Good afternoon, everyone.
The Joint Committee, the Joint Committee on Police and Fire and Public Safety has called to order we would have a roll call to establish Corp.
Chairman Hopkins, Vice Chair Yancey, Chairman Tala Farrell is present, Vice Chair Robinson, Alderman Hall, Alderman Mitchell, Alderman Mitchell, Alderman Chico, Alderman Lee, Alderman Gutierrez,
Alderman Lopez
Alderman Curtis
Alderman Taylor
Alderman Mosley
Alderman Tabaris
Alderman Cicho Lopez
Alderman Fuentes
Alderman Irving
Alderman Cardona
Alderman Sposado
Alderman Nugent
Alderman Vasquez
Alderman Napolitano
Alderman Knitson.
Alderman Gardner.
Alderman Klein.
Alderman Martin.
Alderman Minah Hoppenworth.
Alderman Hadding.
Alderman Silverstein.
Alderman Silverstein.
Okay.
We have 21 present.
We do have a quorum.
Alderman Gutierrez is present.
We have 22.
We do have a quorum.
Pursuant to Rule 59.
We do not actually have any Alderman wishing to participate remote.
We will go right into public comments.
Chairman, I'm here. Oh, I'm sorry.
Pursuit of Rule 59, Alderman Taylor is requested to appear by remote means.
Can I get a motion to approve? So moved by Vice Chair Yancey.
All those approved, say aye. All those opposed, say nay.
Aye. In the opinion of the chairs, the ayes have it.
Alderwoman Taylor, are you present?
Yes, sir. Thank you, Chairman.
Alderwoman Taylor is counted present for purposes of a quorum.
Our first speaker is Mr. George Blakemore.
Mr. Blakemore.
You have no shame.
I holler. I curse.
I talk about you.
You have no shame.
No shame.
No shame.
All of you.
all of you too
Raymond Lopez
all of you
you got no shame
that meeting was
been here
at 10 o'clock
you got no shame
no shame
if I'm doing something real bad
and I see Osmond Lopez
I'm going to hide
he don't care
look at him
No shame.
The black ones, the white ones, the Hispanics, they all the same.
Look at them.
Look at them right now.
Look at this.
I don't care about no Jews or whatever.
All of them.
All of them.
I've never seen nothing like it.
And they say Chicago is one of the fabulous big cities of all the cities on the lake.
They say, and that marathon coming, and these beautiful buildings.
Don't I always tell you this?
You can look good.
You can talk good.
You can dress good.
You can smell good.
You can act good and be a piece of it.
All of you.
All of you.
I've never seen anything like this in my life.
When they had Burton, all of them, for least, they were stealing.
They was corrupt, but this new group, look at it, respect, respect your position.
I'm a bad old man, but if Mr. Irving see me, I'm going to hide from this bad thing.
You all don't care.
Y'all don't care.
Y'all stick your third finger up and up and up.
And, you know, we allow them, we allow you to do this, to treat us like this.
You deserve the government you get, and you get the government you deserve.
You deserve, the city deserves these ultimates.
All of them, Miss Lee, all of y'all.
Sometimes I say I got a favor of Monique and Ms. Lee, all of them.
But, you know, I used to teach and you got a classroom, some little bad kids in your class, some good ones.
But you, let me say that.
Thank you, Mr. Blakemore.
Our next speaker would be Patricia Puentes Blancas.
Good afternoon.
My name is Patricia Puentes Blancas.
I have a concern.
I was bullied, harassed by Angie Guerrero-Cuellar, the state representative.
of my district. Now, my thing is that, unfortunately, I had another confrontation,
well, almost a confrontation, when the migrants got here, and I saw the migrants on the
police station, and I told them that why was it that they were on the police station? You know,
that's their second home. And their response is like, they told us that we had to have them here.
We can't do anything about it. Speak with your state representative. So then I asked to speak
with the state representative. And the state representative told me, I only help the Hispanics.
I'm like, what do you mean by that? Are the Hispanics the only ones that vote for you?
It's like, don't you know that we tell the Hispanics that are living at Rosemont that are from all over the other areas to come to this area and vote?
And I'm like, oh, I didn't know that.
The thing is that two weeks ago, a week and a half ago, I was invited to a senior citizen event.
and I was harassed and bullied by the state representative, Angie Guerrero-Cuellar.
She started telling me, why are you here?
I'm like, I'm a senior.
I'm 67 years old.
They invited me.
I have that right.
Oh, no, you don't have no rights.
Excuse me?
What do you mean that I don't have no rights?
But you are telling all the Hispanics, immigrants that come from other places,
fight for your rights?
What rights do they have? They're barely getting here. But this is what the Hispanics told me when I spoke with him, the immigrants, they said, we were told that the Hispanic politicians in Chicago are going to fight for our rights.
And what are those rights?
We get housings, we get money, we get jobs, we get everything.
I'm like, wait, what do you mean?
If you barely got here.
Oh, no, not only that, if you commit a crime, this is what a detective told me,
an Hispanic detective, when I was taking the concealed weapons training,
this is what he said.
even if the Hispanics have committed a murder,
our lawyers, I guess Hispanics, I don't know,
because I don't like to assume or say anything that's not true,
but this is what he said.
Thank you, Ms. Blankens.
Our next speaker is Ms. Jessica Jackson.
