Over the past 10 years, more than two dozen officers with multiple citizen complaints have been assigned to train recruits at the Chicago Police Department Education and Training Academy, records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show.
Out of a total of 460 officers assigned to the academy between 2005 and 2015 — most for just a few days or weeks — 40 percent of them had at least one citizen abuse complaint, often before they were assigned to the academy, the Sun-Times found.
One of them supervised a team of cops who went to prison for ripping off drug dealers, two served in the notorious Special Operations Section, and some were hit with complaints from citizens while they were teaching at the academy.
Since the police department ends up dismissing most of the complaints against its officers — fewer than 4 percent of the cases are “sustained,” based on records the police gave to a group called the Invisible Institute — officials say there’s no reason to ban those officers from teaching at the academy.
“While we can’t speak for prior police administrations, the current process for applying to become a police academy instructor is that you must be highly qualified in a designated area and must undergo an internal screening process to ensure there are no open integrity investigations or disciplinary issues in your background,” police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. “This was implemented last year by current training director Deputy Chief Keith Calloway.”
Cops with sustained misconduct complaints no longer are “eligible to serve in an academy position,” Guglielmi said. “While the officers you mentioned do have allegations in their backgrounds, of which the majority were not sustained, they were appointed to positions during a prior administration.”
Attorney Jon Loevy. | Ashlee Rezin / Sun-Times file photo
Still, Jon Loevy, a Chicago lawyer who has won millions of dollars from lawsuits filed by clients who accused the police department of violating their rights, says he’s troubled to learn the background of some instructors at the academy.
“When you’re a Chicago police officer accused of serial misconduct, they put you in charge of teaching young police officers,” says Loevy, who sued the city following a raid on a basketball game by several officers, including one who ended up teaching at the academy. “It’s horrible.”
A lengthy “complaint registry,” or “CR,” history shouldn’t necessarily disqualify an officer from teaching at the academy, says Lori Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor newly appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel as president of the Chicago Police Board, which disciplines cops.
Lori Lightfoot, president of the Chicago Police Board. | Rich Hein / Sun-Times file photo
“Just because you have a CR record doesn’t mean you can’t be an impactful instructor,” says Lightfoot, who is also a member of the five-member task force Emanuel has appointed to review police accountability, oversight and training in the aftermath of the release of a video in late November that showed Officer Jason Van Dyke firing 16 shots into Laquan McDonald.
The video has prompted an investigation of the police department by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The Sun-Times compared a roster of academy instructors, obtained from the police department, with a database maintained by the Invisible Institute of 56,631 abuse complaints involving 8,652 officers covering the periods 2001 to 2008 and 2011 to 2015. The Invisible Institute obtained those records from the police department.
The analysis found:
• Fourteen officers had at least 11 abuse complaints before being assigned to the academy.
• Tops among those was Sgt. Robert T. O’Neill with 27, including 11 accusing him of illegal searches. All but one of the complaints against O’Neill were dismissed. He got a 30-day suspension for that one, an official misconduct complaint accusing him of theft.
O’Neill was detailed to the academy in May 2009, under former Supt. Jody Weis. At the time, O’Neill and 10 other cops, including Officer Corey Flagg, were being sued in federal court, accused of breaking into homes to extort money and steal drugs from drug dealers. O’Neill had been the supervisor of Flagg and three other officers already convicted of federal crimes. In April 2012, the Emanuel administration paid $700,000 to settle the lawsuit. Four months later, O’Neill took a leave of absence from the police academy. He hasn’t returned to the police department.
• Two former members of the department’s notorious, now-disbanded Special Operations Section — Christopher Hoffman and Dustin Roscoe — ended up teaching at the academy. Hoffman, a firearms instructor, had 22 abuse complaints — all ultimately dismissed — that included multiple allegations of misconduct, illegal searches and improper use of force. All came before he was detailed to the academy in 2012, under former Supt. Garry McCarthy. Hoffman is no longer at the academy, according to Guglielmi.
Roscoe, who left the department in 2010, had 19 complaints during his career. Two were “sustained,” including one for an illegal search. The rest were dropped. It isn’t clear how many of the complaints were filed against him before he joined the academy. That’s because the police records incorrectly show his assignment at the academy began in 1900.
• Eighteen officers had at least one complaint filed against them during the time they were assigned to the academy.
• One of those officers had faced six citizen complaints before he was assigned there. He faced five additional complaints while working as an instructor there, including two over his “supervisor responsibilities.” Altogether, that officer has been the subject of 15 citizen complaints of abuse. All have been dismissed.
• Another of those officers — Sgt. Isaac Lee Jr. — was an instructor at the academy when he and 10 other officers raided the South Side apartment of a guitarist named Walter Lee, who sued for illegal search and seizure after a Cook County judge threw out the criminal case against him. City Hall paid him $20,000 to settle his lawsuit, plus $37,402 a federal judge ordered the city to pay his lawyer.
Walter Lee said he was at his sister’s home on Jan. 10, 2007, when the officers burst in, found a handgun on a bed and arrested him on a charge of unlawful use of a weapon. According to his lawsuit, he ended up spending three days in jail because the police mistakenly released another man who claimed to be him.
Isaac Lee has been the subject of 22 complaints, including 11 before he was detailed to the academy in June 2008, under former Supt. Weis. Two were sustained, including one for improper use of force. It’s unclear, though, whether the illegal raid resulted in a complaint because the database of complaints doesn’t include details of the incidents.
According to the data the police provided to the Invisible Institute, most instructors at the academy haven’t faced any complaints during the periods those records cover.
One set of those police records contains basic information on cases involving 662 officers with at least 10 complaints over a five-year period ending in May 2006. Another set of records has information on 185 officers with at least five abuse complaints between May 2002 and December 2008. The last set of those records includes all complaints filed between 2011 and 2015, involving thousands of officers.
But, given the time gaps, the records don’t include every complaint over the past decade.
There’s no complaint against Officer George Cancel, the police academy’s master Taser instructor. Yet Cancel, who has been detailed to the academy since 2008, said in sworn testimony in a court deposition on Dec. 13, 2012, that he has been the subject of “numerous” abuse complaints for excessive force.
George Cancel, the police academy’s master Taser instructor. Sun-Times file photo
According to the transcript, Cancel said none involved the use of a Taser, the stun device that Emanuel plans to issue to more officers as a result of criticism that equipping officers with a Taser might have prevented McDonald’s death.
During Cancel’s deposition, attorney Barry C. Owen asked him, “Have you ever been accused of using excessive force?”
Cancel replied, “Yes.”
“Do you know how many times?” Owen asked.
“Numerous,” Cancel answered. “Can’t give you a specific number.”
Guglielmi says Cancel has no sustained complaints in his record.
The police department has a complaint registry history on its officers dating to 1967.
The Sun-Times, the Chicago Tribune and Jamie Kalven of the Invisible Institute all have filed public records requests under the state’s Freedom of Information Act asking for summaries showing the number and type of complaints against each officer and the outcome since 1967.
In response, the city’s police unions sued to block the release of that information, citing provisions in their contracts that prohibit the department from keeping records on disciplinary cases more than four years old.
A Cook County judge has issued a preliminary order barring the release of those records.
Separately, an arbitrator, ruling on a contract grievance filed by the Fraternal Order of Police, said earlier this month that the city’s contract with its largest police union requires it to destroy records older than that.
As a result of the litigation, the police department has refused to make public even summaries of complaints more than four years old. Nor would it release older records it previously provided to the Invisible Institute.
