Chicago is undergoing significant political and leadership changes. The city will soon have a new mayor and there is an ongoing search for the Chicago Police Department’s next superintendent. Those who hold these two offices will set the tone and agenda for law enforcement.
Among their many public safety priorities should be one that seems not to have been shared by prior leadership: Ensuring that the ranks of the police department are free of officers connected to far-right groups that have ties to known white supremacist groups.
In January 2022, the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law sent a letter to city officials and then-Supt. David Brown sharing our deep concerns regarding CPD’s employment of Officer Robert Bakker, who fraternized with the Proud Boys, which has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and whose members often espouse white supremacist rhetoric. Bakker was initially issued a five-day suspension that was lengthened to 120 days after an internal investigation revealed he had lied about his contact with the Proud Boys.
However, Bakker, with his links to the Proud Boys and credibility issues now clearly established, returned to active CPD duty on March 8, 2023.
Bakker is not the only Chicago police officer with ties to white supremacist ideology. For example, CPD also continues to employ an officer connected to the Oath Keepers and another who wore a Three Percenters mask at a racial justice protest in 2020. Both anti-government militia groups, like the Proud Boys, have ties to white supremacy and are most known for their role in planning and executing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
CPD’s pattern of employing officers with known ties to white supremacist and far right organizations undermines its purported efforts to improve public trust, particularly between the department and communities of color. The department’s history of racism and discrimination continue to be felt most directly by Black and Brown communities, from the enduring impact of the 1969 murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, the legacy of Cmdr. Jon Burge in the 1980s and early 1990s, to 21st century race-based disparities in stops and use of force.
The decision, amidst this fraught legacy of racism and present-day police brutality, to continue to employ officers aligned with hate groups will perpetuate the distrust that Black and Brown communities have in their police.
The retention of Bakker and the other officers is not just a troubling local issue. It’s also emblematic of a national issue: the deeply entrenched nature of white supremacy in policing, which poses an extreme risk to historically marginalized communities. Moreover, as revealed by the ongoing trials of defendants involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection, police officers with white supremacist ties threaten our very democracy itself.
The police department has the tools to remove officers like Bakker, but has failed to use them. CPD’s “Standards of Conduct” prohibit officers from taking “[a]ny action or conduct which impedes the Department’s efforts to achieve its policy and goals or brings discredit upon the Department.” Likewise, the standards require officers to: “at all times conduct [themselves] in a manner which does not bring discredit to himself, the Department, or the city”; “eliminate any attitudes which might impair his effectiveness and impartiality”; and have the “moral courage and emotional stability” to “fairly and impartially deal with human beings.”
Bakker has clearly violated the Standards of Conduct, yet the police department has nevertheless failed to remove him.
Chicagoans, members of the City Council’s public safety committee, and local and national civil rights organizations have publicly shared their outrage with CPD’s decision to continue employing officers known to be connected to white supremacy. The onus is now on CPD to enforce its own standards and remove these officers. Until it does so, CPD will not earn the trust of the community it serves.
This failure to act calls into question CPD’s commitment to public safety and to protecting and serving all communities, especially communities of color. New leadership must change course. It’s a low bar to meet.
David M. Shapiro is the executive director of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. He has represented numerous victims of police brutality and family members of citizens killed by police.
Damon T. Hewitt is president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. He has more than 20 years of civil rights litigation and policy experience.
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