Chicago, IL – On Monday, August 14, 50 people joined the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and the Empowering Communities for Public Safety coalition in the pouring rain in Chicago’s Union Park to march to the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) headquarters in response to an arbitrator’s recent decision. The decision states that Chicago Police Department officers facing discipline, regardless of the severity, would have the option to take their case to arbitration, behind closed doors, instead of going before the public Police Board.

Currently, officers facing discipline that could result in firing or a suspension of 365 days or more are required by law to have their case heard in front of the Police Board, a public body subject to the Open Meetings Act. This law only exists because of the movement for police accountability fighting for greater transparency and accountability.

This maneuver by the Fraternal Order Police comes in response to recent victories of the movement in passing the Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance, winning a strong majority in the District Council elections, and electing a mayor who supports police accountability. The Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, created by the ECPS ordinance, has the power to nominate members of the Police Board, where members had previously been hand-selected by the mayor.

“FOP means ‘Fear of people,’” said Jackie Baldwin of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs at Monday’s protest, speaking of the fear the FOP demonstrates of the greater democratic power won by the people in the ECPS ordinance. She was joined by Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez, who stated plainly, “These policies promote misconduct. We cannot continue to pander to special interests like the FOP. We want to make sure that police shootings are zero!”

The crowd responded with chants of “FOP, in our sight. Arbitration just ain’t right!” and “How do you spell racist? FOP! And how do you spell justice? ECPS!” as they marched to the FOP headquarters carrying a banner with the names of hundreds of victims of police crimes at the hands of Chicago police department. 12 elected District Councilors joined the demonstration. District Councilor for the 5th District, Ponchita Moore, made the message clear, adding, “The people need to hold police accountable!” Frank Chapman, field organizer for the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, reminded the crowd, “The power of the people is greater than the people in power.”

In order to move forward, this arbitrator’s decision needs to be ratified through Chicago’s city council. Organizers encouraged the crowd to contact their city council members urging them to refuse to pass this measure, and to vote against it if it comes before the council for a vote. Merawi Gerima, a leader in CAARPR, reminded the crowd, “Stay ready for the next city council meeting. We need to let our elected officials know that we aren’t going for this.” The next city council meeting is scheduled for September 13.

#ChicagoIL #PoliceBrutality #EmpoweringCommunitiesForPublicSafetyECPS

Chicago, IL – After celebrating their victories in the Chicago municipal elections on February 28, 36 of the 66 newly elected Police District Councilors voiced their support of the Brandon Johnson mayoral campaign. At a press conference with Johnson outside City Hall on Monday, March 13, many councilors explained why they would rather work under a Johnson administration than a Vallas one.

“I think Paul Vallas should go back to Palos Heights and run for mayor there. We need someone who is deeply rooted like Brandon Johnson,” said Arewa Karen Winters, 15th District Councilor. “Brandon Johnson is the only candidate who truly knows us, hears us and understands us because he is us,” Winters continued, referring to Johnson's residence on the chronically neglected West Side of Chicago.

“Brandon Johnson is the only mayoral candidate committed to working with [District Councilors] to make communities safer,” said 17th District Councilor Anthony Tamez, who contrasted Johnson's support of pro-accountability candidates since before the February elections with Vallas's continued alliance with the most reactionary elements of the police. “With support from the notoriously unaccountable FOP [Fraternal Order of Police], Vallas promises the same old approach that has led to wrongful convictions and abysmal murder clearance rates for decades.”

Eric Russell, 6th District Councilor, pointed to Paul Vallas's record of destroying education systems and other public services around the country. “The fiscal irresponsibility of Paul Vallas is legendary,” Russell exclaimed.

Other speakers cited Johnson's commitments to invest in communities as a reason why they were endorsing him for mayor. “I’m supporting Brandon Johnson because he supports Treatment Not Trauma,” explained Ponchita Moore, 5th District Councilor, in reference to a proposed ordinance that would invest in non-police responses to mental health crises.

“We are committed to fighting for a safer Chicago. We plan to do this by addressing the root causes of violence,” added Saul Arellano, 25th District Councilor.

“We were one of the orgs that led the campaign to get all these beautiful people elected,” Frank Chapman, executive director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR) and Field Organizer of the Chicago branch, CAARPR, said, explaining the importance of people power in the journey to this historic moment.

“We have the democratic option to say who polices our communities and how our communities are policed,” Chapman continued.

“In order for us to have a better, safer, stronger city, we have to have input from the community,” said Brandon Johnson, summing up the sentiments of those who spoke before him.

“These District Councilors are the fabric of this city, one of the most diverse coalitions in the country,” Johnson added. The councilors vowed to continue supporting Johnson's mayoral campaign through canvassing, phone banking and other methods of outreach until the runoff election on April 4.

#ChicagoIL #PoliceBrutality #EmpoweringCommunitiesForPublicSafetyECPS

Chicago, IL – 200 people filled up the main hall of the Chicago Teachers Union headquarters on January 22 for a political forum in preparation for the local police District Council elections. There were over 50 District Council candidates in attendance, and other participants included alderpersons, union leaders and community organizers. Over 40 people of various ages, genders, and nationalities spoke at the forum, and they were all united behind the need to use the February 28 elections to create a base of power from which the working and oppressed people of Chicago can hold the police accountable.

“These candidates are running because it's time to hold these police accountable for the crimes they commit against our communities,” declared Frank Chapman, field organizer of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR). Many of the District Council candidates present shared their experiences of being impacted by police crimes.

