Investigations found that multiple Chicago police officers are associated with hate and extremist groups.
A new policy banning Chicago police from “active participation” in hate and extremist groups was unanimously approved by a civilian-led police oversight panel on Monday.
The policy was approved after the Chicago Police Department (CPD) investigated officers who were found to have connections to far right, white supremacist groups — including the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Three Percenters — but took little action.
“Groups that focus on biased conduct don’t always commit crimes, but its conduct is still not conduct that we think is appropriate for Chicago police officers,” Yvette Loizon, a member of the city’s Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, told CBS News.
While the CPD general orders already prohibit officers from “membership in or affiliation with criminal organizations and from association with known members of criminal organizations,” Chicago police officials have said that joining extremist groups like the Oath Keepers does not constitute a rule violation. The policy change would broaden this rule to prohibit officer association with “biased” organizations, like hate and extremist groups.
The Oath Keepers is one of the largest far right anti-government groups in the U.S. today, and actively recruits members of the police. Members of the extremist group have faced a series of arrests since the group was founded in 2009, and played a key role in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. In the aftermath of the Capitol riot, Chicago police union president John Catanzara publicly defended the insurrectionists.
In 2021, investigations by NPR found that 13 CPD police officers were active members of the Oath Keepers. One of the Oath Keepers uncovered by the NPR investigation was police officer Phillip Singto, who mentioned “Oathkeepers” under the accomplishments section on his LinkedIn profile. While the CPD conducted an internal investigation into the level of Singto’s activity in the group, Chicago’s Inspector General Deborah Witzburg told the Chicago Sun Times that the CPD declined to review personal records and other documents as part of its investigation. According to the Invisible Institute, a journalism nonprofit based on the south side of Chicago, Singto is still active in the CPD, and currently has six complaints against him, including a use of force complaint.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a civil rights organization that tracks extremist groups across the country, sent a scathing letter to Chicago officials earlier this year demanding that another Chicago police officer, Robert Bakker, be fired for his connections with designated hate group the Proud Boys.
“The CPD is neglecting its commitments to protect and support Chicago communities by allowing Bakker to continue in his role as a law enforcement officer,” Jeff Tischauser, senior research analyst at the SPLC, said in the letter. “Allowing Bakker to retain his role can create an environment of impunity for other officers who may associate with violent groups and contribute to the erosion of trust between the public and law enforcement authorities.”
While Bakker was suspended after police investigations found that he had failed to disclose that FBI agents had questioned him about his ties to the group, he was later reinstated. After police investigators learned that he had made contradicting statements about his activities with the hate group and lied to investigators about attending a barbecue linked to the group, he was suspended again for 120 days.
“[T]he handling of this incident demonstrates that the Chicago Police Department lacks clear policies and procedures for how to address involvement of its officers in groups advocating extremist views and conduct,” Tischauser said. “We urge you to adopt a strong policy against the involvement of Chicago Police officers in white supremacist and extremist activities.”
While Bakker currently remains on the force, this policy change will likely end his career with the CPD.
“I don’t know any other jobs really where they spend so much time defending somebody who they should normally cut,” Chicago City Council member Andre Vasquez told the Chicago Sun Times. “It’s wild to me, and we all suffer for it.”
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While I don’t think the idea is bad. I think it has issues both legally and with the Law of Unintended Consequences. From a legal standpoint, let’s consider the idea that we “prohibit cops from participating in any groups they may be expected to police at protests”. Ok, this sounds great on paper. But, if you think about what this will mean in practice, we are essentially saying that police officers must be apolitical in their personal lives. Every political group is going to use rallies and protests to promote their message. This is going to get hit like a bug by the windshield of Strict Scrutiny moving at 70mph. Not only is this seeking to prevent speech by the officers, it’s trying to limit political speech by those officers. And the rule is doing so in a very broad fashion for a goal which is going to be easy to paint as overly broad.
And this is where I would separate it out from firewalls on regulators. An investigator working for the Chemical Safety Board is going to be barred from accepting money from Dow Chemicals or any other manufacturer they regulate. That is a restriction, but first and foremost, it’s not a restriction on political speech. That same investigator would be ok to join any political groups arguing for or against the use of any chemical. It also isn’t going to control speech in the same way. For example, if our investigator puts up a post on Mastadon saying “wow, this new chemical from Dow is really cool!” that’s not going to be considered breaking the firewall. Along the same line, if a police officer puts up a post saying, “I support (some group) in their protest” does that fall afoul of “participating” in a prohibited group? Maybe not, but it’s squishier and again treads pretty squarely on political speech.
Setting aside the legal questions and considering the proposed rule from an implementation point of view, it’s a bit of a mess as well. Consider how we’re going to define what groups are and are not in the purview of the law. Who is making the call and how does that call get challenged? This is why I brought up McCarthyism. During the height of McCarthy’s reign of terror, the House Un-American Activities Committee was basically just making shit up to suppress anyone they didn’t like. What’s to stop the proposed rule being used to purge police forces of “undesirable” officers? “Undesirable” being defined by whatever administration is in power at the time. It’s just far too easy for this type of rule to be (ab)used to target individual officers, with little recourse. And it’s pretty much guaranteed that police forces which are already shot through with right-wing extremists will use this as a way to push out anyone they don’t like.
This is why I fell back on targeting membership in criminal organizations. Legally, the government has a pretty clear interest in preventing employees from being members in criminal organizations. Also, the courts rarely consider criminal activities as “protected speech” or political in nature. There is also a much higher bar to clear to get an organization designated as a criminal organization. Sure, any moron with a Twitter account can call an organization a criminal one (see: Trump), but actually getting the courts to back such a designation is a hell of a lot harder. It creates a system of checks and balances on the use of such a rule, without having to actually build such a system. It’s far from perfect, and the same hurdle which gets in the way of malicious use of such a rule also gets in the way of legitimate use of such a rule. But, that’s kinda the cost of living in a country which isn’t subject to the whims of any one person or group.