

Save the police conduct records

Does a police union contract trump the Illinois Freedom of Information Act?

Chicago's police unions think so. They've gone to court to stop the city from releasing the records of hundreds of thousands of citizen complaints against cops filed before March 2011. They say their collective bargaining agreements require the city to destroy the documents.

What a terrible time to press that argument.

A white Chicago cop is charged with first-degree murder in the death of a black teenager. That officer was named in 20 citizen complaints in five years. Not one of them was sustained.

The U.S. Department of Justice has been called in to review the Police Department's policies and practices, with special attention to the use of deadly force and patterns of racial discrimination.

A mayoral task force is charged with overhauling a police disciplinary system that almost never finds reason to punish an officer accused of misconduct.

Chicagoans' trust in their Police Department is badly shaken.

Yet the Fraternal Order of Police, which represents rank-and-file officers, and the Chicago Police Benevolent and Protective Association, which represents higher-ranking officers, want to erase decades worth of records that document complaints against police officers and the resolution of those complaints.

An appellate court judge ruled last year that the information is public under the state Freedom of Information Act. The city released more than 28,000 records dating to March 2011. Independent journalist Jamie Kalven, whose lawsuit led to that ruling, posted the data on his website. You can see it at

Kalven, the Tribune and the Sun-Times want the complete records, dating to 1967, but the unions sued to block that release. They pointed to a provision in their contracts that says the records must be destroyed after five years — or seven years if the complaint alleged excessive force or criminal conduct.

The case is working its way back to court via the labor arbitration process. One arbitrator has already agreed with the union representing higher-ranking officers. A second arbitrator is expected to side with the FOP. A court review is virtually certain.

The journalists aren't seeking the investigative files, only a list of bare details, including the name of the officer, the nature of the complaint and its resolution.

What can be learned from the data? The records already released show, for example, that complaints filed by white citizens were sustained more often than those filed by blacks, and that black officers were punished more often than white officers for similar findings of misconduct.

What they mostly show is that disturbingly few complaints — less than 2 percent of them — led to disciplinary action against the officer. Yet, time and again, citizens have gone to court and come away with big jury awards or settlements against cowboy cops. Taxpayers get the bill.

The records also show that some officers escape discipline despite repeated complaints. That history isn't considered when the Independent Police Review Authority reviews a new complaint against the same officer.

That's how the system failed to flag Officer Jason Van Dyke, whose tally of complaints rose to 20 when the database was last updated. Half of those complaints concerned use of force, but Van Dyke was never disciplined or even flagged as a potential problem. Now he's charged with first-degree murder in the shooting of Laquan McDonald, 17. In April, the city paid McDonald's family $5 million to head off a slam-dunk wrongful death lawsuit.

City officials want to release the records. Chicagoans ought to be outraged at the audacity of union leaders who want to destroy them. Those disciplinary records belong to the public — not to City Hall or the FOP. Citizens' right to monitor their government is not something to be traded away at the bargaining table. We're counting on the courts to make that clear.

Government transparency cuts both ways. It enhances confidence in the majority of public servants who do their jobs honorably and well. It helps identify and hold accountable the ones who don't.

If the unions cared about rebuilding trust in the Chicago Police Department, they'd welcome the release of those records. Withholding them from the public serves only one purpose: to protect bad cops.

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