“I'm running because it's personal,” said Kiisha Smith, 10th District Council candidate. Smith described her experiences being harassed and assaulted by Chicago police officers who also targeted her children. “My family asks me ‘are you ready for this fight?’ and I say I've been fighting my whole life so why not do it the right way?”

“We have seen at the hands of the police extreme violence against the residents of Chicago, who have suffered unforgivable losses which, more often than not, our young people fall victim to,” said William “The Kid” Guerrero, 12th District candidate. At 21 years old, Guerrero is running to represent the city’s youth. He began his remarks by highlighting other young candidates, including Anthony Michael Tamez, Ashley Vargas, Saul Arellano and Jacob Arena.

“It's messed up that 15, 16, 17-year olds think it's normal for the police to smack them around. For the first time in forever we're gonna hold them accountable,” said Service Employees International Union Healthcare Illinois and Indiana (SEIU HCII) member and 2nd District candidate Coston Plummer. In 1991, detectives working under Jon Burge tortured Plummer’s brother, 15-year-old Johnny Plummer, into confessing to a crime he didn’t commit. The legal system has kept Johnny Plummer incarcerated since.

Other District Council candidates shared stories about how they, their families, and their communities have been harmed by police crimes, including Cherli Montgomery, Simeon Henderson, Jim Blissett III, Dion McGill, Anthony David Bryant, Michelle Page, Ponchita Moore, David Boykin, Julia Kline, Julio Miramontes, Meredith Hammer, Brenda Waters, Angelica Green, Josh D’Antonio, Monserrat Ayala, Krystal Peters, Elena Thompson, Cynthia McFadden, Letina Brady Pettis, and many more.

All the candidates spoke about their previous organizing work and their drive to hold the police accountable.

Many speakers also mentioned the amount of money Chicago spends on police while neglecting healthcare and other vital services. The CPD is set to receive nearly $2 billion in the 2023 budget.

“Police misconduct settlements alone are costing the city more and more every year” said 2nd District Council candidate Alexander Perez, who cited the $67 million Chicago spent on police legal costs in 2021.

Participants in the forum connected the plague of police violence and the CPD’s bloated budget to the lack of democratic control over the police. “Whatever powers that be that make the rules that affect our communities without giving us a seat at the table, we need to change that also. The community needs a seat at the table,” Coston Plummer said.

“We need to change the way our city functions and this election in February will be a referendum on that,” said Jeff Howard, executive vice president of Service Employees International Union Local 73.

“We're on the cusp of a historic moment. Not only because of the District Councils but also because we're gonna have an elected school board, so the two largest city agencies will be democratically governed,” said CTU Vice President Jackson Potter. CTU, SEIU Local 73 and SEIU HCII are among a number of unions that were crucial to the passage of the Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance in 2021. Both labor leaders who spoke at the forum pledged the support of their unions for pro-accountability candidates.

Aldermanic candidates also spoke at the forum. “This is what democracy looks like!” chanted Desmon Yancy, 5th Ward aldermanic candidate and member of the ECPS coalition.

20th Ward Alderwoman Jeanette Taylor drew from her own organizing experience to comment on the struggle ahead: “Nothing has ever come easy for us. We've had to fight for everything and this won't be no different.”

In opposition to the candidates who are running for accountability are candidates supported by the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP). The FOP has a long history of negotiating city contracts that defend the police from being held accountable, with terms such as the deletion of misconduct records after two years, which resulted in Jason Van Dyke, the officer who killed Laquan McDonald, having none of his prior crimes reflected on his record.

“On February 28 it won't be the FOP candidates who win. It's going to be true representatives of the people,” said 35th Ward Alderman Carlos Ramirez Rosa. Rosa and other speakers stressed the need for volunteers to mobilize voters in Black, brown and working-class communities in order to ensure that candidates fighting for accountability beat those supported by the FOP.

“What we heard tonight was the genuine voice of the people who want change,” said Frank Chapman as he concluded the forum by calling on everyone to get involved in canvassing for District Council candidates. Chapman pointed out that people from Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Louisiana, Florida, Washington DC and other places around the country are planning to volunteer in the District Council elections in Chicago because they recognize the importance of the elections in the struggle for community control of the police.

#ChicagoIL #PoliceBrutality #ChicagoAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression #EmpoweringCommunitiesForPublicSafetyECPS

Chicago, IL – Kenya Franklin recalls her nephew’s unjust beating by Chicago police in 2000. “It made me fear for my son’s life.”

With this experience, Franklin was petitioning at polling locations in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood on election day, November 8. She wants to get on the ballot in the upcoming municipal elections in February as a candidate for the Police District Council.

District Councils, created by the Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance and the movement to stop police crimes, are made of three elected community members in each of Chicago’s 22 police districts. These councils have the power to make decisions and create initiatives around policing and public safety in their neighborhoods and serve as another place for residents to go when they have issues with the police.

The November 8 Illinois General Elections were an essential day for potential candidates to collect signatures to make the ballot in February. In an effort to gain popular support from residents on the South and West Sides for their local district council candidates, the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression office in Woodlawn dispersed volunteers for 30 potential district council members covering polling locations in 12 police districts.

Potential candidates petitioned at polling locations across Chicago for ECPS’s first District Council election. Franklin shared her sentiments on the importance of ECPS and her decision to run for district council. “I would like the citizens to have a voice regarding misconduct and the overall relationship between law enforcement and civilians.” Many of those who showed up to the polls on the 8th were also in favor of police accountability for their neighborhood, and over 180 registered voters signed on in support of Kenya Franklin’s candidacy.

