The Chicago City Council followed Mayor Brandon Johnson’s lead in rejecting a provision Wednesday to allow Chicago police officers accused of serious misconduct to have their disciplinary cases heard behind closed doors, while approving Police Department pay raises and other contract provisions.
Wednesday’s 33-17 vote nixes a major part of the deal between the union representing cops and Johnson’s administration. Defeating the arbitration clause required a 60% vote of the 50-member council. That rejection, and the council’s reasoning for it, will now head back to arbitrator Edwin Benn, who earlier this year voted for the arbitration clause and who could send that same ruling back to aldermen within weeks.
The battle could ultimately end up in circuit court.
Votes in favor of the arbitration award came from more conservative or pro-police aldermen: Ald. Brian Hopkins, 2nd; Anthony Beale, 9th; Peter Chico, 10th; Nicole Lee, 11th; Marty Quinn, 13th; Raymond Lopez, 15th; Derrick Curtis, 18th; Matt O’Shea, 19th; Silvana Tabares, 23rd; Felix Cardona, 31st; Gilbert Villegas, 36th; Nick Sposato, 38th; Samantha Nugent, 39th; Anthony Napolitano, 41st; Brendan Reilly, 42nd; Jim Gardiner, 45th; and Debra Silverstein, 50th.
[ City Council committee rejects discipline provision in Chicago police contract but OKs pay hikes ]
In an unusual move at Johnson’s request, the arbitration matter was voted on separately from the rest of the contract, including raises for rank-and-file officers totaling 20% over four years that was approved by the full council with no debate.
The lack of controversy over the financial aspect of the FOP contract was another departure from the council’s more raucous debates about the cost of policing, which has been a hot-button issue for years.
But for this contract, the arbitration issue became the main point of disagreement.
The provision would allow officers accused of misconduct to remove their cases from the Chicago Police Board docket and instead have them decided privately by an outside third party. The closed-door option was part of an arbitration award handed down earlier this year by Benn during contract negotiations between the city and FOP.
The head of the Fraternal Order of Police, John Catanzara, argued that the arbitration provision simply gave officers the same rights as many other unions in the state. But critics — including leaders of the city’s police accountability bodies — said it subverted efforts to make police misconduct proceedings more transparent.
Given Benn’s previous ruling on arbitration, Catanzara has warned repeatedly that a rejection would be a waste of time and predicted the union would ultimately prevail in a costly court fight.
During the debate on the arbitration issue, Ald. Silvana Tabares, 23rd, agreed with Catanzara.
“The city’s attorney admitted — they admitted — that they are likely to be unsuccessful in court defending the blatant disregard the city has shown to the state law when it comes to how it treats Chicago Police officers,” Tabares said.
“There’s a fundamental difference” between other unions and the FOP, countered Ald. Andre Vasquez, 40th. “It isn’t about hate or love or how we view it, it’s fundamental to the role itself: A plumber doesn’t have the ability to arrest anybody. A pipe fitter doesn’t have the ability to shoot anyone.”
His support of having police discipline cases heard at the police board is “not to villainize,” Vasquez said, but because the most serious accusations of misconduct involve “nuance and … understanding.” It is to the FOP’s benefit to “hear it publicly because there times where officers are making the right call,” he said.
Before the arbitration vote, Mayor Brandon Johnson briefly recessed the council after repeated outbursts from members of the public seated in the chamber and in the gallery on the third floor of City Hall. A handful of people were escorted out of the third floor after they banged their hands on the windows overlooking the chamber.
On the finance side of the contract, language was not publicly made available until the day of the committee vote.
[ FOP and city reach tentative contract deal that provides 20% raises over four years ]
Johnson administration officials estimate the new provisions — including bonuses and 5% raises this year and next — would cost an additional $60 million in 2024. Those raises went above and beyond the raises negotiated by Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration in 2021. An analysis by the Better Government Association’s policy team concluded it “would be the largest package of raises for any of the city’s employee unions in modern history.”
That vote cleared the City Council 43-7. Ald. Julia Ramirez, 12th; Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th; Ald. Jessie Fuentes, 26th; Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez, 33rd; Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 35th; Andre Vasquez, 40th; and Matt Martin, 47th voted “no.”
It’s the latest chapter in the equilibrium Johnson has tried to maintain in his handling of CPD.
In his previous role as Cook County commissioner, he passed a resolution to “redirect funds from policing and incarceration to public services not administered by law enforcement.”
As a candidate for mayor, he promised not to raise the department’s budget. But once in office, he pitched a record $2 billion in spending for the Police Department in his first budget. While granting raises, Johnson also reshuffled positions within the department to reflect his vision for public safety. He reduced the number of budgeted beat cops; boosted detective ranks, civilian positions and those dedicated to fulfilling the department’s consent decree requirements; and created a new pilot for homicide teams in the hopes of improving clearance rates.
The contract lasts through the end of 2027.
Meanwhile, aldermen finalized two large police misconduct settlements during Wednesday’s meeting. One was a $2 million award for the family of a man killed by Chicago police that failed in a close vote in City Council in July, while another focused on a $8.75 million settlement in another fatal police shooting.
Aldermen voted 31-18 on the $2 million package that stems from the 2014 CPD slaying of Darius Cole-Garrit, a 21-year-old man who officials said pulled a gun from his waistband and pointed it at officers.
When the council rejected the award this summer, it posed the body’s highest-profile rebuke of the city’s Law Department yet, but corporation counsel has maintained the case would be “difficult” to win should it go to trial given conflicting testimonies on whether Cole-Garrit actually had a gun.
The city’s Independent Police Review Authority found the shooting justified and a semi-automatic handgun was recovered 20 feet from Cole-Garrit, but fingerprint testing was inadequate.
The $8.75 million settlement will go to the family of Michael Craig, a 61-year-old man who was killed by a Chicago cop in 2021 after he called 911 to report his wife threatening him at knife point. Upon arrival, body camera footage shows, Craig was shot instead.
“I believe the justice of this settlement is unimpeachable,” Ald. Daniel La Spata, 1st, said of the $8.75 million settlement. While he noted most victims of domestic violence are women, he noted “what we are spending next year on retention bonuses (for CPD) is double what we have ever spent on gender based violence in any given year.”