“A Compromise from the Start”

An interview with a Chicago Police district council member

Every time we go out to talk to people on the streets about their experiences with the Chicago Police Department, Dare to Struggle hears stories about the routine harassment and abuse that young Black and Latino people in Chicago suffer at the hands of these pigs. Yet many police reform advocates in Chicago claim that Chicago is on the road to full “community control of the police” through various electoral schemes, such as the Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance, passed in 2021. The passing of ECPS created 22 police district councils (PDCs), councils made up of 3 elected positions who mainly interact with people in their area and can make recommendations to local police commanders. Additionally, it created the CCPSA (Community Commission on Public Safety and Accountability), whose members are appointed by the mayor from among the district council’s nominees, sets goals for the police administrators, hires and fires COPA’s (Civilian Office of Police Accountability) chief administrator, and nominates candidates for police superintendent who they can also fire with cause. DTS wants to better understand Chicago’s byzantine and bankrupt system of police “accountability” and expose the failures of these reformist efforts, driven by careerist and opportunist activists. As part of our investigation and exposure, we sat down with one of the elected police district council members, to get his perspective on these reforms.

Can you tell us your name and title?

Sure, I’m David Orlikoff. I’m a member of District Council 14. The southern boundary is Division. The eastern boundary is the river. The north boundary is Belmont, and the West boundary is Central Park, so it has all of Logan Square and the surrounding neighborhoods like Humboldt Park, etc.

What did you expect going into this position? Why did you want to do this?

I expected to use the platform to educate, agitate and organize about state violence and police oppression, while pushing solutions as far as the structure would allow, and highlighting the shortcomings in police accountability where further change is still needed. I had some understanding of the structure of it. I followed CPAC, the Civilian Police Accountability Council from CAARPR, Chicago Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression, since its inception, and done a decent amount of work, supporting it, canvassing, etc.

But as far as this specific ordinance that came about, and passed [ECPS], I knew that the commission [CCPSA] would have the power to hire and fire the COPA chief and write goals for COPA, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability that receives police misconduct complaints. And also that they would have the power to write CPD rules called general directives. So between that, between the commission being able to write rules and then also exert control over this conduct agency, you would think that there would be an improvement in accountability. So that was definitely a hope of mine, to try to push us as far forward as we could get off of that.

It was always complicated from the start. A big issue that people had is, “what if the police just take over this body, and then it’s just used for the police.” And that is an issue. I mean, that could always be a problem, and is maybe still a problem now, but the way that it shook out we [police accountability advocates] should still have a pretty comfortable majority where we shouldn’t really need to be compromising.

I think that there have been some compromises. But in terms of answering the question about my expectations, I was somewhat optimistic in the showing of the accountability candidates at the start.

What has your experience been thus far with the council?

So the CCPSA has three parts: the district councils, the Commission and the CCPSA staff. So functionally, it’s supposed to be an inverted pyramid where the people elect the district councilors, who nominate the Commission, who has the ability to hire and fire the executive director of the staff at their pleasure.

However, things came into being backwards. Adam Gross, the executive director, wrote all of the explanations about the district councils and he was going off book, writing a lot of things that are not in the law and not in anybody in ECPS’ coalition’s expectations about this, including that on the front page about District Councils saying that their purpose is to have monthly meetings for the community to work with police. Literally saying nothing about the district councilors having a role in their own meetings or working with the community about policing issues. So from the beginning the number one thing that struck so many of us was that they’re trying to turn this into glorified CAPS beat meetings (Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy), into beat meetings on steroids. There are two ways they’ve tried to enforce. First, by saying that we should be sort of mouthpieces acting as public relations for the police, i.e., that we need to have better police and community relations by telling the community to like the police more. The second way is by saying that not only does everything need to be this compromise between the community and the police, but that also the police are an essential part of the community. So even if you’re just talking about the community, you need to be talking about the police. But if you’re talking about how to regulate the police as the community, you better also have the police at the table.

In terms of writing the policy, they [the Commission] have to go back and forth with CPD to agree on the policy, and if CPD doesn’t agree, then the Commission has acted as if they need to be concerned with CPD’s willingness to create a policy. Functionally, I don’t think that they have a way to compel them.

