Police Union Boss Is Right: Reform Talk Going Nowhere, Again

CHICAGO — At a City Hall news conference touting the latest baby step toward alleged police reform, the newly minted co-chair of a "Community Working Group" on police use-of-force rules flexed her muscles in front of reporters.

After being "bumped" from the mayor's public schedule three times, activist Arewa Karen Winters disavowed herself of any perceived allegiance to the mayor or police superintendent. She let Chicagoans know exactly how she feels about officers caught on video verbally abusing and battering Chicagoans during protests inspired by the nearly 9-minute video of George Floyd's death in police custody.

"Other cities are firing them and, here, they get 30 days desk duty, and then they’re returned, back to the streets in our communities," Winters said. "As far as I’m concerned, [they're] psychopaths with guns."

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Her enthusiasm riled police union boss, John Catanzara. He told the Sun-Times that Winters — who he accused of having "clear agenda" — shouldn't be involved police reform talks.

"How can she be any good steward of conversation about positive changes going forward? We’re not gonna have a seat at that table. It’ll be a bunch of recommendations that will be as far left and anti-police as you could possibly imagine," Catanzara said. "Nothing is going to get accomplished.”

I think I understand why Catanzara took offense.

Winters, it seemed to me, was talking about cops like him.

Since 1995, the union boss has been accused of misconduct 50 times — more than 96-percent of his co-workers. Ten of those allegations were sustained. He was disciplined nine times — and suspended for a total of 131 days, according to data compiled by the Invisible Institute.

Former top cop Jody Weis wanted to fire Catanzara for not following orders to complete a psychological exam. Former police Supt. Garry McCarthy wanted to fire Catanzara, too.

Both times the superintendents' efforts were rebuffed by politically appointed police board members that for generations rarely voted to fire cops.

What's baffling is that Catanzara bothered to make a stink about it. He's been around long enough to know public promises of sweeping police reform never amount to much, especially in Illinois.

So far, Democrats have pitched pretty vague reform ideas including licensing police, sending cops to community-taught history lessons on the underlying conditions in poor, minority neighborhoods plagued with violence and, of course, use-of-force recommendations from a working group hand-picked by City Hall.

They're not alone. The executive order President Donald Trump signed Tuesday calling for a new a police credentialing policy, use-of-force rules banning choke holds and a new federal database of officers with a history of excessive force complaints isn't much reform, either.

Proposals being bantered from both parties are hastily cobbled together ideas and served up in attempt to calm civil unrest in the lead up to Election Day.

What Catanzara might want to worry about is what Mayor Lori Lightfoot's isn't talking about — plans to make good on her prediction that Chicago's police union will soon face a "reckoning."

As a veteran cop, Catanzara has to know it's always easier to solve a problem when you come up with a plan in secret and keep your mouth shut. That's the gist of police union contract provisions that have stood in the way of rooting out "bad apples" in the department for generations.

The union contract gives cops facing misconduct or excessive force complaints plenty of time to get their story straight, change their story without punishment if it doesn't jibe with video evidence and keeps their identity secret from the public, among other things.

Even the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) — the latest name of Chicago's independent agency charged with investigating misconduct — is bound by rules that keep all investigation reports confidential to preserve the alleged "integrity" of its ongoing investigations.

The agency takes confidentiality so seriously talking about misconduct investigation details can get a COPA employee fired — a punishment that officers found guilty of misconduct rarely suffer.

Since 1988, independent and secretive police misconduct investigations yielded sustained findings only 7 percent of the time, according to the Invisible Institute database. As for the other 93-percent of cases, secrecy provisions in the police union contract stands in the way of fact-checking the legitimacy of police accountability system that many Chicagoans don't trust.

Politicians can debate licensing cops, defunding police departments, banning chokeholds, ordering cops to take touchy-feely neighborhood history classes all they want.

But until the government-sanctioned veil of secrecy that hides the true depth of our city's police misconduct epidemic gets lifted, Chicago's police union boss is right.

All this reform talk seems to be going nowhere, again.

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" docu-series on CNN, and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots.

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