Why is Attorney General Kwame Raoul not cleaning house at CPS?
Just prior to the Thanksgiving holiday in 2015, Chicago erupted in agitated protests when the video of the October 2014 shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald was released. A fatal police shooting which generated much controversy and attracted national attention, the video captured McDonald with a knife in his hand as he walked north on South Cicero Avenue. As he drew closer to responding officers, the video shows McDonald collapsing after being struck by an outburst of shots fired by former Police Officer Jason Van Dyke.
The release of the video almost simultaneously coincided with the revelation charges would be brought against Van Dyke for the first-degree murder of a minor.
To critics of Chicago Police, the 13-month delay in the release of the police dashcam video was ample reason to open an independent investigation into McDonald’s death. An incident which is commonly seen as a turning point for the police reform movement in Chicago, on December 1, 2015, then-Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan wrote a letter to Loretta Lynch, the-then U.S. Attorney General, imploring the Justice Department Civil Rights Division to conduct a “pattern and practice investigation” into the Chicago Police Department.
Writing with “urgency,” Madigan declared the need for DOJ to review police use of deadly force and police investigations into the use of deadly force, as well as police training to determine if a pattern of discrimination exists. Six days later, the Obama Justice Department answered the call and announced it would open an investigation into both the Chicago Police Department and the city’s then police oversight agency, the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA).
On the same day Madigan’s letter arrived on Lynch’s desk, then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel dismissed Superintendent of Police Gary McCarthy. The first in a chain of events which led to a purge, following McCarthy’s ouster, voters unseated Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez in the Democratic primary three months later, and an inquiry into McDonald’s death by the Chicago Office of Inspector General urged the dismissal or disciplinary action against a total of 15 officers for taking part in a “conspiracy.” Nearly two years later, a special prosecutor indicted three officers on charges they conspired to cover-up McDonald’s death. All three were acquitted after a bench trial in January 2019.
In what is considered the final chapter in this grim chronicle, the Laquan McDonald matter resulted in a searing DOJ report in 2017 concluding the Chicago Police Department engaged in a pattern or practice of using unreasonable force, including deadly force, CPD routinely violated residents’ constitutional rights, and accountability mechanisms for police misconduct were deeply flawed. Over a year later, after months of legal wrangling and through the intervention of then-Attorney General Lisa Madigan, it was agreed a Consent Decree was to be imposed on the Chicago Police Department.
The death of Laquan McDonald provoked strong reactions across Chicago. The response to McDonald’s fatal shooting raises an intriguing question: How did one fatal police shooting come to be seen as a reflection of the Chicago Police Department as a whole and result in a Consent Decree teeming with maximalist demands for CPD? A question which deserves an answer, the sweeping consequences for CPD over Laquan McDonald strike an odd contrast to the underreaction to serious allegations at Chicago Public Schools uncovered by the Office of Inspector General (OIG-CPS) for the Chicago Board of Education.
A report with few flowery passages, the early sections of the OIG’s Annual Report released in January reveal the mundane, such as student-athlete enrollment fraud and numerous instances of CPS employees violating residency rules. Elsewhere, the report describes CPS employees involved in the falsification of federal grant applications, a phony billing scheme, administrators who defrauded pandemic relief programs, including the Paycheck Protection Program, and an administrator who rarely reported to work. In other instances, the OIG discovered CPS employees had engaged in a fraudulent workers’ compensation claim, reporting false work hours, COVID-19 fraud related to rental-assistance programs, and at one school, mismanagment of donations from a nonprofit organization.
As one reads along, the OIG’s findings worsen. Part of the OIG’s probe tells of a period in which COVID relief money was abundant, “inadequate policies, guidance, and training; a flawed approval process and deficient travel bookkeeping” resulting in millions spent on extravagant travel. A diplomatic way of describing wasteful spending, the OIG concluded $7.7 million was spent on unnecessary trips, often for professional development conferences which could have been attended online.
Though the early chapters of the annual report makes for lamentable reading, the OIG saved its most frightening details for the end. The section at which all the dirty details are found reveals the OIG determined its Sexual Allegations Unit (SAU) handled a whopping 335 sex abuse cases, of which an astounding 55 were substantiated. Of the myriad occurrences of alleged sexual abuse, allegations range from flirtatious behavior, touching, and sexualized electronic communications, to grooming and sexual relationships.
The report then lathers on the somber details of numerous instances of male CPS employees — eight in total — engaging in flirtatious and sexual electronic communications and sexual liaisons both on and off school property.
The same rules should apply to CPS
Though the bare facts of the OIG report are unsettling, there is some good news: The Inspector General himself, Philip Wagenknecht, is doing a fairly good job as the warden of Chicago Public Schools. Rather than sweep accusations under the rug, the IG appears to have completed a thorough probe of the city’s school system and, more importantly, acted on evidence of malfeasance. In instances in which criminal charges were justified, prosecutions followed. In other instances, appropriate action — dismissal, a "Do Not Hire" designation — was taken. Similarly, by virtue of the volume of reports submitted to the Office of Student Protections and Title IX and referred to the OIG, it appears the apparatus created to furnish OIG with the basis for investigations is functioning.
Though the mechanism to sustain the OIG is operating, there are some deeply troubling aspects of this report worth mentioning. Taking into account the range and volume of the wrongdoing at CPS, the nature of the allegations, and the fact sufficient evidence existed to support 55 charges of sex abuse was found, it is fishy how administrators and other CPS faculty and staff have managed to survive and remain employed at Chicago’s troubled school system. Despite the nauseating details culled and amassed in the OIG report, it is every bit as mysterious there has not been a meager bleat of disapproval from public officials, advocacy groups, the Chicago Teachers Union or Mayor Brandon Johnson himself.
A peculiar and inadequate response to a report which goes into rather elaborate detail of repugnant behavior among countless CPS employees, the OIG’s summary of at times lurid behavior among CPS employees makes a compelling case for a broad investigation of the Chicago Public Schools. The problem here, of course, is who should lead such a wide-ranging investigation. While the OIG has demonstrated a competency in examining the city’s public schools, the gravity of the allegations demands a serious and dispassionate inquiry conducted by Attorney General Kwame Raoul.
The allegations in the OIG’s report are serious, and Chicago should treat the allegations as such. If the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald by Chicago Police led to weeks of popular outcry, an exhaustive investigation — including special prosecutors — firings, and a Consent Decree, then against the backdrop of sex abuse prevailing at CPS, it is every bit as reasonable to expect Attorney General Kwame Raoul to intervene at CPS and expose some essential truths which remain undisclosed.
Raoul must act: These abuses of students are occurring with unacceptable frequency and when sexual abuse is treated lightly — as it is at CPS — the failure to investigate and expose this behavior which otherwise goes unnoticed or unreported sends a message CPS tolerates it at its schools.
Reading the OIG’s report is enough to rot anyone’s soul. Chicago should welcome Mr. Raoul conducting a thorough investigation of CPS. There is much at stake here: Should the Attorney General ignore the conclusions drawn by the OIG and fail to explore CPS, the consequences could result in a torrent of sex abuse in our schools and, eventually, hundreds of millions in settlements.