The district councilors are not employees of the city, and for that reason, none of the CCPSA staff work for us. We’re not part of the hierarchy. It’s been incredibly unhelpful in a lot of ways. And like I said, the staff is an independent department, and that isn’t what I expected. I don’t think that’s what anybody expected, because most of the people, even the ones who wrote ECPS, they’ve said things like, “you know, well, that’s what your staff is for, to help. Like, this isn’t a job for you, it’s it’s not supposed to be a full-time job for you, the staff need to help you.” Well, the staff doesn’t help us, and we have no way to do anything after they refuse to help us. A lot of them have ways to be busy and work hard too, but they’re literally just working for each other instead of doing what we need them to do.

So the other things that have happened. Number one, the FOP (fraternal order of police) arbitration decision is really bad. Really early on into our tenure, there was this awful decision that the courts made on a case that the FOP brought to the courts based on the state collective bargaining law, and the Court sided with the FOP. And the result of that is when a police officer was found at fault for some wrongdoing by the Police Board, they are allowed to take their case to arbitration. Effectively it’s done away with the Police Board because the decisions that they make have universally gone to arbitration instead, meaning they’re not even making decisions anymore. And there are a lot of problems with the arbitration. But even a police officer found at fault for serial rape or murder can go to arbitration.

The arbitrators, number one, don’t have to be Chicago citizens. They don’t have a fiduciary duty to the city of Chicago. They don’t have any duty whatsoever to the people of Chicago at all. They are also selected by the FOP. The FOP approves every single arbitrator that they use, and they have a huge conflict of interest. In a police court hearing, the officers are able to mount a full legal defense, and provide their own evidence and arguments, and cross examine and counter and everything and have lawyers. Arbitration is not about, “did they do it?” It’s not even about, what are the rules and what do the rules say. One of the standards that is upheld by arbitration is a standard of meeting the norms and the expectations for other officers. So if all the officers that had previously killed or raped someone only got a slap on the wrist, then according to the arbitrators, it’s like a standard playbook, it would be unfair to increase the punishment now for this new officer. So even new rules that the public democratic body can come up with, the arbitrators don’t have to follow the rules that we write. So it’s really a frightening position where I’m not exactly sure what is holding back police now in Chicago from deciding to go beyond taking the law into their own hands and deciding that they define the law for themselves.

So the backers of the police district council stated this gave people in Chicago power over the police department. In your opinion, does it?

I mean, definitely not. No, we don’t have power over the police. Definitely not.

It has been somewhat confusing, and to me felt somewhat contradictory, the kind of dual pull in two different directions. On the one hand, to want to celebrate the victory of just the passage of ECPS, and our election, just our existence, as this capstone in all these struggles for police accountability. And to some degree, some it feels like there’s some protectionism around that as well. But on the other hand, we know that this was a compromise from the start and started under Lori Lightfoot.

I think that the structure increases the public’s ability to influence police oversight to some degree, which is a pretty lukewarm endorsement, if that. However, I think that if you look at the material conditions and the actual state of police accountability from before and after, we have suffered far more setbacks than we have had victories and we are in a worse position in terms of police accountability today than we were before. Not necessarily because ECPS inherently makes the police less accountable. But we just have to be honest about the things that have happened, that have destroyed, totally eroded, accountability.

It’s confusing, on the one hand, to want to get the word out about this new thing and whatever positive steps it represents in the current version. But also, it seems like we need to be radically honest about all of its shortcomings if we’re trying to organize and push for something better.

I think the FOP contract has got to be the number one impediment to actual police accountability, aside from just the existence of a police department. And so we had the passing of an FOP contract that really went without any critical inquiry or study or any criticism. There were a number of anti-accountability provisions in the contract that were not even made public until after they were passed.

Some of the provisions that were in there included the 25% raise for the police, and removing the ability for body camera evidence to be used as evidence of police misconduct under certain conditions. So body cam evidence can only be used by defense during an interaction with the police. Meaning when they have you on camera, essentially. So if the police only have themselves on camera, like after they put you in the car, and then they walk around the corner and they start having a conversation with themselves about getting their story straight or something like that, that’s no longer admissible evidence. So you can literally have a video of the police framing you, and in this new FOP contract that will not be admissible evidence in court. So that’s pretty obscure, everything about body cams is this technical solution that avoids actually contending with the problem of policing. But now even the body cam “solution” is having its ability to hold the police accountable fully stripped away. And there were other measures in the FOP contract that it’s hard to even think of, because, again, there was no discussion around them. So that was a really bad thing.