Since the passing of the ordinance by the people in July 2021, this is the second major event following the first meetings of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, also created by ECPS. The commission will bring together the efforts of the District Councils and will direct the policies and accountability structure for the Chicago Police Department. Despite public pressure, the current Interim Commission is still in a period of struggling for their agreed budget.

Moving forward, once district council members receive the required signatures, they will begin to campaign for their neighbors’ votes. The district council will act in connection to the citywide commission and residents from across all 22 districts, establishing democratically structured decision-making and public safety at a local level.

#ChicagoIL #ChicagoAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression #EmpoweringCommunitiesForPublicSafetyECPS

Chicago, IL – The November 8 midterm election is important around the country, as the seemingly formidable reactionary wave in electoral politics continues. In general, the task in most states is to defeat the most reactionary and backwards candidates.

In Illinois, we can make some gains, passing the Workers’ Rights Amendment. In Chicago, we have progressive candidates like Delia Ramirez for Congress, and Anthony Joel Quezada for 8th District Cook County Commissioner.

But the leading edge of the struggle to defend democratic rights is the movement for police accountability. In Chicago, election day is an opportunity for grassroots activists to get petitions for the municipal elections in February. There are over 100 people running for the newly created position of councilor in the 22 police districts. These district councils will be the front line for holding the Chicago Police Department accountable, to help determine who polices in Black and Latino communities, and how those communities are policed.

Each candidate needs a minimum number of signatures of voters registered in the police district where they live. Because 80% of the people running have never run for office before, many candidates for district council will be at the polling places in their community to ask for their signature to get them on the ballot.

These district councilors will nominate people to sit on a citywide Commission for Public Safety. The councilors have some powers; the commission has more, including the power to hire and fire the head of the body that investigates the thousands of complaints received every year against cops. It will also have the power to rewrite the police rule book, to eliminate foot chases, eliminate raids of homes where doors are kicked in, and end stop-and-frisk and other racist practices.

Frank Chapman, field organizer for the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, says about this election day, “Here is an unprecedented opportunity for us to strike a blow for democracy by doing all that we can do to get people on the ballot.”

Former Black Panther Lovie Bernard runs for District Council

In the 4th Police District on the far South Side of Chicago, Lovie Bernard is circulating petitions. Lovie was prompted to run by Alderman Greg Mitchell, one of the members of the Black Caucus of the City Council, which was key to the passage of the legislation Empowering Communities for Public Safety that brought about the district council elections. Alderman Mitchell suggested her to run because she has been an organizer in his election campaigns for many years.

The borders of the 4th District are 75th Street on the north; Lake Michigan on the east; and it includes Ford Motors’ Chicago Assembly, their oldest continuously operated Ford plant in the country.

As a teen, Lovie joined the Black Panther Party (BPP) in Chicago. She lived on the West Side at that time, just a few blocks from the Panther Party office. She attended meetings and rallies with Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois party. She remembers being in the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany on the Near West Side at Ashland and Adams where the Panthers would hold rallies, and remembers the Young Lords being there as well.

She remembers the night that the Chicago police killed Fred Hampton in a 4 a.m. raid. She went to his apartment that morning when Defense Minister Bobby Rush and the other Panthers opened it up so the community could see that Fred and Panther member Mark Clark had been assassinated. She also remembers attending the funeral.

Her family moved back to the South Side after Fred was killed.

If you search “Lovie Bernard Black Panther Party Chicago,” you’ll see a Getty Images photo of her. The caption reads: “At the opening of the Black Panther Party's Spurgeon Jake Winters Free People's Medical Center (at 3850 West 16th Street), the clinic's first patient, Lovie Bernard (left), is examined by nurse Florence Watson, Chicago, Illinois, January 4, 1970.”

The clinic was named for Panther Jake Winters, a Panther who was killed in a shootout with the Chicago police a few weeks before Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were assassinated.

Community control of the police

Black Panther Party chairman Bobby Seale coined the term community control of the police to describe the aim of the Panthers in their campaign to police the police. After the laws in California changed and didn’t allow armed patrols, the Panthers changed tactics. The party in Chicago developed a campaign in the 1970s to get community control of the Chicago Police Department through a petition drive to have it as a binding referendum.

When asked why she is running to hold the police accountable, Lovie Bernard shared an incident that came to mind. She was in the car with Alderman Mitchell, and a police car rolled up on her and the alderman. The cops started to give the alderman the business. Mitchell informed them, “I am the alderman of this ward.” The cops stopped harassing him, and apologized for their treatment of him, but Lovie said to them, “How you gonna harass the alderman?”

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #ChicagoAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression #CommunityControlOfThePolice #EmpoweringCommunitiesForPublicSafetyECPS

Chicago, IL – The first meeting of the Interim Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA) took place on the evening of Thursday September 29 at Malcolm X College. The meeting was attended by almost 200 people, most of who were members or supporters of the Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) coalition. The CCPSA introduced itself to the community, set up committees to do its work, and elected Anthony Driver and Oswaldo Gomez as its president and vice president. The public comments were filled with support for the CCPSA and demands that the mayor and city council give the Interim Commission the staff and budget necessary to transform the city’s public safety system.

