust officers with enforcing the law. That means they can't be above the law when it comes to their own conduct. When an officer is accused of misconduct and the [punishment] recommendation is termination, the Police Board takes a serious look at the merit of cases with a seriousness of purpose to get the root of the allegation and calling balls and strikes."

The Police Board's chief umpire, so speak, is Ghian Foreman. In 2012, he was among a dissenting minority that voted to fire Catanzara. He now serves as the board's president.

Backed by a mayoral mandate for police accountability — and bolstered by civil unrest that has shined a national spotlight on rigged systems for probing and punishing cop misconduct complaints in the wake of George Floyd's murder under the knee of a Minneapolis officer — Foreman has made it clear that he believes officers should be held to a higher standard than before.

In 2019, for instance, Foreman joined in a dissenting opinion in the termination case of officer Daphne Sebastian.

Even though Sebastian was fired for her role in the attempted cover-up of what happened the night former officer Jason Van Dyke murdered Laquan McDonald, Foreman argued it was punishment enough.

He joined dissenters to the Police Board's majority that voted to clear her of violating Rule 14 — a little-known provision in the police disciplinary code related to making false statements — even though she "misled those investigating the shooting [of Laquan McDonald] by consciously omitting key facts from her account."

"We wish to make clear through this dissent that the Board's goal is to impress upon members [of the] Department of the importance of telling the complete truth, inclusive of the relevant circumstances and context," the dissenting opinion states. "The Board regards a Rule 14 violation among the most significant actions to be judged by the Board. An officer's responsibility to tell the truth is at the heart of Rule 14 and at the heart of community trust in the police."

MORE ON PATCH: Did Police Board Ruling Include A Secret Message To Chicago Cops?

If that was a warning to cops facing termination for violating Rule 14 — historically a "career killer" in police departments across the country but rarely in Chicago — it appears some officers got the message, according to Police Board data.

Between 2010 and June 2019, officers who faced firing for a Rule 14 violation were more likely to leave the fate of their career to a Police Board vote.

Over more than eight years, Police Board data shows, seven officers facing termination for filing false reports were fired.

Eight officers got suspensions, instead.

Four officers were found not guilty.

And five cops up for termination for Rule 14 violations resigned prior to a Police Board ruling on their case.

In the 30 months since, the Police Board fired seven officers and suspended three for making false reports.

Five officers who faced dismissal hearings for making false reports resigned before the Police Board could make a ruling on their termination.

On Tuesday, Catanzara became the sixth cop since 2019 to quit rather than face the chance of being fired for making false reports, among other things.

And the Police Board has not found a single officer charged with making false reports “not guilty” since Lightfoot took office.

Liars — and other police rule breakers — beware.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docuseries on CNN and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary "16 Shots."

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