Speaker 1: It doesn't matter which end of the political spectrum you're on or which side you fall in the generational divide. Because one thing that we can all agree on is that we lack transparency, transparency in our government and how our money is spent and how decisions are made. And that's where the watchdogs come in. In chicago, the top watchdog, the city inspector general, the office is tasked with investigating corruption at all levels of local government. And the IG just released a new report that exposed serious misconduct from city employees and joining us now in studio is chicago Inspector General Deborah Whits. Welcome back to Reset. Great to meet you.

Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. As

Speaker 1: I mentioned the latest report, it details actually several cases of misconduct among city workers. What were your biggest takeaways?

Speaker 2: We have focused our efforts on investigating the kind of serious misconduct in city government that undermines public trust. The City of Chicago operates at a tremendous deficit of legitimacy with its residents. And so we focus our efforts on holding bad actors accountable when they break the rules in those cases where the bad actions, the rule breaking contributes to that deficit of legitimacy, undermines public trust in the government.

Speaker 1: Yeah, there are several cases of police cover ups issues where alleged misconduct it was kind of brushed away or just not reported correctly. One involved a lieutenant that didn't sufficiently investigate a sergeant who was accused of sexually assaulting a member of the public. Can you talk more about that?

Speaker 2: That's right. So I should say when we report out on our misconduct investigations, these are confidential by ordinance. And so as, as set out in the law, we issue these deidentified summaries. So I just to say we don't name anyone involved in these investigations. Um The one that you mentioned was one in which a member of the chicago Police Department assigned to the Bureau of Internal Affairs was tasked with investigating another member of the Bureau of Internal Affairs for accusations of sexual misconduct. And we found that that investigation was mishandled and furthermore the subject of the investigation, the person who would mishandle that investigation lied to oig about it while we were doing our work. That cannot be, we cannot be in a place where the police department cannot meaningfully competently investigate its own and lying to oig means you don't get to be a city employee. You don't get to be a Chicago police officer anymore.

Speaker 1: You talked a moment ago about holding bad actors accountable how much of this is bad actors and how much of it is a systemic issue

Speaker 2: it is both of those things I think particularly in the police department, we think about this a lot. Um Institutional culture is a very powerful thing and I often say, and truly believe about policing that. The problem with the Chicago Police Department is not that it's a good system with a few bad people in it. It's a bad system with a lot of really good people in it. We have to be doing two things at one time here. We've got to walk and chew gum. When it comes to reform, we have to both address the deep fundamental systemic structural problems and we have to appropriately discipline bad actors. We have to be doing both of those things. CPD

Speaker 1: of course, does have a rule against making false reports and disciplinary action is usually dismissal or at least it's supposed to be a report that you issued last year found more than 100 current and former police officials were allowed to remain employed after making false statements. How is that possible?

Speaker 2: It's possible because the implementation of that rule has not matched the intention. I think that's sort of all there is to it. I think that um lying should disqualify someone from being a member of the chicago Police Department. I think that we cannot ask people to trust a police department which lets its members get away with lying and

Speaker 1: if they're not being dismissed, then what does accountability look like?

Speaker 2: It looks like not enough. And you know, if there are people who have lied out on the street, conducting police work, writing police reports and landing on the witness stand that goes to the very core that undermines the administration of criminal justice in Cook County.

Speaker 1: If or when you do conclude misconduct has occurred. Inspector General, you'll usually make recommendations for the actions that then need to take place. So to what extent is leadership at CPD required to actually follow what you've outlined.

Speaker 2: They are required to respond to our disciplinary recommendations and they have to do one of two things. They have to either follow the recommendation or they have to explain why not in the case that we just talked about with the sexual misconduct investigation. The police department did in fact follow our disciplinary recommendations. One member, um uh the, the, the member who lied to oig mishandled the investigation, we recommend that that person be separated from the department. And CPD has indicated that on a preliminary basis, it intends to do

Speaker 1: that. I'm curious about another case where you found that a rideshare driver was threatened with a gun by an off duty officer and, and police wrote a false report there to cover up the officer's actions. How often are those kinds of cases coming across your desk?

Speaker 2: Well, not as often as they are probably happening. I mean, the fact of the matter is what's so problematic about the under reporting of misconduct within the police department is that we May never know that it happens at all. And so it's incredibly important when those instances do come across our desks that we, that we take action that we pursue them rigorously. So in that situation, as you say, a CPD member um brandished a weapon in a ride, share the handling of it really did serve to minimize the incident and to kind of under draw the original discipline. And so we recommended that a number of the officers involved in that process be punished and the police department accepted those recommendations.