Ms. Jackson, good afternoon, Ms. Jackson.
Thank you for being here.
So I guess it's the hypocrisy of it all that really blows our minds.
I guess the reason why they even bothered to show up for this public safety meeting today is because the inspector general is going to be here.
So the respect is for the inspector general being here, not for you being here and not for the issues of public safety for the citizens.
Now, I've been here since 10 o'clock this morning.
And I watched how long that meeting went on about this Amtrak thing.
And I looked at all the discussion and all the concern around that.
When I sat in these same meetings for three years.
And I only wish that that level of conversation of concern would have been given to the black community about what was happening to us.
Alderman Lee voted for all Hispanics, all illegal immigrants to get that money.
But yet when the illegals was going to get put over there in Pilsen in her neighborhood, she fought against it.
So where exactly was those immigrants supposed to go?
And then she come in here today, caping for these whites and Asians not to have a railroad through their community.
You want to act like the noise is going to be too much for their community.
What's the noise too much when the L train was coming around 63rd Street, around where those people were living behind their buildings?
What's the noise too much?
It's the noise too much for the people on 71st Street who listen to the Metro.
Is the noise too much, Desmond, Nancy, the sorriest alderman on the south side?
Is 71st and Jeffrey with all those dope fiends on that corner day in, day out?
Is that too much noise while you switch your wide brick house 36, 24, 36 body shape all up and down the street coming in and out of that office?
and them dope fiends and that crime is right there at the corner and you walk
right past it because I forgot, oh yeah, you just remembered that you was Haitian
after the black people got you in.
You are the sorriest alderman that exists.
Brian Hopkins should not be able to serve as
public safety. He didn't even show up.
He's not doing anything to protect public safety
in this city. He needs to be removed immediately.
Immediately. Because he doesn't care about the
safety of the citizens. You talked about respect
for those people. Where's the respect for our community?
I dare you. Thank you, Ms. Jackson. I'd like to thank
all of our public commenters this afternoon. We have one written
public comment that was mailed to each of the members of the committees.
and that written comment shall be added to the record.
There being no further public comments,
we have a Rule 45 report for the last meeting of December 2nd, 2025.
Each one of you were mailed that Rule 45 report in December and as of today.
Are there any questions or comments regarding the Rule 45?
All right, there being no questions and comments,
can I get a motion for the approval of the latest Rule 45 report?
So moved by Alderman Lopez.
All in favor, say aye.
All right.
All we needed was one.
All those opposed, say nay.
And the opinion of the chair is the ayes have it.
Thank you.
There's just one item on the agenda for today, and that is the Office of the Inspector General's
annual public safety report.
We have as witness today the Deputy Inspector General for Public Safety, Ms. Tabar Richardson.
Inspector Richardson, thank you so much for joining us and your staff as well.
I yield the floor to you.
And after Ms. Richardson's, after Ms. Richardson's presentment, we will go into questions and comment by committee members.
I'm sorry, Alderman Wagespeck will be added as being present today.
He's an honorary committee member.
Thank you all for having me.
As has been stated, my name is Tabara Richardson.
I serve as the Deputy Inspector General for Public Safety.
With me is the Inspector General David Glockner.
I want to thank Chairperson Talia Farrell, Chairperson Hopkins, the Police and Fire Committee,
and the Public Safety Committee for having us today as we discuss the 2025 Public Safety Annual Report.
You all have had an opportunity to read the report, and so I'm going to give you all a high-level overview of what is contained therein,
and then we will be available to answer any questions.
With regard to our priorities, we have three strategic priorities historically, which have consisted of CPD operations, discipline and accountability, and constitutional policing.
How we approach the work, how we meet our mission is in three main buckets.
One is by conducting audit-based evaluations and reviews.
Two is by reviewing the individual misconduct investigations, which are completed by CPD's Bureau of Internal Affairs, or BIA, and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, or COPA.
And then the third way is through our transparency initiatives through the public safety dashboards.
And the first of the categories that I mentioned, which are those audit-based evaluations and reviews,
In 2025, we published five products, three new inquiries, and two follow-up evaluations.
With regard to those publications, I will give you high-level overviews of what is contained therein, and again, available to answer any questions.
One product that we published in 2025 was a review of CPD's response to hate crimes and hate incidents.
In that report, we look at CPD's, the makeup of CPD's hate crimes unit.
In addition, we looked at CPD's training, how CPD went about assigning those individuals to specific hate crimes and hate incidents.
Those details are contained in the report, but just as far as the general overview,
The team consists of three to six members at any given time.
The detectives actually conduct the investigations, whereas the hate crimes unit proactively looks for, reviews those arrest reports,
incident reports to look for incidents that may fall into the category of being motivated by a perceived or an actual protected class.
and then they more so serve as liaisons to those specific investigations.
In 2025, we also published a report assessing CPD's disciplinary record keeping
to determine whether final disciplinary actions were ultimately imposed.
High level, what we found was that for CPD members where the recommended discipline was separation,
In all of those instances, there were records that were associated with the discipline of separation.
However, as it relates to suspensions, which is the category of discipline most often implemented for sustained investigations,
In two-thirds of those instances, the disciplinary records, well, in over a third of finalized suspensions, the disciplinary records were not in the city databases.
And for reprimands, which is a step below a suspension, over half of the finalized reprimands were not recorded.
