Chicago City Wire

Much of the focus on the recent overhaul of the criminal justice system, the SAFE-T Act, has been on the almost certain increase in crime under a move to a cashless bail system.

Another provision in the new law, eliminating the need for a signed affidavit when filing a complaint against a police officer, has likewise raised the concern of law enforcement – they fear the return of a practice where officers, particularly pro-active ones, are targeted with meritless complaints resulting in transfers or even dismissals.

Mark Donahue, former Legislative Director for the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), told Chicago City Wire, that the poorer areas of the city will be hardest hit by an inevitable diminished police presence under a return to the former complaint procedure.

Bartlett

“There is an absolute need for the sworn affidavit policies that were in existence so that pro-active police officers could be less concerned with meritless allegations of impropriety and more concerned with doing their jobs as they know how to do them,” Donahue said. “And these policies need to be supported with criminal allegations against those who file meritless allegations.”  

Approved by the General Assembly in 2004, the “Sworn Affidavit” legislation arose from complaints by police supervisors that gang members were targeting police with unsubstantiated complaints knowing that a Department policy called for a cop’s removal once the complaints reached a certain threshold.

Police say that the practice was especially pronounced in the high-crime Englewood neighborhood on the South Side, the 007th District.

“Anonymous complaints are something that the gangs use to screw over the police,” Bob Bartlett, Area 4 detective and candidate for FOP president, told Chicago City Wire in an email. “They can just constantly get CR numbers (complaints) on the working officers forcing them to respond to frivolous or false complaints.”

In the year following the passage of the legislation, the Commander of the Internal Affairs Division noted a 65 percent decrease in complaints against the Chicago police.

The police also fear that the media and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) will have a field day under the new law.

The return to the former complaint procedure is almost certain to accelerate the diminishing complement of police officers in the city.

An October 2022 report by CBS Chicago entitled “Chicago Police Department Struggles as burnt-out cops quit, with some heading to the suburbs” showed that since 2019, 3,300 officers “retired, resigned, were fired – or lost their lives while wearing the badge.”