CHICAGO – A proposal to create a database of closed investigations into misconduct by Chicago police officers was shut down Monday after the city council responsible for building and maintaining the public repository refused to endorse a watered-down version of the law.

The ordinance, first introduced last fall, mandates that the Inspector General’s Public Security Department launch the database for cataloging files on police misconduct spanning two decades. However, the size of the catalog was scaled back during negotiations with Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s government, with a reprimand from Inspector General Joe Ferguson and good government groups that once supported the effort.

At an independent event Monday morning, Lightfoot defended the revisions that won its support, criticizing opponents of the amendments as “yapping on the verge” of a regulation it described as “monumental” efforts at transparency.

But without the support of Ferguson and advocates of transparency, several city councilors said they would vote against the latest version of the measure if called to a vote during the Joint Finance and Public Safety Committee Monday. No vote was held on Monday to maintain committee-level efforts.

“We live in a world where perception is reality,” said Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza (10th), citing public opposition to the proposal.

“But my major concern here is that the OIG office that has been tasked with carrying this out is not offering any assistance,” she said. “Because if OIG is not on board and they have to implement this thing, then we are ashamed, because basically that is just that we are jamming something in the throat of people, and I am not able to do that.”

After the draft language of the revisions was presented to city councils last week, Ferguson criticized the changes as “a much smaller step in scope and scope than the one presented to city council in April”.

Deborah Witzburg, assistant inspector general for public safety, described the changes as “incremental pocket money” rather than “transformative down payment”.

Recognition: Colin Boyle / Block Club ChicagoA small group of protesters confront Chicago police officers outside the Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police in the West Loop in late April 2021 after videos were released on March 29 of 13-year-old Adam Toledo being fatally shot and killed by a Chicago police officer in 2021 the neighborhood of Little Village.

The revisions narrowed the range of the database from 1994 to 2000, restricted information from extensive investigative files, and excluded complaints related to domestic, child or sexual abuse.

In contrast to an earlier version of the regulation, the measure presented on Monday excluded allegations of misconduct that did not lead to an investigation, for example those that were not pursued because the complainant had not submitted a signed affidavit in support of the allegation.

The replacement ordinance contains completed studies that have one of four results; “Sustainable, unsustainable, unfounded or exonerated.”

The data would automatically include a traceable complaint number, the category of the complaint, the names of the suspected officer, the name of the investigative authority and the final decision of the investigation.

Following Ferguson’s criticism, the language was optimized to make it clear that investigations leading to a “non-persistent” complaint would also be included. The database would also contain files from both the predecessor and all successor agencies of the Civil Police Accountability Office and the Internal Affairs Bureau of the Police Department.

Ferguson said last week’s floating language could rule out COPA’s predecessors, the Office of Professional-Standard – once headed by Lightfoot – and the Independent Police Review Authority.

The revised ordinance was formally presented and tweaked to city councils on Sunday evening until a meeting of the Joint Finance and Public Security Committee was due to start on Monday afternoon, which angered some members of the committee.

Ald. Finance Committee chairman Scott Waguespack (32nd) postponed the vote and said he would continue to “work it out” to build enough support to move the regulation forward. But the city council said Ferguson’s “nuclear” criticism surprised him.

“The next thing I knew was that there were comments and comments that basically went,” We don’t support this at all “before I had a chance to go back and make changes or try a different one to make here, “said Waguespack.

Marie Dillon, Director of Policy at the Better Government Association, filed a letter of objection, criticizing the latest proposal as a “fake” compromise that “undermines the intent of the previous regulation and should not become law”.

“I encourage you to pass an ordinance that will set the standard of proactive transparency that this government has promised and that the people of Chicago deserve. The version in front of you doesn’t do any of that, ”Dillon said.

Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th) said she supported an earlier version of the regulation, but “what has come now is a watering down and now we’re supposed to automatically just co-sign and just take something,” she said.

Waguespack, who endorsed the regulation, acknowledged that much remains to be done to find “consensus” between the administration and its opponents, including Ferguson.

“I don’t know where the middle ground is, it’s pretty difficult when it’s a zero-sum game,” he said.

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