A Cook County judge on Wednesday ordered all proceedings before the Chicago Police Board to be halted for nearly a month after Mayor Brandon Johnson once again delayed a vote on whether to reject an arbitrator’s ruling that the most serious disciplinary cases be heard behind closed doors.
During Wednesday’s City Council meeting, Johnson’s allies used a parliamentary maneuver to push back a vote on whether cops facing dismissal or suspensions over one year can choose to have their cases heard by an arbitrator instead of the police board.
Hours later, Judge Michael Mullen ordered that the police board should effectively be shut down until Feb. 24 to give council members more time to vote.
The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police amid the fallout from arbitrator Edwin Benn’s insistence that officers be able to keep their cases out of public view.
Officer Eric Stillman, who fatally shot 13-year-old Adam Toledo in March 2021, is among the officers whose cases have been suspended by Wednesday’s ruling. Disciplinary proceedings before the board were set to begin Monday.
John Catanzara, president of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, insisted that pushing back the vote is a “stall tactic” that’s been “orchestrated by the coward from City Hall who wouldn’t come here and defend his position in this court today,” apparently referring to Johnson.
“A battle is won, not the war yet,” Catanzara told reporters at the Daley Center while vowing to continue fighting in court.
The mayor has argued that offering cops an option for arbitration undermines “public accountability and transparency.” In a statement Wednesday, the city’s Law Department said the judge issuing “a short stay for approximately three weeks until Council has an opportunity to take action is not unreasonable. We respect the judge’s ruling pending the outcome of our arbitration dispute.”
In December, the council voted 33 to 16 to reject Benn’s decision, which he then reaffirmed in a subsequent decision the following month. On Tuesday, the Committee on Workforce Development rejected that decision and sent it to the full council for a vote.
City Council members Desmon Yancy (5th) and Jeylu Gutierrez (14th) then exercised the right of any two alderpersons to delay consideration of any matter without explanation for one meeting.
A city attorney told Mullen that alderpersons are now planning to cast a vote as late as mid-February before noting that the council “isn’t an easy body to control.”
Rejection of the arbitrator’s ruling requires a three-fifths majority within 30 days of Jan. 24, the date the latest legislation was introduced. If a vote isn’t cast by Feb. 24 or it falls short, Benn’s decision will be adopted.
Catanzara has vowed to ramp up the high-stakes legal battle in a bid to undercut the council’s authority.
As it stands, Catanzara is seeking a summary judgment enforcing Benn’s ruling and a temporary restraining order for cases pending before the police board.
But on Wednesday, a union lawyer pushed the judge to allow other officers whose cases were sent to the police board as far back as September 2022 to have them heard by an arbitrator, even if they’ve been adjudicated.
Mullen, however, said that issue “isn’t ripe for a decision at this point.”
Max Caproni, the police board’s executive director, declined to comment.
The next court hearing is set for Feb. 26.