And so why does this matter?
It matters because are we able to tell whether the discipline is ultimately implemented when it is not recorded?
Like, creates great difficulties there.
Additionally, when we have incomplete disciplinary records, when we have a system of progressive discipline,
it makes it hard, if not impossible, to then look back at prior discipline in order to build off of discipline.
And then last, where CPD is ultimately responsible for early intervention, again, where we are not having complete records for the disciplinary matters, then, again, we are unable to pinpoint those CPD members who may be in need of an early intervention.
A third report that we published in 2025 was an evaluation of the implementation and enforcement of the city's gun offender registration ordinance.
So what we did was we looked to see what the goals were for the ordinance for the gun offender registration.
And what we found was that there was little evidence that suggested that the registry ultimately fulfilled its intended goals, which were labeled as serving as a public safety tool or resource for law enforcement and a deterrent to crime.
In the report, we discussed gaps in the existing system and in response to the extent the mayor's office, city council thinks that the ordinance is necessary, the gun offender registration ordinance, then we gave recommendations in order to fill those gaps.
The mayor's office responded that it would evaluate the existing ordinance and determine whether and to what extent.
additional resources might be necessary in order to actually comply with the ordinance.
Additionally, CPD was in agreeance with OIG's recommendation and indicated that they would
implement a software management tool in order to facilitate individuals who needed to register.
At this time, we're actually in the process of conducting a follow-up to that evaluation,
which we would expect either this year or early next year.
When we publish new reviews, we don't just stop at saying, this is what we found, these are our recommendations, and this is what the respective department said that they were going to do.
What we try to do is that within a certain time frame, we say, this is what you said you were going to do.
Have you, in fact, done that?
And that is what we label as a follow-up inquiry.
In 2025, we published two follow-up inquiries.
One was a follow-up to our June 2022 evaluation of fairness and consistency in the disciplinary process for CPD members.
And what we found was that COPA and CPD had independently made improvements to their internal consistency
and their disciplinary recommendations, which was mostly fulfilled by being consistent
or attempting to be more consistent in documenting those aggravating and mitigating factors
which led to discipline such that discipline would not be considered arbitrary or unfair.
And then the last publication that I'll talk about, which was, again, a follow-up,
was to our December 2020 evaluation of the use of affidavit override
and disciplinary investigations of CPD members.
After we published the 2020 report, in 2021, the law changed such that an affidavit
is not required for CPD officers, which is the majority of CPD members.
But we still completed the follow-up just because those falling outside of the category
of officers, for example, sergeants, lieutenants, and captains, would still be impacted by whether
COPA and BIA were exercising the affidavit override.
What we ultimately found was that CPD and COPA have implemented corrective actions to
improve policies when affidavits are required.
Additionally, both agencies fully implemented measures to document evidence collected or
requested, as well as the reasons for their affidavit overrides. And then the last recommendation
was related to those investigations that are associated with civil lawsuits. And what we
found was that COPA had implemented policies which would allow them to use deposition or other court
documents in place of an affidavit, but CPD had not adopted such a policy, and that is of
importance because we don't want to ultimately possibly end up paying out money where we haven't
looked into what, if any, disciplinary measures or risk management we can learn from when we pay
out for civil suits. I'm going to switch gears now to talk about the second category of work
that the public safety section completes, and that is our review of those individual
misconduct investigations, which are completed by COPA and BIA. And what we're doing each week is,
from a practical perspective, every Monday, we see all of the investigations that have been
closed by BIA and COPA, most of them that are in command channel review. So that is when CPD
supervisors are reviewing the completed investigations in order to provide their
feedback. So we're pulling those. I'm pursuing to consent decree paragraph 444. We're also looking
at all of the allegations of sexual misconduct. We also look at all allegations or where there
are fatalities even if there are no allegations of misconduct. So we look at the investigations
that have been closed within that last week. Our investigative analysts, they are going through
the entire case file. They're looking at all of the written documents, the reports. They're
listening to interviews. They're watching body-worn camera footage. And then as a section,
As a team, we get together at the end of each week.
And we discuss those matters.
And we're not discussing them to replace our judgment or our views or we think we could do things better.
That's not what we're doing.
What we're doing is we're looking to see whether there are any deficiencies, but not just deficiencies,
deficiencies that we think would affect the outcome or material deficiencies.
And even then, when we find material deficiencies, if they are such that we don't think that there is anything that could be done to rectify the deficiency, we still won't send a recommendation to reopen.
But where we find material deficiencies that we think the respective agency, BIA or COPA, could address, then we may send recommendations to reopen.
And those recommendations to reopen are ultimately published on our website.
So if we look at 2025, the team reviewed 1,127 individual disciplinary investigations.
Out of those 1,127, 725 were conducted by BIA and 402 were conducted by COPA.
Now, if you looked at prior years, those numbers were almost reversed.
And so we've written about this this year, but the one difference that may account for that change
is that COPA initiated their timeliness initiative where they were able to get rid of a lot of their backlog.
If you want more detail there, I can answer those questions later, or we've also published a report.
But historically, we typically would have seen more COPA investigations compared to BIA investigations,
But in 2025, those numbers were reversed.
After reviewing, having a preliminary review of the 1,127 investigations, we opened 133 for more in-depth review.
And then of those 133 investigations, we sent 30 recommendations to reopen, 12 to BIA, and 18 to COPA.
