While Chicago police and elected leaders debated what to do with cops who joined extremist and hate groups, we launched a monthslong investigation to answer another important question: How were these officers actually performing in the line of duty?
The Oath Keepers, Three Percenters and Proud Boys have gained notoriety across the country in these turbulent times, with many in law enforcement drawn toward those groups.
We wanted to find out what records these officers are leaving. And we wanted to hear from civilians about their own experiences with these sworn law-enforcement officers on the streets of Chicago and in other parts of Illinois.
Although the Chicago Police Department has a long history of whitewashing wrongdoing, there are reams of documents detailing misconduct complaints against cops and the internal investigations into those accusations.
So we filed more than 200 Freedom of Information Act requests, seeking personnel records for nearly 30 current and former Chicago cops with extremist ties, plus another dozen officers from other Illinois police departments who also had signed up for the Oath Keepers. That national anti-government group played a central, illegal role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — and had seen its 38,000-strong membership list leaked a few months after that infamous day in Washington.
Sure enough, there were plenty of complaints from members of the public, and even other colleagues on the police department, against the officers with extremist ties. One now-retired Black officer complained that a cop with extremist ties often made the sort of racist comments you’d expect to hear at a Ku Klux Klan rally.
But it’s one thing to sift through those records — and another far more powerful testament to hear straight from the people who alleged they were at the receiving end of serious misconduct by these cops.
There was a big hurdle to hearing those stories. The police department and other departments will not release the names of whistleblowers who file accusations against cops. Officials say an exemption in the state’s open-records law to address privacy concerns allows them to redact that information from the documents they release to us.
Still, there are those who file lawsuits against cops and law enforcement agencies, exposing their names in public court files. And in some situations that proved especially moving, we were able to figure out the identities of the complainants through other means.
One such case involved Deborah Payne, a community activist from the South Side who still tears up when she remembers her email exchange with Chicago Police Sgt. Michael Nowacki shortly before Christmas in 2007.
We saw Nowacki on the Oath Keepers membership list and got his personnel files. One misconduct complaint jumped out from the pile. In it, a woman said Nowacki was among the people she had sent an blast email asking for clothes and other charitable contributions for homeless moms and their kids in Englewood.
Nowacki replied that the sender of the request was a “goof.” And he followed up by telling her she apparently confused him with someone who actually cared about people in the inner city — where he was assigned and paid to patrol at that time.
Payne’s name was concealed from the copy of the case file the police department gave us. But Nowacki was not the only person who was sent that blast email from Payne. Other recipients included the office of a City Council member.
We filed a separate open-records request with the city’s IT department for the email that went to the City Council. This time, we struck pay dirt. There was no black mark over Deborah Payne’s name and email address.
Better yet, we were lucky enough that Payne welcomed us into her home and allowed us to record as she recounted the bitter incident with Sgt. Nowacki (who got a three-day suspension and would not return our calls).
A big part of our job involves going through documents, scouring “the receipts” that allow us to hold public servants accountable.
But the most powerful reporting comes when we also can simply listen to people like you. It’s an honor to relay the stories of those directly affected by the topics we’re investigating.
