Attorney General rules COPA wrongly withheld records related to domestic disturbance call at former top cop’s home
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
An agency that oversees police accountability in Chicago wrongly withheld records about a police misconduct allegation following a domestic disturbance report last year at the home of former police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, the Illinois attorney general’s office has ruled.
The case represents the latest example of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration resisting public scrutiny of city government despite her campaign pledge to “bring in the light” and promote transparency.
The attorney general’s office ruling, issued Nov. 30, found the Civilian Office of Police Accountability “improperly denied” the Chicago Tribune’s open-records request for documents related to a police complaint investigation into on-duty officers’ response to a call at Johnson’s South Side home in October 2020.
On Thursday, COPA spokesman Ephraim Eaddy said in a statement that the agency “accepts the determinations” of the attorney general’s office. He also said COPA last year began reviewing its practices of releasing materials for open investigations to improve transparency.
“When considering the release of documents in pending investigations, or those which are not investigated by COPA and assigned to the (Chicago police’s) Bureau of Internal Affairs, COPA aims to strike the difficult balance between protecting the integrity of open investigations and keeping our commitment to transparency,” Eaddy said.
The Tribune’s request to COPA was for so-called “face sheets,” which typically document the names of officers who are involved in a complaint. That includes those who filed the complaint, are accused of misconduct or witnessed alleged wrongdoing. The face sheet also has a brief statement describing the nature of the disciplinary probe.
The complaint related to the incident at Johnson’s home was filed to COPA before it was turned over to Internal Affairs.
After the Tribune asked COPA about the AG’s ruling, COPA released the 3-page face sheet for the Internal Affairs investigation. The report shows a field training officer — generally tasked with overseeing younger and inexperienced cops — who was on scene at Johnson’s home on Oct. 23, 2020, was accused of “neglect of duty.” The report offers no further details. The Tribune isn’t identifying the officer because no disciplinary charges have been filed against him.
The report says the complaint was filed by one of the officer’s bosses, a captain in the Deering patrol district. Two other cops were listed in the report as witnesses, a sergeant and another officer. Chicago police spokesman Don Terry said Thursday the complaint remains under investigation by Internal Affairs.
Over the years, the Tribune has requested and successfully obtained these face sheets from COPA, even if the complaint was still under investigation by an outside agency such as Internal Affairs or the city’s inspector general’s office.
In this instance, COPA argued the state’s Freedom of Information Act allows it to withhold the face sheets if the agency thought disclosing them would interfere with the case.
This includes the concern that public disclosure of the disciplinary investigation could tip off officers that their actions are being looked at by Internal Affairs.
But in its Nov. 30 decision, the attorney general’s office ruled COPA failed to adequately meet its burden under the state FOIA law to show that disclosing the face sheets would hamper the disciplinary case.
“Even if the subject was unaware of the existence of the investigation, police officers who responded to a domestic disturbance at the home of the former police superintendent would have had reason to expect their actions to be closely scrutinized given the circumstances, especially in light of extensive news media coverage of the incident,” according to the attorney general’s office.
The office also determined that COPA provided no support for its assertion that disclosing the existence of such an investigation would interfere with the case itself.
The AG opinion comes about a month after the attorney general’s office determined the Lightfoot administration improperly redacted the name of a supervisor with the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications who was accused of sexually harassing a woman at work.
The COPA report was filed after officers were called to Johnson’s home on Oct. 23, 2020. According to police reports, Johnson’s wife told them that a few hours earlier, she was involved in a “heated altercation” with Johnson over their relationship, and he took a Lysol can and a lighter “with the intention” to light some of his wife’s clothing on fire.
That action “resulted in small flames on the clothes lying on the bed and comforter,” the police reports stated.
It was the latest controversial incident involving Johnson since he was fired by Lightfoot two years ago after being found asleep behind the wheel of his city vehicle after a night out drinking with a subordinate.
That subordinate, Cynthia Donald, an officer who worked on Johnson’s security detail, filed an explosive lawsuit last year accusing the former superintendent of raping and harassing her over the course of a few years. Johnson has denied those allegations, and the lawsuit is still pending.
Despite the mayor’s campaign vows to improve transparency at City Hall, Lightfoot also has repeatedly refused to release the inspector general’s full report — instead of just the summary of its findings, which was disclosed last year — on the night Johnson was found asleep in his car.
Lightfoot has also come under fire for her administration’s handling of the Anjanette Young case. Her administration fought to withhold video of a botched police raid at Young’s home, and the mayor has also declined to commit to releasing former Inspector General Joe Ferguson’s full report on the case.
