Fascists on the CPD: Why Is It So Hard to Fire Proud Boy Cops in Chicago?

For many years, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) has harbored at​ least two dozen members of the Proud Boys, Three Percenters, and other white supremacist and fascist groups. The scandal, well-documented in the local media and official city investigations, has come and gone from the public view. Two mayors, two police superintendents, two city councils have passed the buck on the issue, and for now there is no resolution in sight.

Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s Mayor, a former Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) organizer, is known for his radical rhetorical flourishes and his attacks on President Donald J. Trump’s policies. Yet, Trump’s fascist allies on the CPD are allowed to continue to serve and, as far as anybody knows, to recruit to their organizations. The Proud Boys and Three Percenters were directly involved — and later pardoned — in the January 6th coup attempt and political violence across the country during the past decade.

Tom Schuba and Dan Mihalopoulos, reported last year on WBEZ, Chicago public radio station, that:

Facing sharp criticism for tolerating officers with ties to extremist groups, the Chicago Police Department implemented new rules earlier this year aimed at barring officers from joining such organizations. But the department’s registry of “criminal and biased organizations” does not list any of the far-right groups officers have associated with, such as the Ku Klux Klan, Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. The document includes 675 gang factions department members are forbidden from joining — but no hate or extremist groups.

The serving Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling, a Johnson appointee, cleared all accused officers, which became public in May 2024. Johnson publicly backed him. This move was criticized by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the respected watchdog research center of the far right. In a letter to Johnson, also signed by several of the Mayor’s closest allies on the city council. The SPLC letter emphasized that many of the cops freely admitted joining the Oath Keepers between 2009 and 2013, when they “were one of the most active and combative antigovernment extremist groups operating in the U.S.”

In February 2025, Johnson formed “a new task force to examine how to rid the Chicago Police Department of officers with ties to extremist and anti-government groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers,” according to Heather Cherone, a reporter for WTTW, the public television outlet in Chicago. The decision came eight months after the recommendation of Inspector General Deborah Witzburg, who previously urged the firing of one Proud Boy member, Robert Bakker, only to see him suspended for 120 days by former Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown.

Also, in February, Alderman Matt Martin introduced an ordinance to ban extremists from city employment. “Extremism is on the rise, and so, we think that this is the right time to move forward with this prohibition, to make sure that if you are seeking to attack and overthrow the government, that you aren’t simultaneously collecting a government check,” Martin told the city council.

WBEZ reported that, “Martin’s proposed ordinance defines extremist activities as supporting the overthrow of any local, state or federal government by violence or other unlawful means. It identifies more than a dozen activities that could count as active participation in an extremist organization, such as paying dues, attending meetings, recruiting others, or posting and sharing content online that promotes extremist activities.” But it has languished in committee.

Two months after the formation of this new task force led by Deputy Mayor Garien Gatewood and Chief Equity Officer Carla Kupe, Cherone reported, “the effort has yet to show any sign of public progress.” This in part stems from the muddying the focus of the task force beyond the CPD to all city employees. “There are no public allegations that city workers in any other department other than CPD have documented ties to anti-government or extremist groups,” according to Cherone.

It doesn’t help that the task force also includes “representatives of the CPD representatives from CPD, the Law Department, the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, the Office of Public Safety Administration, the Department of Human Resources and the mayor’s office.” It claims to have met several times but, after making several phone calls to people who would know, I can’t find anyone who has attended or knew about the meetings, which are supposed to be public. A committee filled with cops, lawyers, and career bureaucrats is a recipe for misdirection and inertia.

Johnson’s secretive and in-crowd behavior doesn’t help. According to Heather Cherone, back in February:

Johnson’s office did not announce the formation of the task force publicly and only acknowledged it after the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression scheduled a town hall meeting to detail plans for the new task force. Faayani Aboma, an organizer with the organization known as CAARPR, said its leaders had not gotten any updates from the mayor’s office about the activities of the task force.

It also doesn’t help that many people on the Chicago Left are political allies of Brandon Johnson. On the eve of his testimony in Washington, D.C., before Congress, “To send him off covered in prayer and community support, the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR) organized a rally for Johnson at Healing Temple Church in the Austin neighborhood. Chicago Board of Education member and storied organizer Jitu Brown welcomed Johnson to the stage,” according to Tiffany Walden of the Tribe.

Meanwhile, Deborah Witzburg, the city’s Inspector General, appointed by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, announced that she was not going to serve a second term. Witzburg was one of the few public officials who has consistently pushed to fire Proud Boys from the CPD. She grew so frustrated by the inaction of the Johnson administration that she recommended that the state decertify the CPD identified as Proud Boys or Three Percenters. Yet, nothing happened.

The inescapable conclusion is that there is not the political will in the Johnson​ administration, the majority of the City Council, and the allies of the Mayor. The CPD long known for its brutality, racism, and use of torture, but a machine that protects and generates the far right historically in the Windy City. According to historian Frank Donner:

“At least since the post-World War I days of the Chicago-based American Vigilance Federation, Chicago’s political police have maintained important ties with the city’s ever-blooming far right groups. Beginning in the mid-sixties, a secret tie was gradually formed between various parts of the Chicago law enforcement structure — especially the red squad — and a group known as the Legion of Justice.”

This isn’t ancient history. During the George Floyd uprising, the CPD openly colluded with racist vigilantes in several neighborhoods in Chicago, including Bridgeport, the ancestral home of the Daly political dynasty. Meanwhile, the current president of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police John Catanzara, an avid Trump supporter and vigorous defender of the far right in his ranks. We should expect in the second Trump presidency, that fascist organizations will continue to flower and spread. This is not a past problem or old business. Ultimately, driving the Fascists from the CPD won’t come from the political establishment but by pressure from the streets.

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