“This commission has a lot of work ahead of it,” said newly elected CCPSA president Anthony Driver, “and we plan to be accountable to the community in all that we do.” According to the ECPS legislation passed on July 21, 2021, the Interim CCPSA should have been appointed in January of 2022 and active in February. Due to obstruction of the movement for police accountability by Mayor Lori Lightfoot and some alderpersons, the commission was appointed at the end of August. It now has to review the proposed 2023 Chicago Police Department budget of $1.9 billion, investigate CPD policies, enact alternatives to policing, and increase outreach for the district council elections in February 2023.

“Chicago residents expect and know that you will be agents of change,” said Jackie Baldwin, a member of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs and member of the ECPS Coalition, during the public comments section of the meeting. Other speakers raised the same expectations of the CCPSA and promised to be involved as community members in ensuring that the police are truly held accountable.

“You can’t have change without the community being involved,” said Coston Plummer, SEIU Local 73 member, brother of incarcerated survivor of police torture Johnnie Plummer, and 2nd District Council candidate. “It’s about time the community has a voice. This is the first time in a long time we’re gonna have some change so everybody should get on board.”

“We know there are serious forces opposed to your work who want to maintain the status quo,” said Michael Harrington, member of Network49 and the ECPS Coalition. Harrington and other speakers demanded that the city provide the funds and staff necessary for adequate outreach regarding the district council elections.

“As someone who’s been hitting the pavements in Back of the Yards, Pilsen and Lawndale, not a lot of people in my neighborhood know about ECPS,” said Rosemarie Dominguez, a 10th District Council candidate. Dominguez challenged the CCPSA to reach out to all of Chicago’s communities, particularly by translating its literature into Spanish and by doing direct outreach. Commission President Driver responded with a commitment to provide Spanish translations of all printed materials from the commission going forward.

Other district council candidates spoke in the public comments, including Josh D’Antonio and Cassandra Guice, who both expressed ways that the CCPSA could enact restorative conflict resolution policies.

“We crossed rivers of blood to get this ordinance passed,” said Frank Chapman, executive director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and field organizer of the Chicago chapter. “We didn’t do all this work to have a lame duck commission, so we are demanding the mayor and city council to get off their rusty dusties and give the commission the staff and the budget it needs to do its work.

#ChicagoIL #EmpoweringCommunitiesForPublicSafetyECPS #ChicagoAlliance

Chicago, IL – The Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) Coalition held a press conference on Tuesday morning, August 30, in response to Mayor Lightfoot's Monday appointment of the citywide Interim Commission for Public Safety. According to the ECPS ordinance, the commission should have been appointed in January. The coalition held a press conference on July 20 demanding that the mayor end the delays and appoint the Interim Commission. With the appointments made, the coalition set its eyes towards the local District Council elections coming up in February 2023.

“This ordinance is a step towards giving the people the democratic right to decide who policies their communities and how their communities are policed,” said Frank Chapman, field organizer of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR) and executive director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR).

The commission's powers include the ability to set policies and goals for the Chicago Police Department and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability; the mandate to give votes of no confidence to the superintendent, and input into the CPD budget. The seven newly appointed commissioners are Anthony Driver, Oswaldo Gomez, Rev. Dr. Beth Brown, Yvette Loizon, Cliff Nellis, Remel Terry and Isaac Troncoso.

“Four of the seven commissioners were involved in the work to bring about police oversight,” said Alderman Carlos Ramirez Rosa, a longtime advocate of community control of the police. Notably absent from the commission is former alderman and Vrdolyak 29 member Patrick O Connor, whose nomination to the commission was denounced by the ECPS Coalition.

The Interim Commission will be in place until the end of 2023, when it will be replaced by a permanent commission nominated by the local District Councils. Petitioning to get on the ballot for District Council elections in February 2023 started on Tuesday and the petitioning window is open until November 30. There are three council positions in each of the city's 22 police districts, and candidates will need at least 0.5% of the registered voters in their district to sign their petition in order to get on the ballot.

“District Council members will serve four-year terms and take on key roles to implementing this ordinance. They will be the eyes and ears of the community,” explained Jackie Baldwin, a leader in the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs. Baldwin continued, “this is the time that we need people to step up and run for one of these 66 positions, make sure you are registered, and most importantly, be prepared to vote in February.”

“On April 11, 2016, my 16-year-young nephew, Pierre Loury, was shot and killed by the Chicago Police Department, and on April 12, 2016, I became active as an organizer and freedom fighter because I wanted and needed change,” said Arewa Karen Winters, founder of the 411 Movement for Pierre Loury and former cochair of the police use of force working group, before she announced her candidacy for council member of the 15th District in the Austin neighborhood.

Winters is one of many candidates who have been directly impacted by police violence, and the ECPS Coalition has already started helping these candidates with education, training and support in the petitioning process. While the coalition is not endorsing any particular candidates, it is assisting candidates who are committed to fighting for community control of the police. Winters went on to say, “The District Council positions will afford us the chance to not only speak truth to power, but power to power.”

#ChicagoIL #ChicagoAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression #EmpoweringCommunitiesForPublicSafetyECPS

Chicago, IL – The Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) Coalition held a press conference on July 20, to demand that Mayor Lori Lightfoot appoint the Interim Commission for Public Safety and Accountability immediately. According to the ECPS ordinance passed on July 21 last year, the Interim Commission should have been appointed in December.

“The ECPS ordinance passed one year ago this month,” said Alderman Carlos Ramirez Rosa, “and the people of Chicago still do not have a meaningful voice in the policing that impacts them.”

