from: Martin Preib's Crooked City <martinpreib@substack.com>
to: "add1dda@aol.com" <add1dda@aol.com>
sent: thursday, september 19, 2024 at 08:19:37 a.m. edt

"it's official: chicago's police oversight agency is a corrupt mess"

"right of arbitration of police officers should be guaranteed in wake of whistleblower lawsuit at police oversight agency…"

"news and commentary about chicago you won't get from the mainstream news

"it's official:

chicago's police

oversight agency

is a corrupt

mess"

"right of arbitration of police officers should be guaranteed in wake of whistleblower lawsuit at police oversight agency…"

Martin Preib's crooked city

"it will be interesting and troubling to watch the chicago media bolster the police oversight agency in chicago in the wake of a whistleblower lawsuit by its own investigators pointing out the intense bias at the agency.

"as first reported by cwb chicago, a recently fired employee of copa, Matthew Hayman, filed a lawsuit against copa, saying the agency was running tainted investigations. Hayman singled out the head of the agency, Andrea Kersten, claiming that Kersten 'knowingly made false statements' about the police shooting of Dexter Reed, who opened fired [sic] on officers, wounding one, after a traffic stop. Reed died in the shootout.

"Hayman's lawsuit means copa's own employees are stepping forward to confirm what cops have been saying all along: copa investigations, particularly those under its current leader, Andrea Kersten, are dirty as hell.

"for more than a decade, the chicago media has enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with copa, the agency that oversees police misconduct allegations, particularly those involving police shootings. throughout those years, police and their union, the fraternal order of police, have cited numerous examples of corrupt investigations by the agency and the refusal of the chicago police board to address this corruption as the board embraced recommendations by copa to fire officers.

"in its corruption, copa serves a similar relationship to the media as Cook county state's attorney Kim Foxx, namely, to manufacture fraudulent police misconduct narratives to a corrupt media machine. without the selling out of public institutions like copa and Foxx into an agent [sic, agents] of a political movement guided by the media, the media would have floundered on their lies decades ago. as both copa and Foxx deliver their narratives to the media, the public is often unable to see the real malevolence, cowardice, deceit, and fanaticism of the chicago media.

"in chicago, one hand dirties another.

"copa and its predecessors have been blatantly crooked for decades. Kersten's running around spreading lies about the Dexter Reed shooting is only the latest instance. her antipathy toward the police was revealed when Kersten put police officer Ella French on a suspension list after French had been murdered by a gang member. years earlier, the police and their union attempted to point out the biased investigations taking place under the former head of the oversight agency, Sharon Fairley, another anti-police zealot much like Kersten. Fairley attended a graduation of some 40 new investigators for copa that was, according to tribune reporter Dan Hinkel, like a "pep rally." at the ceremony, Fairley was quoted by Hinkel as saying that the police are 'squealing' when the fop criticized both ipra and copa as being unfair in their investigations.

"squealing, huh? it was a comment so despicable, ignorant, and offensive that Fairley should have been fired the same day, but it is important to remember that one of mayor Brandon Johnson's top aides was recorded saying 'fu--ing pigs' on a podcast.

"then there was the time when the fop complained to the city about leaks of confidential information to the press that gave crucial momentum to copa frame-up jobs of police, as well as evidence the agency hid rulings by their own experts that a police shooting was legitimate. there was the time the police oversight agency ruled a police shooting was not justified. the attorney for the offender's family marched into federal court to file a lawsuit against the cops, but a federal judge dismissed the case, claiming the shooting was justified.

"one would think that a federal judge rejecting a copa investigation might generate a little media interest, but it is the strategy embraced by virtually every media outlet in the city to merely ignore any story they can't twist into a component of their war on the police.

"the fop also successfully argued in 2018 that copa had no authority to investigate police shootings to begin with. that claim was confirmed by the executive director of the illinois law enforcement training and standards board.

"recommended punishments by copa are also drastic.

"the list of bias, corruption, and outright activism at copa and its predecessors goes back a long time, but the independent confirmation of the police allegations against copa in the wake of the new lawsuit begs many questions.

"here is one: how much of the chaos in chicago is the result of police unable to do their job for fear of retaliation from Kersten and her army of activist investigators? how much is copa actually driving crime in chicago? another: where are all the sanctimonious police board members who make the final judgments on whether an accused police officer will be fired based on copa investigations? how come they do not know that even the top dogs at copa don't approve of the agency's investigations? could it be that both copa and the police board are part of the same kangaroo court?

"in response to the long list of abuses taking place at copa, the previous administration of the fop initiated a legal campaign to grant the right of arbitration for its officers as a means of an independent ruling on allegations against them.

"that campaign for an independent arbitrator was met with furious resistance throughout the city, despite the fact that established labor law grants such a right to be negotiated in the police union contract. the fierce opposition generated a lot of press, none of which revealed that even the top officials at copa knew the investigations were, at best, tainted against the police. one wonders how much investigation the myriad 'investigative reporters' in chicago are actually doing.

"the opposition was illuminating for another reason. chicago is supposedly a union town, and the call for arbitration for the fop's members was merely demanding a union right enjoyed by workers all over the city. but police know one truth about chicago. all progressive tenets in chicago take a distant second place to the desperate war on the criminal justice system in the city, in particular the war on police. if that war requires the city, especially its unionized media, to turn into a bunch of scabs, so be it.

"nevertheless, Hayman's lawsuit opens up quite a can of worms and begs a plethora of questions, with one theme lurking beneath all of them. how can such statements by a former high-ranking official at copa not confirm the fact that the fop crusade for arbitration is bona fide? when copa's own top officials are alleging they were fired for standing up to copa bias, what more proof does one need that the police need an independent process?

"in the wake of the lawsuit against copa by its fired investigator, the record is now unassailable that cops deserve arbitration, no matter what loony arguments the scab media gin up."