And then the other awful thing that’s happened is this: there was never a more clear mandate towards accountability than in the full agreement from all partners, including the mayor and the chief of police, that we need to remove Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, any officers with ties to white supremacist or extremist organizations from the force, that none of them should be working for CPD. There was not a single person for years that that could say anything other than that standard line and not feel like they were going to be chased out of Chicago. There was never a more clear mandate and more agreement than on that one issue that surely officers found to have been members of Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, etc, must leave CPD, must leave the force. And the only policy that the new commission made in their first year of being official was to update the CPD associations order, which previously did not include racial biases and extremism. The order says that there should be a list of groups that you can’t be a member of, so that the KKK is on the list, and then you add the Proud Boys to the list, or whatever.

The reason for there not being a list is that BIA (Bureau of Internal Affairs) did not want the list to be public in any regard. If they were going to have a list, they refused to let it be public. So the standard that they were given (when investigating Chicago Police Officers who were found to be members of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers) says that you have to look at the behavior of the individuals, and of the group. Does their membership in the group constitute bias. They interviewed one person for 17 minutes. The longest interview was like 44 minutes, and that was it. They didn’t talk to a single person that the police had ever worked with. They didn’t talk to a single community member or complainant that had ever experienced any bias at their hands. They didn’t talk to anybody; they didn’t research in any way their actual associations or activities with the group. They just asked them, “were any of your activities based in discriminatory or biased feelings?” and the police say no, and they say, “Oh, cool.” They literally asked them, are you a racist? And they said no, and they’re like, awesome, I guess you’re not a racist. And that’s in the BIA head’s reply, his public letter talking about their process says, “Well, you know, just because they somehow happened to be a member of this group in the past doesn’t mean that there was anything racially biased or motivating about their activity, or them as a person. And we know because we asked them and they said there wasn’t.”

The Office of the Inspector Genera has said that this new standard that BIA is interpreting the new order under has set us back more than 50 years, which is same thing as with the Police Board, because now, in theory, an ex KKK member could openly be an ex KKK member on the force, and if that results in a BIA investigation, they’ll be asked the question like, “Hey, do you hold any bias?” And they’ll say no, and then that means that they’re fine, that they can stay. So the new standard would allow ex KKK members to be on the force. And that is absurd. So for that and arbitration, we’re really set back 50 years.

The OIG [Office of the Inspector General] has asked for the mayor to convene a whole government task force to address the issue. And the mayor has not acted yet or has essentially declined to do that.

Next question is on the recent police slayings of Dexter Reed and Alex Cortez, the young teenager from Plainfield who got killed in Pilsen. I don’t know if you have access to some of this stuff, but the circumstances of this kid’s killing is very sketchy. He was killed in August, and the family’s claiming that they’ve never seen the body cam, they don’t know anything. So we’ve been trying to talk to them and see how we can support. So with those two police slayings in the last year, with millions of dollars spent every year on police misconduct and the brutal police riot during the DNC, has Brandon Johnson done anything to rein in the pigs?

I don’t know. I think that the FOP contract was a serious setback for the city that did not need to happen, because they were given huge, huge raises, as well as huge concessions against accountability. And it’s not clear, what if anything, the people got.

And he should also look at firing Snelling, or asking Snelling why the BIA head is publicly promoting a new standard that would allow an ex KKK member to stay on the CPD force. What is Brandon gonna do? I mean, I think that it harms our credibility every second that this situation with the Oath Keepers still being on the force persists, and sure, there’s a complicated, by design, web of so called police oversight that Chicago has. That can’t be an excuse. So I definitely think that Brandon could do more.

Also the other thing that I haven’t really mentioned at all yet is about pretextual traffic stops. The pretextual traffic stops only exist as a top down directive from leadership. It’s not an official policy, but it is in a number of memos that we’ve seen where the police are saying, “you need to increase your traffic stop numbers. You need to spend more time engaging traffic stops. You need to commit more cars and resources to doing this”, every which way up and down the line. So it should be very easy for him to reverse that and to say your number one priority is to answer 911 calls, not to not to seek out officer initiated interactions with no public safety concern, which can lead to police killing people like Dexter Reed.