“We have received many promises from the mayor. Her office said the commission would be appointed in December, then they said January, then February, then they said definitely in April, and now it’s July,” said Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR) Field Organizer Frank Chapman, “We’re tired of the promises, and we demand that she appoint the commissioners now!” The most recent promise, that the commission would be appointed at the beginning of August, came from a meeting between the mayor’s office and the ECPS coalition on the July 15.

ECPS Coalition members say the people of Chicago should not have had to wait this long, and any further delays are unacceptable. “Mayor, we need you to get this done now!” declared Armanda Shackelford, mother of CPD torture survivor Gerald Reed. “If we had community control of the police 30 years ago, my son never would have been convicted.”

“How many people have been brutalized and terrorized while we’re waiting?” asked Amika “Tree” Tendaji, a leader of Black Lives Matter Chicago. “I am determined that my children will not live in fear of police brutality.”

The coalition made no recommendations for who should be on the commission, but they did urge the mayor not to pick one of the nominees. “Appointing Patrick O’Connor would undermine the integrity of the commission,” said LaCreshia Birts, coordinator of the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability (GAPA). O’Connor is a former Chicago Alderman with Daley family connections who famously caucused with reactionary white politicians to obstruct decisions made by the city’s first Black mayor, Harold Washington. O’Connor’s aldermanic tenure was marred by corruption scandals and opposition to police reform until he was unseated by progressive challenger Andre Vasquez in 2019.

“We need people on the commission and the local district councils who are interested in holding the police accountable,” said Kobi Guillory, co-chair of CAARPR. The coalition pledged to keep putting pressure on Mayor Lightfoot until she appoints the Interim Commission. Guillory added, “ECPS is the people’s ordinance. It was the people who got it passed, and it will be the people who get it enacted.”

#ChicagoIL #PoliceBrutality #EmpoweringCommunitiesForPublicSafetyECPS

Chicago, IL – The Chicago movement against racist policing made history July 21 with the passage of the most progressive police accountability legislation in the country. The ordinance, named Empowering Communities for Public Safety (EPCS), was passed by the Chicago City Council on a 36-13 vote.

ECPS had the support of the Socialist, Progressive Reform, Black, Latino, and Socialist Caucuses. Even Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who had repeatedly tried to stop the ordinance, came to support it in the end.

A press conference was held outside City Hall after the city council meeting adjourned, attended by eight alderpersons, as well as leaders of the coalition of community organizations and labor unions.

Anthony Driver, political staff of SEIU Healthcare Illinois/Indiana (HCII) said that, for the residents of the community, including the 90,000 members of HCII, “This will take Chicago from worst to best in the country when it comes to police accountability,” adding, “Eleven Black labor leaders came together to urge the Black Caucus to support ECPS.”

Driver shared, “Ten years ago, Officer Marco Proano killed a close friend of mine. The city council approved a settlement in his murder, but he was never held accountable. In fact, he was given a commendation by Police Superintendent Jody Weis two years later. Years later, that same officer fired into a car with Black teenagers, and he finally lost his job. During that whole process, I felt that I had no voice. Today, the Black and brown communities will have a voice, and our members will have a decisive voice in public safety.”

ECPS will result in elections for councils in police districts that will bring communities together to decide who polices in their neighborhoods and how they are to be policed. The next step for the coalition is to pass a sister ordinance which will present to voters in a binding referendum the choice to have direct elections of a commission which will have the power to hire and fired the superintendent of the police, among other powers.

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #ChicagoAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression #EmpoweringCommunitiesForPublicSafetyECPS

Fight Back News Service is circulating this July 21 statement from the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.

The Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression celebrates the passage in City Council today of the historic Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance, which will give communities in Chicago more power over their police department than any city in the United States has ever seen. We salute and cherish this people’s victory and the truly mass movement that created this moment, through constant grassroots pressure and the unrelenting, iron will to fight for power for the oppressed – which is the first footfall on the path to justice. We extend the warm embrace of gratitude to all our allies in this struggle, who have never faltered at our side, and with whom we share this great day.

In a history-defining moment, ECPS was passed in City Council by a vote of 36-13 after a years-long and sometimes bitter struggle. Early this year, our campaign for an elected Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC) formed a united front with the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability (GAPA) out of the tactical imperative to defeat Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who has done nothing since taking office but stall and obstruct police reform and the people’s demand for justice and freedom from police abuse and tyranny. Left unchecked, Lightfoot would have set back the movement to end police crimes by years if not decades. We salute our coalition allies from GAPA for their steadfastness and solidarity in this struggle against the Mayor and their commitment to putting Chicago on the path to justice through community control of the police.

Today’s victory proves the correctness of our decision to form this united front, which has seen our alliance and our coalition swell to include over 100 organizations, 18 labor unions comprising nearly 200,000 members, some 26 houses of worship across the city – and today 36 aldermen who supported the fundamental right of communities to decide who polices us and how are communities are policed.

Speaking at a People’s Celebration outside City Hall immediately following today’s historic vote, Frank Chapman, Field Organizer for the Chicago Alliance and a long-time leader in the CPAC and ECPS campaigns said, “This is the only kind of coalition that could have won this fight. Now, we in the communities that have been abused and occupied by the police, now we have a voice in saying how we are policed and we’re going to keep that voice.”

In the final version voted on today, ECPS will create a Community Commission, nominated by elected residents, who will have the power to make and approve police department, police board, and police investigation policy in addition to the power to appoint the head of the police misconduct investigation agency (colloquially known as COPA) and to initiate the firing of the police superintendent. Because of the strength and breadth of our movement, Mayor Lightfoot was forced to come to the negotiating table and create a version of ECPS with our coalition that kept all of our fundamental priorities including that policymaking, and the appointment of the COPA chief, be in the hands of the community commission and with the people.

