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There's No Such Thing As An Independent Top Cop (Sorry, Eddie)

By Mark Konkol | March 29, 2016 8:32am
 New interim Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson addresses the media Monday.
New interim Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson addresses the media Monday.
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DNAinfo/Ted Cox

CHICAGO — Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s newly minted interim police Supt. Eddie Johnson made a pretty good first impression. And then he sort of blew it.

It happened Monday right after the mayor heaped praise on the 27-year veteran who grew up in Chicago, raised his family here and earned a reputation for being a man of the people beloved by the rank and file.

A top City Hall spin machine operative called an early end to the news conference before a certain pesky reporter got to ask questions about Johnson’s crime-fighting strategies and, most importantly, whether he would stand up to Emanuel and city Corporation Counsel Steve Patton — the guy who quietly wields policy-making power over the department — as he fights to restore the public’s faith in a Police Department people don’t trust.

Mark Konkol sees a tough road ahead for new police Supt. Eddie Johnson.

That led to a slow-speed chase through police headquarters until Johnson reluctantly stopped to deliver what he must have hoped would be a definitive statement.

“The mayor knows, and I know, that the police superintendent has to have complete autonomy and independence from City Hall,” Johnson said. “And I have it.”

With all due respect to Johnson, that’s like saying he believes the tooth fairy exists.

What’s closer to the truth is Johnson’s opportunity to rebuild the public’s trust in the Police Department will depend on whether the Emanuel administration makes swift and meaningful changes to the myriad City Hall policies that have protected dirty cops for more than 40 years and slowly eroded the public’s faith in the Police Department.

The mayor’s top cop appointment certainly is one of the most important decisions Emanuel will make.

But it’s naive to think that picking Johnson is all about finding the “complete package” to lead the beleaguered Police Department.

This was a well-calculated political decision that also served as an olive branch to influential community leaders, including members of the City Council Black Caucus, who made it clear to the mayor they wanted an African-American Police Department insider to run the department.

There has never been a top cop  — and certainly not an interim police boss  — who has been autonomous or independent of City Hall.  

That’s not the Chicago Way.  

Anyone who tells you different doesn’t comprehend how much control City Hall asserts over every decision a police superintendent makes and controls how much of the truth about police misconduct the public has a right to know.

First, Emanuel is a boss with his entire legacy at stake who will be intimately involved in every major decision because the buck stops with him.

The mayor’s City Hall spin machine will control all the top cop’s planned messaging and decide when and how to release policy decisions after asking the mayor first.

Then, there’s Patton, who has broad authority to make important policy decisions that can get a police superintendent fired — the court fight and negotiation of a court settlement to keep the Laquan McDonald video secret, for instance — without  bothering to consult the top cop.

After all, it was Patton — not fired Supt. Garry McCarthy — who negotiated the police union contract without addressing key provisions that keep public information about police misconduct secret. As it's set up, the contract allows a disciplinary system rigged to favor cops to drag on for years, rarely leading to punishment and harboring the “Thin Blue Line” code of silence in the Police Department.

Patton also doesn’t need the top cop’s OK to fight in court to keep the Police Department's dirty deeds under court seal or to settle civil lawsuits with payouts tied to nondisclosure clauses that keep information about police misconduct and lying cops secret from the public.

Chicago’s police superintendent also doesn’t have the authority to fire dirty cops —  even officers who fire their guns over their shoulders into a crowd of people and kill someone — unless the mayor’s hand-picked Police Board agrees with the top cop’s recommendation. That doesn’t happen as often as it should.

All of those things will affect our next top cop’s ability to lead.