Angry aldermen criticize IG Ferguson for op-ed on teacher’s murder

In a racially charged attack, Inspector General Joe Ferguson on Wednesday came under intense fire from several City Council members for a blistering op-ed he wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times in response to the murder of a Rogers Park schoolteacher.

License Committee Chairman Emma Mitts (37th) asked Ferguson why it took the murder of 64-year-old Cynthia Trevillion — who taught Ferguson’s children — to convince the inspector general to call out the mayor, Police Supt. Eddie Johnson and all 50 aldermen.

Among other things, Ferguson wrote that the Chicago Police Department “does not have a comprehensive crime strategy” and demanded that Johnson “lead” and develop one, with help — not with people handpicked by City Hall — but from experts. Ferguson also wrote that “CPD’s shamefully low case-clearance rate — about 25 percent of homicides and less than 5 percent of non-fatal shootings in Chicago result in arrests — is astonishingly below any respectable national standard.”

Mitts seized on the fact that Trevillion was white in attacking Ferguson’s criticism of city officials.

“Why does it have to be a white person? Why does it have to be somebody close to you? . . . We deal with this every day,” Mitts told Ferguson during City Council budget hearings. “It came out all wrong because, if we are one city, we should have been acting this way all along — including you.”

Ald. Ariel Reboyras (30th), chairman of the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety, questioned why Ferguson lambasted Johnson, whom Reboyras called “a superintendent who has talked the talk and walked the walk.

“One has to wonder if you would be compelled to say this if this terrible tragedy had not occurred in your community,” Reboyras said. “Frankly Mr. Ferguson, as chairman of Public Safety, I take these comments as an insult to not only the police of Chicago, the superintendent, but also the community task force in the city of Chicago.”

Ferguson said he apologized to Johnson on Tuesday night and proceeded to have a “great discussion” with him about crime-fighting strategy and future cooperation.

And he categorically denied that his passion on the subject, stems only from the fact that he knew Trevillion and that she taught his children.

“My statement closes with express reference to all of the victims of gun violence, using this instance which seemed to pierce public consciousness in ways that does not usually occur. . . . That is just flat wrong,” Ferguson said.

The inspector general noted that similar murders in different neighborhoods go unnoticed.

But he acknowledged that “this one . . . snapped me out of my internalization to make me realize the numbers here are terrible.

“We’re on track this year for about 600 murders and 3,500 shootings. . . . This is twelve Las Vegas [mass shootings] — only just happening very slowly over time. And over 700 last year,” he said.

“My point is, we all need to wake up much more. We all need to move to that place of discomfort where we make a point of being constantly conscious and aware — all of us — of exactly what’s going on and the need for all of us to push harder and faster and stronger to figure out what those solutions are.”

Still, Reboyras took offense to Ferguson’s characterization of Trevillion’s murder as “an unintended wound to privilege — my privilege” — because “a white teacher was cut down in a place and under circumstances we do not associate with such occurrences.”

“You stated in this article that, ‘This kind of thing doesn’t happen in my neighborhood.’ You also stated that neighborhoods that are challenged by violence [are] places where our children do not get to see the world as good,” Reboyras said.

Budget Committee Chairman Carrie Austin (34th) was not appeased when Ferguson reminded aldermen that he spent months listening to Chicagoans while co-chairing the mayor’s Task Force on Police Accountability. “But you did not make a statement in the public like you did this time, inspector general,” Austin said.