Jazmine Salas, co-chair of the Chicago Alliance said, “This victory belongs to the people of Chicago, who fought and struggled and bled for this. And it belongs to the victims of police murder and violence who we continue to fight for every day.”

While we celebrate today in the glow of victory, we are clear-eyed about the tasks that lay ahead. Those include passing the accompaniment bill to ECPS, an ordinance calling for a citywide referendum to allow the voters of Chicago to decide if they want to directly elect the members of the Community Commission established by ECPS and expand its powers to grant full community control of the police as originally envisioned by CPAC. And it includes campaigning and organizing to ensure that voters support their right to community control and turn out in decisive numbers to approve the referendum.

These are our tasks in the days and months ahead. As a movement, we are compelled to act by the people’s unrelenting demands for justice and we will not stop until we win the power the people deserve.

Victory to the courageous! All power to the people.

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #ChicagoAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression #EmpoweringCommunitiesForPublicSafetyECPS

Chicago, IL – On June 23, over 150 people from the movement to stop police crimes and end police impunity rallied outside of Chicago City Hall before the city council meeting. “This should have been a meeting where ECPS would be voted on, where we are turning the people’s ordinance into the law of this city,” Kobi Guillory, co-chair of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR) explained, “but what happened on Friday is that certain alderpersons, acting at the behest of the mayor of this city, blocked our substitute ordinance from being put in, which stopped it from being voted on.”

ECPS stands for Empowering Communities for Public Safety, an ordinance that gives the people of Chicago a decisive say in what policing and public safety look like. At the Committee on Public Safety meeting on Friday, June 18, Alderman Chris Taliaferro, committee chair, together with reactionary members of the committee, and assisted by several white alderpeople representing North Side wards, used a series of parliamentary maneuvers to obstruct the introduction of a substitute ECPS ordinance. The substitute ordinance has enough support to pass through the committee to the full council.

Alderman Sposato, donning a “Defend the Police'' shirt, with a “God Bless America” background, was able, with the help of Taliaferro, and the support of his backwards colleagues, to move for the substitute ordinance to be tabled. This was met with disagreement by several alderpeople present in the meeting, but Taliaferro stood by his decision, and went so far as to compare constituents putting up posters on their alderperson’s office to white supremacists who participated in the D.C. Capitol riots.

“We all know in Chicago that the Public Safety committee is the most conservative committee in the city. It is done that way by design so things that bring justice don’t move forward,” said Alderman Andre Vasquez, one of several aldermanic supporters who spoke at Wednesday’s rally.

The pro-ECPS coalition made the tactical decision prior to the vote in this backwards committee to divide ECPS into two ordinances. The second ordinance would include the referendum which creates a more achievable pathway for full community control of the Chicago Police Department, and the ECPS coalition, including the aldermanic allies, are united in support of this approach. That ordinance would go separately through the Rules committee.

Lightfoot and her allies are on the defensive, pulling illegal and undemocratic maneuvers in attempts to thwart the people’s will. As Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa said, this “sleight of hand came from the mayor’s office and a few of her white allies on the Public Safety committee because they know that ECPS has got the votes. ECPS has got the votes because people came together and demanded justice. ECPS has got the votes because the Black Caucus, the Latino Caucus, the Progressive Caucus, came together with 100-plus community organizations. This is a movement, and this movement will not stop until the people have community control of police, and we have justice, until we stop killer cops.”

Alderwoman Maria Hadden added, “We have people in city council who are so accustomed to passing on decisions, to letting other people think for them, to letting other people make decisions for them, to deferring to the mayor. They’re not listening to us. It’s almost as if they don’t know how to work in a functional democracy. I know that we are going to win.”

Elijah Gerald Reed, a survivor of Chicago Police Department torture, who was wrongfully locked up for 31 years, joined in the rally, along with his mother, Armanda Shackelford. He got to the heart of the matter, saying, “I wonder what I could have done 31 years ago. I could’ve been an alderman. I could’ve been a governor. I went to school. They took me from school and kidnapped me from my mama. It shouldn’t happen to no one else’s kids.”

Armanda Shackelford addressed Lori Lightfoot directly, saying, “Mayor Lightfoot, get up off your foot, and do your job. Too many men and women are still incarcerated that shouldn’t be there. And that’s what we’re fighting for. We’re fighting for their deliverance, and we need it now. Really, it shouldn’t have been allowed to go on in the city of Chicago, and this is a disgrace. Do the thing that’s right for once in your life, because you are so sorry. You are a sorry excuse for a human being, and to call yourself a mayor. A mayor to who, yourself? Because you’re not a mayor for us.”

Muhammad Sankari of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, said, “We’ve been told so many lies by the mayor’s office. The biggest lie we were told was that Mayor Lightfoot’s campaign was a direct descendant of our leader and our fighter Harold Washington. Our coalition is the inheritor of Harold Washington’s legacy! And [North Side alderpersons] Silverstein and Tunney, and the mayor’s office are nothing but a reincarnation of Vrdolyak.”

Edward Vrdolyak was the most openly racist of the white aldermen in the Chicago Democratic Party that blocked the agenda of Mayor Harold Washington when he was first elected in 1983.

Eric A. Russell of the Tree of Life Justice League laid out, “We are here because there is a hunt. There is a hunt, and those of us who have been kissed by the sun, the Chicago police have put targets on our back. The police no longer serve and protect Black and brown people in Chicago. They pursue and execute us.”

