Chicago police sergeant alleges commander posted officers on his own block during last year’s unrest

CHICAGO — A Chicago police sergeant has filed a complaint with the city’s inspector general alleging that during the early, tense days of last year’s civil unrest, a commander assigned her and a team of officers to a post on the Bridgeport block where he lives.

Sgt. Cassandra Williams, a 30-year department member and 18-year sergeant, told the Chicago Tribune that Jason Brown, then an acting commander, asked her on June 2, 2020, to take a team to his block after a neighbor saw someone who appeared to be videotaping or photographing his home, which they perceived as a safety threat. Months later, after she said Brown asked her whether officers were talking about the assignment and told her not to discuss it, Williams said she was given new, less desirable work duties.

No arrest or threat was found, but the assignment continued for several days over the next week, Williams said, with seven officers eventually taking part in the detail. Teams of officers had been staging during the unrest at nearby Guaranteed Rate Field, the home of the Chicago White Sox, also in the Bridgeport neighborhood.

Williams has been interviewed by the city inspector general’s office, said her attorney, Torreya Hamilton.

A spokesman for the Chicago Police Department said he could not comment on any of the allegations because the matter is under investigation by the IG’s office. Brown, now the commander of the narcotics unit, also refused to comment, citing the pending investigation and department rules.

The inspector general’s office does not comment on pending investigations. The probe is likely to consider a department rule of conduct that prohibits an officer’s use of his or her position for personal gain or influence.

The allegations against a high-ranking officer come as the department continues to attempt to implement court-mandated reform, which aims to professionalize the response to public safety and repair damage done by years of civil rights abuses in Chicago’s Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

Williams, who is assigned to the narcotics unit, initially worked two days downtown during the heated, troubling days at the end of May 2020 after the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis touched off both peaceful protests and unrest across the country.

On June 1 and 2 last year, she reported to Guaranteed Rate Field. All days off for Chicago officers had been canceled, with a command post established at the South Side ballpark to coordinate responses citywide.

Williams said before she arrived, Brown texted her and said he needed to speak to her. Once there, he shared that a neighbor had reported seeing two men driving on his block and that they had gotten out of their car and appeared to be taking video or photographs of Brown’s house, she said.

Brown, who was then a lieutenant but acting commander of the unit, was responsible for helping to launch citywide responses that day. Williams said he told her to report to his street, which was less than a block from where all officers were staging, she said.

Williams took a team in one unmarked police vehicle and a rented van, she told the Tribune last week. The team left after midnight, with no signs of trouble, she said.

But Brown sent them back for the next three days and then two more later in the week, until the entire narcotics unit was notified it was returning to normal duty June 9, Williams said.

The post remained quiet, as neighbors came out to thank officers with food and tell them they appreciated having them on the block, the sergeant recalled. She found the neighbors genuine and kind.

Williams started to question the assignment as things remained quiet, however, and as she drove home each night through neighborhoods, many Black and Hispanic, where businesses had been broken into and ransacked. Her own Walgreens, she said, was hit, and she couldn’t refill her prescriptions.

The officers with her also started asking why they were on Brown’s block, she said.

“It was so quiet you could drop a pin on the ground and hear it,” she said, adding that a peaceful neighborhood protest was held a few blocks away one of the evenings, but they did not respond to it.

“I kind of felt like, why are we sitting here?” Williams asked. “Why aren’t we with everybody else? To provide protection that people need rather than sitting in a nice, quiet area where there is nothing going on?”

Williams said she at one point told Brown the team was restless and asked if he could send a replacement team to give them a break. He said no, she said.

She also sent him texts about how kind and supportive the neighbors were and saying she was happy to help. The texts, which she showed to the Tribune, do not suggest any outward concern on her part with the assignment at that point.

At one point in the texts, she called it the “best detail ever.” She also told Brown, “if you need anything, anytime, I’m here Boss!”

When asked about this, Williams said the department’s culture is one that demands lower ranks ingratiate themselves with bosses. And it does not support criticizing them, for fear of being tagged as a rat, she said.

“If I had said, ‘No, I don’t want to do that,’ what happens to me then?” she said. “I’m going to be ostracized. ... I’ve heard it. I’ve seen it. I was afraid.”

Williams and her attorney said Williams also has grown increasing uncomfortable over time with the assignment from Brown, who is white, as the civil unrest in Chicago and across the country continued alongside a national reckoning on race and the profession of policing.

Williams said she also got more uncomfortable after Brown asked her in October if she had been discussing the assignment on his block with anyone. She told him that she had talked to others, because it was common knowledge in the unit and others were talking about it.

She said he told her not to talk about it.

Shortly after that conversation, Williams left for a planned vacation and then remained out on medical leave because she contracted COVID-19 and broke her toe.

When she returned to work in January, Williams learned that her assignments had been changed. She was no longer assigned to narcotics investigations but would instead work the unit’s main desk, answering phones and keeping track of prisoners. Her hours also changed, despite her seniority in the unit, she told the Tribune.

The new assignment removed her from the neighborhoods, where as a Black woman, she thought she could relate to families and residents and offer a “caring” approach to police work, even as she was helping target drug corners and dealers.

The reassignment, she added, also felt degrading, considering her rank in the unit, and she came to worry she was being retaliated against. She contacted the IG’s office in March, and when it called to schedule an interview, she sought the advice of an attorney.

After discussing the case with her attorneys, Williams decided to also speak out publicly, saying the preferential treatment given to the block undercuts reforms and the message from Chicago police leaders about restoring trust and treating all neighborhoods the same. That message isn’t likely to stick if that is not what rank-and-file officers see happening.

“People wonder all the time, why is the police and the community so at odds,” she said. “The top is messed up. And that is what makes the bottom messed up.”