When video cameras captured Chicago Police Officer William Cozzi pummeling a wheelchair-bound hospital patient with a sap, it seemed a sure thing that the cop would lose his job.
But the members of Chicago’s Police Board, which reviews the police superintendent’s decision to fire officers, saw the case otherwise.
The board elected to suspend Cozzi for two years.
That case, and others like it, have led advocates and some aldermen to question whether the board is effectively punishing officers who commit serious infractions.
The City Council’s Police and Fire Committee is weighing an ordinance that would make the board’s decisions more transparent and require members to improve their attendance at meetings.
Though it didn’t pass when it was first presented earlier this month, committee chair Alderman Isaac Carothers (D-29), says he’s in favor of many of the provisions and is meeting with supporters to craft a revised bill.
“There are a couple of things I certainly agree with,” he says.
Among them are provisions limiting Police Board members to 10 years of service, and requiring the board to post written opinions that illuminate the reasoning behind decisions.
“I’m not so sure why they make the decisions they make,” Carothers says. “I have no problem with an ordinance requiring them to explain their decisions.”
Cozzi’s case is just one of many in which the board has overturned the Police Department’s decision to fire an officer or impose a lengthy suspension. The Chicago Justice Project recently released a study that found the board backed officers over the superintendent in 63 percent of the cases over a 10-year period.
Board president Demetrius Carney could not be reached for comment on the study’s findings.
The kind of pattern found in the study can lead to problems, says John Doherty, a former New York City police captain who now teaches criminal justice at Marist College.
“It might send a message that there will be some wiggle room for this kind of brutality to be tolerated,” he says.
It can also suggest that the board doesn’t have much faith in the superintendent.
“It would lead the rank and file to appeal every decision,” he says. “You’re going to have a lot more time and money spent on appeals.”
The reasons behind the board’s voting patterns are anything but clear.
Carothers says ensuring that witnesses appear for disciplinary hearings is a key problem.
“When it comes time to give testimony in front of the board, they may not want to do it,” he says. “They don’t follow through.”
Mark Donohue, president of the Fraternal Order of Police – Chicago Lodge 7, says the board’s decisions aren’t a problem.
“It says that the process works,” he says. “These people heard the testimony and made a decision.”
As long as the board’s hearings are open to the public and the process is fair, he says, the results shouldn’t be questioned.
Jon Loevy, a civil rights lawyer who often sues the Police Department over brutality complaints, says one issue is the time that lapses between an officer’s misconduct and the board’s decision.
“The primary problem seems to be that the process takes too long,” he says. “It takes years. There’s no longer any relationship between the offense and the consequences.”
He and other advocates for victims of brutality say the disciplinary process plays a role in the city’s outsized settlement payments for police misconduct.
“Most police officers do their jobs honorably and well,” Loevy says. “The ones that do have a problem know that there’s no efficient system for investigation and discipline.”
The Chicago Justice Project study also analyzed the participation of board members, and found some miss more than 30 percent of the votes taken on disciplinary cases.
The board disputes those numbers.
The ordinance before the Police and Fire Committee would, in its original form, cut annual stipends of board members from $15,000 to $5,000, and cut the chair’s stipend from $25,000 to $7,500, and remove board members who miss more than three meetings or fail to vote in 15 percent of the cases during a year.
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