In closing the program, Frank Chapman, Field Organizer for CAARPR stated,, “So, how’s this gonna stop? It’s not gonna stop until we stop it. Ain’t nobody gonna free us but us. So, if you’re waiting on someone else to come and do it, stop waiting. Now is the time for us to begin that freedom, by us having control over who polices our communities and how our communities are policed. That’s the first step towards defunding the police. That’s the first step towards abolishing the police. That’s the first step towards abolishing this whole damn system that keeps us in bondage.”

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #ChicagoAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression #EmpoweringCommunitiesForPublicSafetyECPS

Chicago, IL – On May 24, two years after taking office, Mayor Lori Lightfoot introduced her legislation for civilian oversight of the Chicago Police Department (CPD). Ironically, her bill was written without input from the community.

Under the name, “Community Commission for Public Safety,” the civilians in Lightfoot’s bill are appointed by her. In short, it keeps all the power over the police in her hands.

Ted Pearson, longtime activist against police crimes with the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR), describes her bill as “leaving the people with nothing but a guarantee that nothing will change. It will erect a new layer of toothless bureaucracy over the already ineffective ‘oversight’ of the Chicago Police Department and call it progress.”

With this Lightfoot guarantees the police will not be held accountable. The reason for police terror in Black and Latino communities is to enforce the system of racist national oppression that denies them full equality. In the words of Frank Chapman, Field Organizer for CAARPR, the only way to end the deadly system of police crimes is for the oppressed Black and Latino communities to assert, “our democratic right to determine who polices our communities and how they are policed.”

Lightfoot’s record of police impunity

There can be no hope for change in how the police treat the Black and Latino communities as Lightfoot has shown she won’t hold police accountable for their crimes.

She ran for mayor on her reputation as a police reformer after leading the investigation in 2016 of CPD following the murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by Officer Jason Van Dyke in 2014. The horrific video of Van Dyke shooting the Black teen 16 times was covered up by Mayor Rahm Emanuel for over a year. Emanuel feared that the video would have cost him his reelection. He was right. When the protest movement finally forced the release of the video, Rahm’s career was over. He denied it until months before the 2019 elections but dropped out of running for a third term just days before the trial of Van Dyke took off.

In the 2016 report issued from Lightfoot’s investigation, she called for a body of community representatives to be over the police, “to honor the principles established by CPAC,” referring to the campaign led by CAARPR for an elected Civilian Police Accountability Council.

The principle behind CPAC is community control of the police. This is a fundamental break from the failures over a generation of civilian oversight bodies to have any impact on racist policing.

In her campaign for mayor, she said this body would be among her top priorities and would be implemented within 90 days of taking office. Lightfoot broke her pledge when she took office in 2019. Then a year later, when the rebellion broke out after the murder of George Floyd, and 20,000 people marched and caravanned into the Loop, Lightfoot unleashed the cops to brutalize protesters.

At the end of 2020, Lightfoot was exposed for covering up a 2019 racist police raid of the home of Anjanette Young, a Black social worker. When 15 cops kicked in Young’s door, they found her getting out of the shower, and handcuffed her, leaving her naked in the middle of the room while they searched the apartment. She was in that position for over 13 minutes while she repeatedly told them they had the wrong house.

In February of this year, the city revealed that Lightfoot gave $280 million of the federal pandemic relief funds to the Chicago Police Department. This is on top of the $1.7 billion in CPD’s annual budget, 40% of Chicago’s entire budget.

Then in April, the police murder of 13-year-old Adam Toledo highlighted that unlike most other major police forces in the U.S., Chicago has no policy limiting the use of foot chases. Shot in the chest after a foot chase, Toledo was complying with the order to raise his hands. 30% of all foot chases end with cops using force against a suspect.

Lightfoot’s failures to stop racist policing became undeniable.

Showdown in battle for community control of police

Early in 2021, Lightfoot betrayed the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability (GAPA), with whom she had partnered on a bill that was seen as a watered down version of CPAC. After repeated attempts to get GAPA to weaken their bill to the point where it would have zero ability to hold the police accountable, GAPA saw the writing on the wall: the mayor was not interested in a democratic approach to police accountability. They approached CAARPR about negotiating a joint ordinance, which became Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS). The joint ordinance was introduced in the Public Safety Committee of the City Council on Friday, May 21.

When the alderpersons who had supported GAPA decided to unite forces with the mass movement against the crimes of the Chicago Police Department, it resulted in an ordinance that will place decisive power over CPD policy in the hands of the community through a commission chosen in an election process. 60% of Chicago is Black and Latino.

The commission established by ECPS would get to rewrite the police rule book, including the policies on use of force. It would also hire and fire the head of the agency that investigates police crimes. Finally, ECPS contains a referendum to give Chicagoans the choice for the direct election of the commission, and the power to hire and fire the superintendent of police.

Lightfoot is facing a defeat in the city council as a majority of alderpersons are supporting ECPS.

Major caucuses in Chicago city council unite for ECPS

CAARPR and GAPA began talks in January along with the chief sponsors of the two bills, Alderpersons Carlos Ramirez-Rosa and Leslie Hairston for CPAC, and Roderick Sawyer and Harry Osterman for GAPA. The negotiations took on a greater urgency in February when Lightfoot cancelled a planned meeting of the Public Safety Committee to stymie the progress being made between the two organizations. Roderick Sawyer received a call during the meeting, and when he announced Lightfoot’s interference, he said, “This is war.”

