Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Wednesday downplayed concerns that Chicago police Superintendent David Brown’s decision to fire the department’s director of reform will hurt the city’s efforts to comply with a federal court order aimed at reforming Chicago police.
She also defended Brown’s move to reassign personnel from the reform division, saying all departments within department must give up officers to fight crime.
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The mayor’s comments come after Brown fired Robert Boik, the Chicago Police Department’s executive director of constitutional policing and reform, on Tuesday. The sacking of Boik came after he apparently sent an email asking for a reversal of a decision to distribute his staff to patrol instead of officer training, according to multiple police sources.
In Boik’s email, which was obtained by the Tribune, he said that if those individuals were moved to patrol, there would be 21 fewer instructors at the academy and the department would no longer be able to offer an eight-hour gender-based violence course to officers this year.
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The decision would also result in 10 fewer people in the crisis intervention training program, which would diminish the program by about 30%, according to the email. Putting these individuals on patrol would also put a minimum of 8% of the department’s current consent-decree compliance at risk.
Lightfoot pushed back at an unrelated news conference Wednesday, where she said she wouldn’t get into “the details of a now-fired employee who sends off an email” but in response to questions defended Brown’s strategy and described the firing as “palace intrigue.”
“The training is obviously critically important. It’s mandated by the consent decree. We will not take steps back and I don’t anticipate that’s going to happen. The work that needs to be done to continue on the path of reform is larger and bigger than one individual person, it always has been,” Lightfoot said.
“The mission of the department is larger and bigger than one individual person so people will say lots of things going out the door but what I can tell you is that the work on reform, and particularly the emphasis on training, is going to continue going forward,” the mayor said. “I don’t see any basis for any concern that we (will stop) and not meet our obligations under consent decree.”
Asked about Boik’s detailed concerns that training would be limited if members of his team are reassigned, Lightfoot said, “I’m not going to get into all of those details” and reiterated her commitment “to making sure we continue to make progress on police reform.”
But, she added, “Every single bureau within this department has been asked to give some additional resources for officers who are doing non police work to contribute with the crime fight, to help with security on the CTA, every single bureau has said yes. There can be no exceptions. Period.”
Brown’s decision to fire Boik led to an outpouring of criticism from police reform advocates and former city officials.
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