Of the 12 investigations sent to BIA, seven of the recommendations to reopen were accepted and five were declined.
Out of the 18 recommendations to reopen sent to COPA, seven recommendations were accepted and 10 were declined.
Some of the reasons that we have generally seen for those declinations have consisted of timing.
We know now there is the 18-month time frame for the FOP contract to conduct those investigations for CPD officers.
And, again, officers make up the majority of CPD members.
Other reasons that have been provided have included resource efficiency
and then concerns about reopening an investigation impacting the sustained findings in that investigation.
Some of the key takeaways from those 1,127 investigations that we looked at in 2025 include that 56.8% were initiated by the public, 52.2% reached a closed final status within one year, investigations with findings take longer than investigations that don't reach findings.
And then among investigations that did reach findings, BIA sustained 48.7 percent and COPA sustained 84.3 percent of those investigations.
As mentioned earlier, suspensions is going to be the most common disciplinary recommendation for sustained findings.
And 21 or 1.9 percent of the 1,127 investigations we looked at had associated civil lawsuits.
There's a question. I can go back.
I'm sorry. Did you have a question that you wanted? I can't answer it.
I just had a point of clarity. I know we don't get to questions at the end.
Can you talk through the 48.7% sustained by BIA and then the 84% that's sustained by COPA?
Can you just talk to what does sustained mean and then the differences in the two investigations?
So not all investigations are going to reach a finding.
And so we detail a lot of those numbers in the report.
and I can give you a specific page number when I have a chance to look.
But some investigations are going to be, for example, what's called administratively closed.
So when the respective agency looks at the investigation and from their preliminary review, there's not enough evidence to proceed with an investigation.
And so it really is out of the investigations where they reach a finding.
So they go through the entire investigative process and they say whether it's sustained or not sustained.
out of those investigations where they actually completed the investigations.
In the report, we actually give the inverse number.
But here what I've laid out is the percentage that's sustained, which for BIA is going to be 48%.
So where they – it's not the entire universe of logs, for example.
So whenever there's an allegation, it's going to be associated with a log number.
And that is a larger universe, but where they say, like, okay, we think it's enough here.
We're going to proceed through the investigation when they have gone through that process.
BIA has sustained, at least for 2025, 48.7 percent and COPA 84.3 percent.
Got you. Thank you. Thank you. You can go ahead and continue.
Well, before you continue, Inspector, let me just recognize for purposes of a quorum,
Alderman Haddon, Alderman Martin, Alderman Clay, Alderman Mosley, and I believe Alderman Mitchell.
You can go ahead and continue. I'm sorry.
In addition to looking at those individual misconduct investigations to send recommendations to reopen,
the recommendations to reopen are for, like, the individual log number, that individual investigation.
Sometimes maybe there isn't a material deficiency in an individual investigation,
but because we look at so many investigations, we may notice a pattern amongst investigations,
or we may make an observation where we think that there is something that either both agencies
or the respective agency can do to improve their investigations.
And so in those instances, we will send recommendations to inform and improve future investigations
in order to ensure that investigations are complete, thorough, objective, and fair.
In 2025, we sent one such recommendation as it relates to Rule 47.
Rule 47 of CPD's Rules of Conduct prohibits CPD members from associating with individuals convicted of crimes.
And so what we had observed was that in some instances, the violation or allegation would be sustained.
And in other instances with similar effects, it wasn't sustained where the respective investigator would basically have an implied exemption such that, for example, one CPD member was their sister or another CPD member where it was their romantic partner, but it wasn't consistent.
And in order for our disciplinary system to work, we have to be clear, right, what are we giving people notice of, but also for those results or outcomes to be consistent and fair, we don't want it to be arbitrary based off of which investigator you end up having who may or may not allow this unwritten exemption.
And so from that observation, what we recommended was that CPD define any implied or informal exemptions within Rule 47.
Their response, and we also sent it to the police board, but their response was that the police, that they agree that investigations should be fair and consistent,
but that ultimately the police board had the authority to amend CPD rules.
And so we've also spoken with the police board, and they are aware of our observations.
And then the last thing we noted was that CPD themselves or itself could also amend any policies or directives to make it clear for CPD members any disclosure requirements when they may interact with individuals who have been convicted of crimes.
So second bucket is those disciplinary investigations.
Now I'm going to go to our third way in which we accomplish our mission, which is going to be through our transparency initiatives, our information portal on the website, specifically the public safety dashboards.
If you go to our website, the public safety dashboards are present, which pulls directly from CPD data and the city's data because we have back-end access to that data, and the dashboards are regularly refreshed.
They may vary over time, and in 2025, we created three new public safety dashboards, and those are the three that I will go over today.
One is going to be the Complaint Register Network.
So what was already present on the website was the complaint and notifications dashboard where you could put in any CPD member's first name or last name or star number, and you would be able to see their complaint history going back to 2000.
What we added in 2025 was a dashboard where you can now see those complaints, where you have CPD members who have been co-accused two or more times.
We've always had a dashboard as it relates to CPD arrests.
And so what we have added this year is a dashboard related to CPD reported crimes.
And so there you can look at and explore crime data, crime trends, and clearance rates.
Specifically, as it relates to 2025 and 2025, CPD reported a total of 239,975,000 incidents.