Speaker 1: CPD is under a consent decree as we know and the department has only fully complied with about 6%. In a statement. You said that your office would step up efforts to quote shine a brighter light on CPD investigations. Talk specifically about how you're looking to do that.

Speaker 2: One of our statutory mandates is to look at closed police disciplinary investigations conducted by the bureau of Internal Affairs and by COPA. So the ordinance which sets up our public safety Oversight section lays out the reasons for us to do that. The integrity and the rigor and the transparency of the police disciplinary system is critically important. I think the the only road to a better relationship between the police and the community is through a disciplinary system in which both members of the public and members of the department have reason to be confident. I think that's critically important. And so the work we do, making sure that investigations conducted by the Bureau of Internal Affairs and by the civilian Office of Police accountability are concluded appropriately is critical to that the move that we are making to make that more transparent even than it has been is to publish more information about those cases. So I talked about the fact that our own misconduct investigations are confidential by ordinance. The same confidentiality rules do not apply to our reviews of BI A and CO A investigations. And so we are going to publish more information about those reviews about those cases to, as you said, sort of shine a brighter light into what is a very complex system.

Speaker 1: If you're just tuning in, this is Reset. I'm Sasha-Ann Simons. Chicago's Inspector General is calling on you to share what you want to know more about when it comes to city government and issues that matter most to you. She's embarking on a listening tour to connect with you and in studio right now is chicago Inspector General, Deborah Whisper sharing details. Let's turn to that initiative. I just mentioned that your office is rolling out listening tours. Who are you listening to? And what are you trying to learn?

Speaker 2: We are listening to Chicagoans. They are the people who know Chicago best, the, the exercise that we're doing here is to learn more about what Chicagoans are worried about what they want to know more about about city government and what they think we should be looking closer at. There's a great deal to do in government oversight in chicago and we are frankly never going to do everything that needs doing. So all of the work we undertake is a prioritization exercise. We have to be directing our resources as we talked about at those problems which matter most to real Chicagoans. And so to make sure we are making those prioritization decisions in as well informed a way as possible. We are out asking people to tell us, as I say, what they've seen go wrong in city government, what they want to know more about in terms of how works and what city government could do to improve their quality of life to make things better in their neighborhood on their block.

Speaker 1: Another question you're asking too. Have you heard of the Chicago Office of Inspector General? How are you anticipating folks will respond to that?

Speaker 2: You know, we are, we've started to do a lot of work around awareness raising just so people know who we are and where to find us if they need us. Our work is only as impactful as we are effective in talking about it. If we're doing our work and it's not reaching people, then, you know, the accountability tree is falling in the forest and there's no one there to hear it. So, um you know, we, we've started to, we have, we have signs in English and Spanish on CT A buses and trains telling people about who we are. We have billboards up along highways in the city. We are trying to make sure that we show up in neighborhoods across the city. I often say that I will go anywhere. I'm invited and some places I'm not to talk about our work and to listen to what people are worried about. We want to make sure that if people, if Chicagoans have something to say about how we should improve city government, that they know where to find us to tell us

Speaker 1: why is this work so important, Inspector general? Because the inspector general hasn't needed to do listening tours before. So I'm curious what sparked

Speaker 2: this? I don't know if we haven't needed to, we haven't done it before. I don't know that I would say we haven't needed to. Um, I think it's our responsibility to continuously improve what we are doing and, and, and why now, you know, because we haven't before, I think it's more important than ever as this deficit of legitimacy accrues. It's more important than ever for us to get at the things which most impact real Chicagoans.

Speaker 1: You've already got a couple of stops under your belt. So what have you been hearing so far? Can you share?

Speaker 2: We hear a huge range of issues, you know, chicago is very much a city of neighborhoods and, and what city services look like and what challenges exist very, very much in different parts of the city. That's one of the reasons why geographic reach, I think is so important in doing this. Um And, and we'll see, it's certainly true that policing and public safety reform are, those things are close to the top of the list of, of what a lot of Chicagoans are worried about. Me too and we'll continue to focus attention there.

Speaker 1: So you're hearing a lot of comments about crime in the

Speaker 2: city, crime and policing and what makes people feel safe in their neighborhoods. I think those things will always be important. Well,

Speaker 1: leave us with this. How can folks engage in these listening tours with your office or in general? We

Speaker 2: would love people to go to our website. I chicago.org. There's a link there to answer the listening tour questions and we'd love people to do that

Speaker 1: and these tours are going on now through spring May 15th. Yes. All right. That's chicago Inspector General debra Whits. You can find out more about the IGs listening tours and how you can inform their work by going to IG chicago.org. Thank you so much for stopping

Speaker 2: by. Thank you.

Meghana Kollu