For the second time in two months, the Chicago City Council on Thursday rejected an arbitrator’s ruling that would allow Chicago Police Department officers accused of the most serious wrongdoing to bypass the Police Board and instead have their cases heard behind closed doors.
The 32-18 vote — after an emotional debate that forced Mayor Brandon Johnson to call for decorum four times — reaffirms the Council’s symbolic commitment to police reform and accountability, but the victory for Johnson and his allies may be both short-lived and Pyrrhic.
It essentially punts the hot potato back to Circuit Judge Michael Mullen, who will decide whether officers recommended for firing or suspension longer than one year will be allowed to put their disciplinary fate in the hands of an arbitrator who might be more sympathetic to their arguments and would hold proceedings behind closed doors.
“You don’t get to say, ‘I don’t like the law. I’m gonna ignore it.’ You have to go and change it in Springfield,” Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara warned alderpersons before Thursday’s vote. “We’re willing to have that fight, too, if you want. But do your duty. Do your oath to uphold the Illinois Constitution. And labor law is part of that law and constitution.”
Catanzara accused Johnson’s Council allies of taking “the coward’s way out” by forcing a judge to do what they lack the political courage to do because they’re “worried about the squeaky wheels.”
In December, the Council voted 33-16 to reject arbitrator Edwin Benn’s decision. A month later, Benn reaffirmed his original ruling in even stronger terms, and kicked the matter back to the Council for a second vote with a warning that the city has “no possibility of prevailing” in litigation already filed by the FOP.
Thirty votes, or a three-fifths majority of the 50-member Council, were needed to reject the disciplinary ruling a second time.
Johnson’s Council allies made it with two votes to spare.
Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41st), one of the police union’s staunchest Council supporters, was shouted down as he argued that a vote to deny police officers the arbitration option guaranteed by state law was part of an “anti-police movement” that also includes reducing the number of police officers and “getting rid of ShotSpotter.”
Johnson asked for decorum, and when Napolitano resumed, he warned his colleagues, “If this goes to the courts, the city will lose in the end, and you will pay. If you want to put your money where your mouth is, this is that moment. This is going to cost the city a lot.”
Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th) countered that his second vote to reject the arbitrator’s ruling was “not about being anti-police.” It’s about “being ‘anti’ people who shouldn’t be police in the first place.
“People want to talk about, ‘This is about oaths.’ Sure. It’s also about Oath Keepers and Proud Boys and people who also are defended all the time. And no one called them out and said they shouldn’t be officers. In fact, the only time we found out about officers who were Oath Keepers was because they admitted to it in arbitration [behind] closed doors and then didn’t suffer any consequences for admitting it,” Vasquez said.
Ald. Jesse Fuentes (26th) argued that “99 percent” of Chicago police officers would not be affected by Thursday’s decision.
“We’re talking about a very small percentage of individuals that make decisions that are expensive at best and fatal at worst on the dime of the city of Chicago,” Fuentes said.
At a news conference Thursday, Johnson portrayed the second vote as delivering on his campaign promise to restore the level of trust between citizens and police that’s essential to solving violent crime.
“The people of Chicago elected me to bring transformation and transparency to how we handle accusations of misconduct and that those accusations of misconduct should happen in the forefront, in the public where people can actually witness it,” Johnson said.
Mullen has already shut down the Police Board’s disciplinary functions for nearly a month to give the Council more time to vote. His next hearing is scheduled for Feb. 26.
Catanzara said he plans to renew his request for a summary judgment enforcing the arbitrator’s ruling and a temporary restraining order to suspend roughly 26 Police Board cases affected by the ruling.
That includes the case of the Officer Eric Stillman, who shot and killed 13-year-old Adam Toledo in March 2021, and Officer Adolfo Bolanos, who fatally shot 17-year-old Michael Elam Jr. during a 2019 foot chase in North Lawndale.
He is also vowing to take the city to civil court for “80 to 100” cases dating to 2018, when the union first demanded the arbitration option.
