It’s fun to watch as unionized leftists in the mainstream media in Chicago stew over the news from a labor arbitrator in contract negotiations with the City of Chicago. The decision ruled that cops could choose arbitration over the kangaroo court at the so-called “Civilian Office of Police Accountability.”
The decision may, in fact, mark the beginning of the end for COPA. And boy, wouldn’t that be a shame, right?
From the Contrarian:
An arbitrator in the contract negotiations between the City of Chicago and the union representing Chicago police, FOP Lodge 7, has backed a longstanding labor right for officers to choose arbitration in police misconduct cases rather than face judgment in front of the Chicago Police Board.
The arbitrator’s ruling threatens to undermine the power of the city’s civilian oversight agency, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA), and the Chicago Police Board that renders judgments derived from COPA investigations, in the civilian discipline process. For Chicago reporters, the possibility of COPA and the Police Board losing complete control over disciplinary matters, particularly the meting out of punishments to officers, is a nightmare scenario.
Why? COPA and the Police Board have been willingly at the disposal of the anti-police movement for years. Chicago’s police oversight agencies have little to do with addressing police misconduct. Instead, they are pioneers in the politicalization of the criminal justice system that has emerged across the nation. As part of their alliance with the anti-police movement, COPA and the Police Board conspire with Chicago’s monolithic media engine to criminalize the police. Rather than investigate the bizarre, nonsensical, and clearly malevolent investigations by COPA that have led to the firing of so many good officers, the Chicago media machine became a crucial public-relations outlet for the radicalized agencies.
It would take books to cover the myriad examples of media, COPA, and Police Board collusion, but one case stands out above all others.
On July 3, 2018, two Tactical officers serving in the 11th District, Larry Lanier and David Taylor, spotted and reported an armed suspect, Terrell Eason, and gave chase. The officers repeatedly announced their presence. After jumping a fence, Eason got up on all fours, armed and with his finger in the trigger well. The officers fired, killing him.
COPA arbitrarily ruled the shooting was not justified and recommended the Police Board fire both officers. The Board leveled even more charges, alleging the officers committed the heinous offense of not remembering to turn on their cameras in the course of chasing an armed offender. How dare they?
How dare they have the same fundamental rights as everyone else. Including the right to self-defense.
Preib closes with this…
Arbitration is a truly independent, third-party review of police misconduct, in which arbitrators must adhere to clearly established guidelines and previous rulings. It is a common union right, utilized by unions as a fair process.
The media attacks on arbitration pose a problem for the city’s left-wing media. As arbitration is a right enjoyed among union members throughout the country, including teacher’s unions mired in scandals involving sex abuse allegations against students, one wonders, where are the stories by the media questioning the right of arbitration for these scandal-ridden institutions?
Moreover, many of these “journalists” are members of unions themselves. The Chicago Tribune voted to organize years ago in the wake of the paper being sold to hedge fund owners. Hardly a week goes by without these reporters bemoaning or expressing annoyance with the big bad, capitalist owners not giving them basic union rights and benefits.
That same sympathy for union rights clearly does not extend to the police. Foreman and the media criticism of the ruling giving arbitration to Chicago police is just another sign that the war on law enforcement in Chicago is a mission issue across the whole spectrum of broadcast and print media in Chicago…
In March of last year a bodycam video was released of a Chicago cop killing a teen AFTER that teen obeyed instructions to drop the weapon and then he held his hands up in plain sight with the flashlight beam on him, clear as day and as instructed but he was murdered anyway. Fox News and the other “conservative” media defended the cop, not the victim under the assumption the audience was boot lickers and ok with government sponsored executions. Hannity almost slipped up and hold the truth but someone must have corrected him in his earpiece so he maintains the narrative. All of this on video for anyone to see, research it. OR anyone spending much time in the city knows someone who was ticketed for a U turn or some other traffic violation only to watch the cop leave and do the SAME THING. Not to mention they sit behind buildings hoping to find someone using their phone driving then they pull them over to cite them and the cop takes off and guess what??? They get on THEIR phone! IF anyone is still wondering why there is an anti-police movement please call NASA and ask to speak with a rocket scientist to figure this one out.