As compared to 2024, the total number of incidents decreased from, in 2024, it was about 260,000.
And then you can even see from January to 2026, well, through August at this point, that there were approximately 156,029 reported incidents.
So the trend has been that the number of reported crimes has gone down with time.
With regard to the total clearance rate for offenses in 2025, it was 27.8%.
If you looked at our website today, it would indicate 26.5%.
And that's because the total number of crimes for a specific year may change as crimes are reported.
But the trend there is that the clearance rate has gone up by a few percentage compared to 2024.
As it relates to the most reported offense, it was larceny theft in 2025.
I checked this morning.
2026 is still trending the same.
And then overall reported crimes has decreased by 8.3% from 2024 to 2025.
I haven't compared the numbers between 2025 and 2026, but as has been reported generally based on the data, it looks like we're still headed in the same direction as far as the decrease in reported offenses.
The month with the most reported crimes was July in 2025 with 27,629.
And the month with the least amount of reported crimes was February with just over 19,000 reported offenses.
And then the three districts with the least or the biggest reduction in reported crimes were the 14th, 24th, and 20th districts with 20.5%, 14.9%, and 13.5% decrease, respectively.
The last addition to our dashboards that we had in 2025 was our CPD member overtime dashboard, and we actually just started to look into this data ourselves in order to work on an audit, a joint audit, between our audit and program review section and the public safety section.
But specifically, if you went to the dashboard and you looked at the data for 2025, you would have seen that 11,153 CPD members worked over time, earning a total of $286 million.
And so that's almost all of the CPD members.
The number hovers at about 11,400 for CPD members.
So it's all but about 300 CPD members who would have worked.
Overtime, and that overtime is going to consist of where regular days off are canceled, tours of duty are extended, or when there are special events.
And the special events we look at were the CPD special events, not sister agencies.
Additionally, in 20 – go ahead.
Overtime, how much of that – it was going towards a protest, like in the city of Chicago.
How much of that overtime was based off of the protest going on in the city of Chicago?
So on the dashboard, you could specify by specific events. I don't have that number at hand. I just know that as far as specific events, it would have been the Mexican Independence Day parade and there were two events specifically that we outlined in the report as far as the biggest chunk for special events.
Okay, so you don't outline when there's protests. Is that correct?
So it depends on the label that CPD gives it.
We're just pulling from CPD's data.
Okay.
Yeah.
For future purposes, if we have a point of order, a point of clarification for anyone, just raise your hand so I can recognize you.
I did.
You didn't see me.
That's why it was the same point of clarification.
If you start dancing, though, Jim, I would have recognized you.
You want me to dance?
Yeah, just one time.
No.
But Alderwoman Clayton.
Point of clarification, Chairman.
Thank you.
Am I reading correctly that one person worked 2,385.5 hours?
Yes, earning 45 extra hours per week.
Thank you to my colleague from the 49th Ward for giving.
That's correct?
Yes.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Is that even possible?
And we can follow up with CPD or by the time CPD is here for budget hearing,
but it is my understanding that we also try to look at the data to proactively determine whether it is for audit purposes
or possible investigation purposes, whether there is anything for us to look into.
And if I'm recalling correctly, a part of our Center for Information Technology and Analytics team did, like, specifically check.
And I think this role was a specialized role in which there was a shortage or however it was, but where, like, there was a need for the additional work.
So it raised flags, and we did a preliminary check to the extent that provides any comfort.
But then additionally, felony review was one of the top categories which will change moving forward
just because it will be broken down into more specific categories as opposed to the broader categories of just felony review in the future.
And then airport manpower shortages was also the third largest category for overtime.
Well, the woman hadn't.
I'll take my turn with a point of clarification.
Could you explain what is felony review?
So felony review is when CPD members, and this is my layman's term, so for the specific definition, go to the Cook County State's Attorney's Office.
Layman's terms are great.
But essentially where a crime has been committed and we want to get approval to charge that crime as a felony.
So they're a group of individuals with the state's attorney's office.
They're on duty.
And so no matter 24-7 crime happens, that CPD member is going to get in contact with felony review.
This is our evidence.
We think it should be charged as whatever felonies.
Are we going to get approval to charge it as a felony?
Yes.
Come in.
Let's do interviews or whatever needs to be done.
or no, got to go back, get more evidence. So essentially, it's that process of crime committed,
we think we have enough evidence to charge it as a felony, have to connect with the local
prosecutors at the state's attorney's office to seek approval. Thank you. In addition to those
three areas, our audits, our review of disciplinary investigations, and our
transparency initiatives, we place a lot of emphasis
on community engagement within the section.
Each year, first Tuesday in August, we participate in National Night Out.
In 2025, we served 11 CPD districts following our participation in National Night Out.
Over a course of about six weeks, myself and sometimes other folks from the office would join me,
participated in 32 roll calls where we were able to interact with CPD officers,
talk to them about the office, hear some of their concerns.
We also participate in community groups.
Like we will show up, we will listen, we will talk about issues that are focused on public safety issues.
Additionally, we interact with the other agencies that are within the oversight community,
such as the police board, city council, you all, the district council members,
the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability.
And this year we have interacted more with the independent monitoring team.
As I described, how we go through our weekly process of reviewing those individual misconduct investigations.
Twice this year we've had the IMT join us so that they could observe that process.
And so we have interacted with community groups.
