Chicago inspector general freed from consent decree guiding CPD reform

As the Chicago Police Department inches its way toward complying with landmark reforms ordered by the federal government, City Hall’s watchdog office has passed muster with the consent decree that took effect in 2019. 

The office of the Chicago inspector general “achieved and maintained full and effective compliance” as required for two years, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer wrote in an order last week, making it the first city agency freed from oversight requirements set in the decree. 

The court-enforced police reform plan was prompted by a Justice Department probe in the wake of CPD Officer Jason Van Dyke’s killing of teenager Laquan McDonald in 2014, which found the department has shown patterns of racist, abusive and unconstitutional policing for decades. 

The CPD is the main focus of the decree — and has the longest way to go to meet its terms — but the inspector general’s office had been among several other agencies still being scrutinized by the feds. The others include the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, the Chicago Police Board, and the Office of Emergency Management and Communications. 

For a two-year period, the inspector general’s office had to prove it was adequately notifying COPA of police misconduct complaints, reviewing past CPD disciplinary cases and properly sharing information with other agencies, among a host of other requirements. 

“Having been released from our own obligations, I look forward to working closely with the consent decree monitor and with our partners in City government to help ensure that Chicagoans see real change — on the street, not just on paper,” Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said in a statement. 

In her latest report issued last month, Maggie Hickey, the independent monitor appointed by the federal court to keep tabs on the city’s progress, found CPD was complying at least partly with 85% of the terms of the lengthy decree — but was fully compliant with only 6% of reforms. 

Hickey said “significant progress” could be made with an improved community policing strategy, a transparent staffing study and better collection and analysis of data. 

She added that it’s “our hope that [new CPD Supt. Larry] Snelling will push the CPD to quickly develop transparent plans to demonstrate respectful, collaborative, effective, and constitutional policing.”

Snelling, who designed the latest version of CPD’s use-of-force training model — an integral part of the decree — has pledged transparency since Mayor Brandon Johnson selected him to become the city’s top cop.