It’s very disappointing that the CCPSA Commission did not take on writing the policy to ban pretextual traffic stops when they had the opportunity to. Now that the policy is going into the federal consent decree, it cannot be decided solely by the Commission. Due to Chicago police’s consent decree,Brandon has the most control over changing it. He has a golden opportunity right now to fully come out in support of the community mandate to end discriminatory pretextual traffic stops for low level violations without any reasonable suspicion of a public safety concern. CPD doesn’t have a resource shortage problem, in reference to 911 response times, especially on the west side, CPD doesn’t have a resource shortage problem. It has a resource allocation problem. The tactical teams that killed Dexter Reed that were created supposedly to respond to shots fired, were spending 90% of their time on traffic stops and only 10% of their time on other things So has Brandon done anything to rein in the pigs? I mean, I don’t think that. I don’t know who today is effectively reining them in. They seem to be running wild a little bit with their wins on police arbitration and the FOP contract and the Oath Keepers and their willful obstinance, or with the pretextual traffic stops.

And with that, what do you think of the budget proposal, the recent budget proposal?

So the budget proposal has an increase, the largest increase for CPD, which should not happen. There’s no need for that. CPD simply needs to stop committing millions of, frankly, crimes. So they need to stop doing that, and then we won’t have all these problems of extra overtime and all this stuff. There’s no reason to raise the budget. There’s no reason to fire the constitutional policing folks and the solution is just to stop pretextual stops, and that’s where over half of the police resources are being wasted.

Final question, what do you think about Anthony Driver selecting Larry Snelling as the chief of police?

His claim to fame is that he testified in the Laquan McDonald case, indirectly against the officers. He testified that certain behavior would not be supported by the standard training that officers received, having been a training supervisor. It didn’t come out that there was significant controversy around one case where he was found not guilty, but his three squad mates were found [guilty] for a series of fraud, planting evidence, and threatening and false reports back to 1997. So in addition to those two thing on his record with accountability, the Most important thing was his recent position as the head of the Counter Terrorism Unit. And as we know, counter terrorism sort of largely being built up in the Bush era of the war on terror, post 9/11 with all of the manufactured consent to murder a million Iraqis and people in Afghanistan, etc, as well.

The Counter Terrorism Unit essentially is the unit whose job is to prevent demonstrations and protests from ever succeeding in their aims, becoming too effective or powerful. And that’s also not just theoretical. He was the guy that ran the show for Mayor Lori Lightfoot when she kettled all of downtown during the George Floyd protests. So Larry Snelling was the guy coordinating, raising all the bridges and then holding everyone for hours and hours and committing mass arrests. So the mass arrest or the police actions that we’ve seen around the DNC and with the Palestine protests really should not be a surprise to anyone knowing Snellings’ history of committing mass, kettle arrests.

I think that Driver definitely has a duty to hold Snelling more accountable, and that there are things that he needs to be held accountable on. In particular, Snelling made a clear promise to rid CPD of officers known to be members of Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, white supremacist organizations. So that is a huge failure every single second that it persists, and it has become Driver’s failure by not addressing what has been the result of that policy.

Superintendent Snelling has also said that traffic stops would be based on evidence, and not fishing, not based in any type of discrimination, and not trying to search people for unrelated things that there’s no evidence of. But despite a very small, reported decrease this year, it’s nowhere near sufficient when it increased 700% already from 2017. CPD very directly and intentionally decided to use traffic stops as a replacement for the federally banned stop and frisk. So, when stop and frisk was found unconstitutional and against civil rights, they immediately replaced it with traffic stops, traffic stop and frisk. At the same time in 2023 there were 200,000 unreported traffic stops. And the reason they do this is because they’re told to and, and they believe that the path to promotion is to conduct a lot of these stops and also to try and recover a gun from it. The police are literally not responding to 911 calls and spending time pulling people over.

Snelling said fishing would stop. And he has not done that. He could just issue a directive to end it today. Snelling needs to be held accountable for breaking his promise to end pretextual traffic stops and to end racist members in CPD. Driver has not shown a willingness thus far, to hold him accountable. So more than his selection, what matters is, how is he holding him accountable in office. And the answer to me, is it doesn’t appear that he is.

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