- In an unprecedented move, the Executive Board of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 (FOP) voted unanimously Tuesday to cease cooperation with the Chicago Tribunebecause of a powerful anti-police agenda at the newspaper together with an unwillingness by certain Tribune staff members to objectively report vital criminal justice issues.
The unanimous FOP vote comes in the wake of last weekend’s explosive violence, which led to the deaths of 13 individuals among 72 shootings across Chicago. While not a single bullet that struck the victims came from police fire, there was not a single mention in the Tribune of that salient fact.
That is one small example that has led to the FOP to cease cooperating with the Tribune. It is the newspaper’s dark alliance with the wrongful conviction movement that is the most troubling.
We don't know what extent the "cooperation" was supposed to be. The FOP has been inviting or holding press conferences for years and they're lucky to get a single print reporter to show up and maybe a mention on page 22. Almost all of the Trib articles nowadays are Washington Post or LA Times reprints and investigative reporting is non existent. They aren't exactly known for supporting the police, so good riddance.
Second, the FOP points out something we've been saying for years now:- The weekend bloodbath that left 71 people shot — 12 fatally — could be “a hint of what it is to come if the war on police continues” with a consent decree imposing “drastic new police oversight,” the police union is warning.
In a post this week on “The Watch,” the union’s blog, the Fraternal Order of Police notes the “explosion of violence” came less than a week after Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who is not running for re-election, unveiled their proposal outlining the terms of federal court oversight over the Chicago Police Department.
“The FOP has argued that these measures will make policing even more difficult in Chicago, burdening officers with endless bureaucracy, paper work and ambiguous policies that ultimately will be used to arbitrarily discipline officers,” the blog post states. “Last weekend’s mayhem is a direct and chilling refutation of the entire argument posed by the talking heads from the city, attorney general and from groups like the ACLU to impose this proposed consent decree. It also may very well be a hint of what is to come if the war on the police continues.”
A disengaged police force is a city lost to crime. Meanwhile, the ACLU keeps spreading their lies:
- Karen Sheley, director of the Police Practices Project for the ACLU, accused the FOP of continuing to “excuse Chicago’s violence by pointing fingers” at what she called “modest reforms to ensure officers follow the law.”
Sheley further argued that the union’s “continued fight against reform shows how badly” those changes are needed.
“Their contract effectively codifies the code of silence. The CPD has lost the trust of many in the black and Latino community to the extent that the department cannot solve murders and violent crimes,” Sheley said in the statement.
Has anyone ever outlined how the so-called "code of silence" is written into the Contract? Because we can't find it anywhere and we've read the thing back-to-front a few times and the Contract is far more strict when compared to other police forces and the FBI. Will someone in authority ask for specific instances of this "code"?
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