We have interacted with other government entities.
And really, we try to show up as much as we can to make sure that we are taking the real-world practical impacts of public safety into account as we are doing our work.
So some final takeaways before we can head into Q&A would be that overall 2025, our reports informed public discussions, our review of those individual disciplinary investigations assisted us in being able to provide real time, now more so real time,
but at least closer in time, at least when we sent the recommendations to reopen, feedback to COPA and BIA,
which led to some of those investigations being reopened, some of which resulted in disciplinary recommendations.
Additionally, we have our dashboards where members of the community, members of the public are able to go
And in real time, obtain data pertaining to the police department.
And then, again, as I just emphasized, we focused on our community engagement, which also informed our 2026 outlook, the projects that we consider this year.
You already have the published report, but to the extent members of the public wanted to obtain the public report, it's QR code.
Otherwise, you go to igchicago.org, click on Publications.
You can search Annual Report, or there is a filter for Annual Reports, but the report is there.
And I want to thank those city employees who helped assist the public safety section in doing its work.
And, of course, thank you all for your time today.
Thank you, Deputy Inspector General.
And also let me please, and I apologize for not recognizing the Inspector General, David Glockner, earlier.
Let me welcome you as well.
Are there any questions and comments for the Inspector General or the Deputy Inspector General?
Yes, Alderwoman Manhattan.
Thank you, Chair.
I want to thank the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General for the report and for the findings.
I look forward to diving into that dashboard a little bit.
I know that we already, as we go into budget, you know, some of the budgetary things, particularly around police overtime, they come up year over year.
And I think that as we're hearing from our constituents who have expectations for us to not increase property taxes, make sure we can continue to provide great services, that being able to have this review and some of your observations from it are useful.
You know, that one person working an additional 45 hours a week and making more than $200,000 in overtime outside of whatever services they're providing, that seems like a safety issue.
And so, you know, some questions there of, you know, who's approving this, you know, what kind of safety concerns or even like kind of staffing like for this particular officer.
That's more than the equivalent of two full-time jobs, and so that's a little concerning.
I don't know if there are, as we're taking a mind for safety efficiencies, the staffing allocation study, I don't know, Inspector General or Deputy Inspector General, if there are kind of other things that stood out to you that you think should be on our minds.
So I don't know that I've got anything else to add that I think should be on your mind, but in terms of the overtime issue is very much front and center for us, and that's why we have both our program audit group and Tabara's team taking a very close look at police overtime, and the kinds of concerns that you flagged are absolutely part of what we'll be looking at.
So if you've got, I mean, you want to be looking at not just sort of the very top overtime people, but a layer or two below that.
I mean, who do you have and do you have particular groups within the department that are consistently seeing overtime at anomalous rates?
And does that reflect challenges with staffing?
Does it reflect potential challenges with personnel use?
Are there potential fraud or waste issues there?
But doing a really kind of careful analysis of the data will help us flush some of that out.
And I think will help the police department and you all in your oversight of them of understanding what some of the drivers of this are.
Because it's a huge expense, and the better we understand it, the better equipped everybody is to address it.
And that category of felony review, and thank you again for that layman's definition, kind of brings up another layer where for that, that to me makes me think, what kind of process improvements can we maybe make in talking with our partners, the state's attorney?
I mean, because I know from, you know, working with, you know, officers and detectives in our district and area, that makes sense to me is because some of that stuff just happens outside of their scheduled hours, right?
But it needs to be done, right?
It's kind of that administrative thing where they have to be on call for it.
So like some of these things I get and aren't questions about how they're choosing to use their time, but do still raise questions about how can we make that easier for them?
Well, I think one thing that will be useful in looking at the felony review data is that in late 2025, CPD took what had been a single felony review bucket for overtime data purposes and has broken that out into, I think it's close to 20 different buckets.
So there's going to be a lot more granularity as to what makes up that total. And I think that that will help with the sort of analysis that you're looking for.
And then lastly, Chairman, I'll bring this particularly to you and my colleagues, that airport manpower shortage, knowing how airports and their generation of revenue seen, you know, I know it's not an obscene amount of money, right?
But that's still almost seven million dollars that I feel like I don't know how that's shaking out on whose pocket it's coming out of.
But as we think about the corporate budget, that seems like one where the airport should be, you know, airport funds should be reimbursing the corporate fund if they need if they need those additional that additional manpower piece.
So I don't know if that's how they're doing it now, but through the chair, maybe something to flag for the budget review because, you know, they've got money.
Thank you.
Thank you, Alderman. And let me just say, you know, sometimes when you look at these figures, and I don't know whether Inspector General Richardson hit on this a little bit, where the hours that that one officer may have accumulated can be somewhat misleading.
For example, and I'm giving you dated material because I retired quite a while ago, but if I went to court.
and I was only there for 20 minutes, I got a minimum of three hours of overtime.
Or if I worked overtime, I got paid at a time and a half.
And so that 45 hours of overtime per week can sometimes be misleading based off of how many times that particular officer went to court,
how long he went to court, but I can almost assure you it's not an actual 2,400 or whatever it was in overtime.
Yeah, I can imagine my information is a little dated because I retired in 2017, but I can almost imagine it's not an actual 2,000-some hours of overtime.
The money's real.
That's helpful.
The money's real, but the actual hours may not be.
Are there any other questions or comments?