On February 19, the two groups issued a joint statement. CAARPR’s Frank Chapman said, “The mayor is interfering because she does not want to see any change that would diminish her power, and what we are doing is putting the power in the hands of the people because that is where the power belongs.”

In March, the two groups united on the language of the bill, and then went to work to get the majority of the city council to support the bill. The city council Socialist Caucus had been with CPAC since 2015; the Progressive Reform Caucus was at the negotiating table with GAPA and CPAC. The Latino Caucus came to support ECPS shortly after.

Then with the help of a united group of 11 Black labor leaders (from SEIU Health Care Illinois/Indiana, SEIU Local 73, CTU, Transit Workers Union Locals 241 and 308, American Postal Workers Union, and the National Alliance of Letter Carriers, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, and the A. Phillip Randolph Institute), the Black Caucus joined the movement.

Class struggle behind the scenes

With the caucuses closing ranks, ECPS now has the support of a majority of the city council. This sets up a major confrontation between Lightfoot and the council, and the prospect of a veto by the mayor. Mayoral vetoes are rare in Chicago. The last one was 15 years ago. The alderpersons who played a leadership role in the negotiations, Carlos Ramirez Rosa and Roderick Sawyer, believe that they will gather enough council votes to override a veto by Lightfoot.

Looking at a deeper level, the level of conflict between Lightfoot and the city council is revealing the underlying material interests the different forces represent. Like most big city mayors, Lightfoot represents the major capitalist powers in Chicago: LaSalle Street banks, the Commodity Exchange, and investment firms; and the big real estate developers. Black and Latino alderpersons represent the petty bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie of the Black, Chicano/Mexicano and Puerto Rican nationalities – the small capitalists and professionals that are the dominant classes within those communities.

Lightfoot is a Black, queer woman, and gets racist treatment from the media. Also, she is attacked by the Fraternal Order of the Police and other racists, just as Barack Obama experienced in his two terms in the White House. But when the Black Lives Matter movement began the chant, “Who do you protect, who do you serve?” against CPD, everyone in this movement knew the answer. The police are there to defend the interests of the white ruling class. And the mayor provides cover for the cops.

The wards in the oppressed communities have been hit the hardest by COVID-19 and the economic crisis. On top of that, these areas – particularly Black neighborhoods – suffer the most from police occupation. All classes in the hood and the barrio are oppressed, including the professionals and small businesspeople from among whose ranks most alderpersons arise.

The constituents of the Black Caucus are crying out for relief from the pandemic, from the economic crisis and from police terror. And they want community control of the police, to determine who polices their communities and how they are policed. That’s why the Black Caucus broke with Lightfoot.

Showdown in city council between progress and ‘business as usual’

On Friday, May 21, the city council’s Public Safety Committee held its long delayed meeting to consider police accountability legislation. Lightfoot attempted to block the GAPA/CPAC ordinance being submitted as a substitute ordinance for the previous GAPA language. But on the 21st, Committee Chair Alderperson Chris Taliaferro announced that ECPS will be voted on in the June meeting. After Lightfoot’s bill was introduced, he announced her bill would be voted on as well.

Chicago is one of the cities with the worst problems of racist policing in the country. It is the only city to have apologized and paid reparations to victims of police torture. Kim Foxx, the current states attorney, has called Chicago “the wrongful conviction capital of the U.S.”

Now Chicago is poised to leap to having the strongest and most democratic police accountability system in the country. The decision is in the hands of the city council: will they stay united with the movement in the streets?

#ChicagoIl #ChicagoIL #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #ChicagoAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression #EmpoweringCommunitiesForPublicSafetyECPS

Chicago, IL – 300 protesters showed up for the first in-person city council meeting in a year, April 21, to demand passage of an ordinance called Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS). Coming out of nine years of efforts by over 100 community organizations, labor unions, churches and other faith-based groups, the ordinance is a merger of two bills: CPAC (Civilian Police Accountability Council, proposed by the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression), and one proposed by GAPA (the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability). ECPS combines elements of the CPAC and GAPA bills to create the most democratic police accountability system in the country.

According to a statement from the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, “ECPS will give communities a decisive role in shaping public safety in their neighborhoods and determining the authority they have over the CPD and create a pathway for community control of the police.”

The two coalitions came together after Mayor Lori Lightfoot covered up the racist police raid of the home of Anjanette Young in 2019. The video of Young being forced to stand naked in her home, handcuffed, for 13 minutes while white police officers searched her home for a felon who lived next door, was released to the public in December. Lightfoot denied knowledge of the raid or and tape, and then later admitted she had tried to keep the tape from being released.

Danny Glover traveled to Chicago for the rally

Actor Danny Glover joined the protest after catching the redeye flight from California. Shivering in the snow, he said to the youthful crowd, “Your faces, your voices, your feet, your marching, your organizing is essential right now.”

Gus Newport, mayor of Berkeley, California in the 1980s, who at the time enacted legislation for community control of the police that had been originally drafted by the Black Panther Party, travelled with Glover. He said, “This ordinance you all have put forth is the greatest thing I’ve seen post the Civil Rights movement.”

Protesters also celebrated the conviction of Derek Chauvin, who murdered George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020, and also demanded justice for 13-year-old Adam Toledo, murdered by the Chicago Police Department on March 29. Police video released weeks after the murder showed the child had his hands in the air when the cop shot him.

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #CommunityControlOfThePolice #EmpoweringCommunitiesForPublicSafetyECPS