Chicago City Wire

After three months, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) has yet to find a witness to an alleged incident of sexual misconduct involving a Chicago Police officer and a migrant, leading former CPD Chief of Detectives Gene Roy to question COPA’s investigatory competency.

“When the allegations first broke I posted about the lack of training and experience on the part of the COPA investigative team,” Roy posted on his Twitter account in reaction to a Tribune story on COPA’s ongoing investigation. “ANY allegation of criminal sexual conduct against anyone, but especially a police officer, should have been IMMEDIATELY investigated by sworn police officers who have been trained and certified in the investigation of sex crimes according to the protocols adopted by the Illinois Attorney General's Office.”

The original allegations of the misconduct, first reported in early July, came from an unnamed city employee.

At the time, Chicago FOP President John Catanzara, said that the allegations were untrue, and in part blamed a recent change in the law that no longer requires those filing complaints against the police to sign an affidavit attesting to their truthfulness.

"Who knows where this complaint even originated from," Catanzara said in a YouTube video. "But to think there are not police-hating groups that would go to any length to start this type of nonsense because they know the media will pick it up because it is such a sensationalized story, your head is in the sand."

City Council created COPA in 2016 to replace the Independent Police Review Authority as the civilian oversight agency of the CPC and gave it authority to investigate claims of police misconduct, including police involved shootings.

But the police have long contended that COPA investigations into shootings are not only unlawful but the outcomes weighted unfairly against them.

For an earlier story, Bob Bartlett, former Chair of the Legal Defense Committee at the FOP, told Chicago City Wire that “early on I came to realize COPA doesn't have the legal authority or possess the necessary training and skills to investigate these shootings.”

“I suspect an investigation into COPA will show a pattern of bias in which they steer investigations to a predetermined outcome."

A 2019 lawsuit filed by the FOP against COPA argues that the charges that the agency’s investigations violate the “Police and Community Relations Improvement Act.”

In the case, FOP attorneys cite the opinion of Brent Fischer, former Executive Director of the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board, who in a 2018 letter to the FOP wrote: “Because COPA employees are not police officers…and are not primarily responsible for the prevention and detection of crime, they are not ‘law enforcement officers’ and are therefore ineligible to serve as lead investigators in death and homicide investigations.”