If the Chicago Police Department expects residents to assist in their investigations and view its officers as honest and hard-working, it would help if they did a better job weeding out and thoroughly vetting cops who rubbed elbows with extremist right-wing organizations.
It would help, too, if CPD officials stopped simply parroting the line that it’s not a violation of department policy to be affiliated with groups that are anathema to many law-abiding people, especially those who are Black and Brown.
True, it isn’t illegal to belong to these groups, which federal authorities have identified as plotting the Jan. 6 insurrection. But it is certainly not an “accomplishment” to brag about having belonged to the Oath Keepers either, as Officer Phillip Singto apparently did by listing it on his LinkedIn page.
CPD’s internal investigation of Singto, and a separate inquiry on Officer Robert Bakker’s ties to the Proud Boys, have both been characterized as deficient by City Hall Inspector General Deborah Witzburg.
Witzburg, in a recent quarterly report, called out the department’s internal affairs bureau for failing to review personal records and other documents that may have shown how engaged Singto was with the Oath Keepers when he joined the anti-government militia over a decade ago, the Sun-Times’ Tom Schuba reported.
Singto admitted he was an Oath Keeper for a few years. Yet, the internal investigation concluded that the allegation of his membership was “not sustained.”
The department “failed to address the applicability of CPD’s rules and regulations and did not answer the question of whether the CPD member’s membership in the Oath Keepers itself constitutes a violation of CPD policy,” Witzburg wrote.
Chicagoans likely felt a sense of déjà vu upon learning that. We certainly did.
It was just back in October that Witzburg called out the police department for overlooking incriminating evidence and failing to even consider firing Bakker for making inconsistent statements about his association with the Proud Boys.
Bakker was given a 120-suspension but kept his job. The decision continues to draw criticism locally — including from the head of City Council’s Public Safety Committee, Ald. Chris Taliaferro, a former police officer — and nationally, from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which investigates extremist groups.
As long as CPD keeps finding excuses for officers’ connections to extremist organizations, its credibility will keep taking hits.
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