And I'll just add that on the dashboard, we actually break it down by actual hours worked and by the hours paid because they get paid by time and a half.
So it is an answer that the dashboard itself answers and breaks down.
Just a quick point of clarification.
I'm sorry, Chair.
Yes.
So in this example, then, was this 2,385.5 actual hours worked?
Do you know?
So as we have written it, it says, by working an additional 2,385.5 hours, I would go back to the dashboard to double check myself, and I can provide that answer through the chair.
But as it is written, it reads that that is the case.
Thank you.
Of actual hours?
Correct.
Oh, my goodness.
Alderman Martin.
Thank you, Chairman.
Good afternoon, everybody.
I wanted to first follow up on this piece around overtime.
I appreciate the work that the Office of Inspector General is doing with these dashboards.
I find them to be very helpful.
I had pulled up the dashboard just to compare over the last several years where we're going with overtime.
And it seems like we are getting in a better – we're continuing to move in a better direction.
So in 2023, it was $339 million, down to $302 million in 2024, $285 million in 2025, so good downward trajectory.
It seems like we're starting to level out a little bit.
Year-to-date, it's $224 million, and it seems like we're roughly on the same pace as last year, maybe a little bit down.
I'm curious if your office has any insights into why over the last several years we have seen a pretty significant decline, but why the decline year over year seems to be a little bit more shallow.
So I don't have a hard answer to that, but based on conversations that we had with CPD kind of around the initiation of this overtime project, one of the things that they told us they expected that we would see was a meaningful drop in overtime over the last several years as they implemented a number of changes to put stricter controls on overtime.
So what you may be seeing, if that's accurate, is the effect of the implementation of those controls.
But then once those controls were implemented, then there's sort of a steady state.
OK, because I still think that it's not ideal to have a budgeted number exceeded so significantly.
I believe that the current fiscal year we budgeted $200 million.
And that, of course, was up relative to prior years because it was an open secret that that number was much higher year-to-year than what was budgeted.
But if we're talking about what is going to be in the best interest of residents and officers themselves in terms of not working an excessive amount of overtime, it's clear that there's more work to be done, something that we'll talk with CPD about.
But I would appreciate your office's continued focus on this important issue.
The second piece I was curious about was civilianization.
I know that some years ago, it might have been 2013, your predecessors put out a report summarizing and making some recommendations around civilianization.
It comes up every year in budget-related conversations.
The staffing analysis, and maybe also the Ernst & Young report, I'm not sure about the latter, also referenced it.
I'm curious what, if anything, you all are seeing that's preventing us from moving there,
because I believe we're talking about many hundreds of officers who are currently doing
civilian work. There might be reasons why some of them should be doing that.
But I think when we're talking about timekeepers, I don't believe that that's the highest and best use of an officer's time, especially given, I think, ongoing challenges around shootings, robberies, burglaries, as well as opportunities for continued proactive community policing.
So what can you help us do so that in the next few years, we're not sounding like a broken record and talking about civilianization?
We have started to actually look into this topic again since the 2013 report was published.
It was concurrent, though, with the workforce allocation study.
And so just as far as resource efficiency and the workforce allocation study does address civilianization,
It's our understanding that, at least with Superintendent Snelling, that the intent was to follow the recommendations in the workforce allocation study, which we expected to see more positions be civilianized.
For example, without naming specific units, I know that there is at least one unit that, if it hasn't already been civilianized, is in the process of being civilianized.
So they – it's addressing the workforce allocation study.
It's our understanding for CPD that they intend to follow those recommendations.
Do you understand if there is a set of goals that they're working backwards from?
Because it's good to know that there are certain positions where civilization is appropriate,
and they're going to be pursuing that.
But I also wonder if, from OIG's perspective, we're seeing the department move at the pace
that would be most appropriate and most feasible?
Yeah, I don't know that we're really in a position to answer that.
I think we will have some insight into aspects of that question
as a result of the overtime work,
because that'll be a lens into an important aspect of their management.
But we have not – we've not sort of looked at kind of the strategic resource use planning of CPD.
Okay.
Yeah, I – we'll talk with CPD, of course, around budget hearings and certainly the new superintendent.
Whenever that person comes on board, I can see there being a need to have OIG come in and provide some support, maybe a bit of lighter auditing to come out with some recommendations around maybe what other jurisdictions have done to ramp up civilianization to provide a good path forward.
Because I do feel that over the last several years, we've moved more slowly than is appropriate.
I think that covers it on my end. Oh, last one. Do you know if the Workforce Allocation Study did a robust service call analysis to make recommendations of which 911 call types would be best to be responded to by CPD versus other departments?
I don't know the answer offhand. We do have a copy of it, so it would just be a matter, but it's hundreds of pages, so I would have to go and look at it.
Yeah, that's fine. I don't recall off the top of my head. I have a recollection that it was not something that was a significant focus.
If my recollection is correct, I think that's something your office could consider wading into, because I think we're approaching things from the wrong direction. Right now, there continue to be ongoing conversations around the care program and the calls that they respond to.
And I think that generally nonviolent mental health calls for service can get an appropriate response most of the time from people in city government outside of law enforcement.
I think the same is true for an alternative response for parking related complaints.
Someone illegally parked in crosswalk.
There's a proposal on the books to establish a pilot.
And if that's successful, potentially ramp it up citywide.
But I also wonder if we should look at the other end to say, what are the most significant service call types?
And there are certain ones, robberies, burglaries, carjacking, shootings, where most people would agree having the police department respond would be most appropriate.
But I wonder if there are other calls for service that once we delve into it, a good majority of them.
aren't the best use of an officer's time. And if we had another department that was able to step in
and respond, it would be good for that department, good for officers, good for the public. So
would encourage OIG to consider that if my recollection is correct, that the workforce
allocation study didn't get into service call type. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,
Alderman Martin. Alderman Gardner. Before we go on, just because I always like to be accurate,
I had one of my chiefs checked as we were sitting here, that 2,385.5 hours per our dashboard, which is from CPD data's actual hours.
Alderman Gardner.
Thank you, Chairman.
And as I'm looking at some of these numbers, obviously, and we're heading into budget season, you know,
I think we all collectively have some concerns as far as earnings, especially in the overtime area.
Residents of the 45th Ward have consistently expressed concerns, something that I touched upon earlier,
related to the amount of overtime that is going to officers to try to quell some of these protests that I had mentioned earlier.
Is there is there a way through the chair that I can get numbers and the amount of overtime that is paid to officers due to address some of the incidents that we see due to these protests in Chicago?
If that is a category that CPD uses to distinguish, then yes.
But otherwise, the broad category is for special events.
So but I will look.
So are you saying that would be all lumped into a special event, a protest?
I will have to look at the dashboard.
So it is broken down by different events, but I'm not sure if it will be labeled as protests per se.
So I don't have that answer.
I mean, the data, all we do in this space is pull CPD's data.
Sure.
And so if CPD has data for overtime broken down by protests, we can supply that, or CPD could supply it.
But if they're not keeping the data that way, we don't have the answer.
Understood. Thank you.
And, Alderman, I'll see if that data is broken down to include by specific columns like festivals, events, overtime for protests.
Protests. I'll see if that that information is broken down specifically by the police department.
And I'll include also in there if there's overtime for street takeover.
Yeah. Yeah. Teen takeovers. Yeah, absolutely. You know, where we used to see a lot of protests for defund the police, for example,
which ironically was working in the opposite direction because we're only having to fund the police officers more with overtime to combat some of the violence or the incidents that we were seeing in downtown Chicago.
So I would just be curious and residents of my ward would be curious to see how much of those funds would be going to combat the protest in Chicago.
Thank you. And I've confirmed that the dashboard breaks it down, how CPD breaks it down.
And it does not include a category labeled protest. OK, thank you.
Thank you. Just one question for me, really.
You guys still have oversight responsibility over the fire department, correct?
Yes, the office does.
Okay, and do we get this annual report with regard to the fire department as well?
This annual report is created pursuant to the Public Safety Inspector General Ordinance,
and the Public Safety Inspector General jurisdiction covers the Chicago Police Department,
the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, and the Police Board.
But not the fire department?
Correct.
Okay, thank you.
Are there any other questions and comments?
There being no further?
Yes.
Alderman Manah Hoppingworth.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, for this hearing.
Thank you, Chair.
I had a question about the civilianization.
And thank you, Alderman Martin, for asking all the questions I had also.
But for, do you think that there will be a correlation between civilianization and a decrease in overtime?
time so i would i would expect yes because to the to the extent that civilianization would free up
officer resources to respond to some of those significant events you've got you've got more
officers on regular time available
on.
Would it be one-to-one? I guess not, but I would expect some correlation.
You said that you had mentioned that there was perhaps a department or section that's already doing this civilianization?
We had initially started to before the workforce allocation study took off,
and because the workforce allocation study addresses civilianizations from a resource efficiency perspective,
we didn't continue to look at the same topic that was going to be covered in the workforce allocation study.
Was your question whether there's already a part of the police department that's moving in this direction?
Yeah. Did you mention that that was happening?
Well, per the prior superintendent, the understanding was that as the workforce allocation study had recommended that they would follow those recommendations to civilianize certain positions and units.
Will you be able to report on the impact of that work on overtime in that wedge?
At a certain point in time, like once enough time has passed where we might be able to see the at least correlation causation would be a different question, but I can imagine with passage of time.
Yeah, I will. It's a good question. I'll raise it with our audit team. I think to Barbara's point, I mean, if they're just in the middle of doing this, the data may not be robust enough to support any inferences.
But if there are other departments, there are other parts of the department where there's been an increase in civilianization in the last several years, maybe there's a way that we can get at it.
And I think it's an interesting question that is worth our trying to figure out if there's a way to get at it.
I doubt we'll be able to have a definitive answer, but given the challenges that you're trying to work through, I think any information is better than no information.
Thank you.
I'd appreciate some starting point towards that end, just so that we can say that we are making progress.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Sharon.
Thank you.
Are there any other questions?
Let me first thank, before we adjourn, let me thank both the Deputy Inspector General and the Inspector General for joining us.
I certainly appreciate it, and thank you for the good work that you continue to do on behalf of the residents of the City of Chicago.
Would there be no further questions before the committee?
Alderman Martin has moved that we adjourn.
I'm praying that everyone will certainly agree by signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Okay.
Those opposed, nay.
Because it would be a 50-50 vote, and I don't know how to handle that.
There being no further questions before the committee, the meeting is hereby adjourned.
Thank you.