One protest vote vs. cops’ settlement
A former Chicago Police officer- turned firefighter whose ward is home to scores of cops cast a lonely protest vote Tuesday against a $ 2 million settlement for a pair of police officers who claim they were blackballed by their colleagues for blowing the whistle on police corruption.
The settlement with police partners Shannon Spalding and Daniel Echeverria averted the need for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to comply with a federal judge’s order to testify about the code of silence that the mayor has acknowledged exists in the Chicago Police Department.
But that’s not what bothered Ald. Anthony Napolitano ( 41st). He said he’s talked to police officers who claim there is “more to” the case “than just two officers who feel like they’ve been blackballed.”
“What I’m told is that it’s two people working a case and, when they came off the case, they were sent out of the unit and theywere angry about it and asked to go back and they said no. That triggered a lawsuit,” Napolitano said of the federal investigation that culminated in the conviction of Sgt. Ronald Watts for shaking down drug dealers.
“They felt like they were mistreated. That’s understandable. But every day, you’re saying that police officers are supposed to have thick skin. They’re supposed to let everybody say whatever they want to them on the street and they’re supposed to be OK with that. So, what happened to the thick skin we’re all supposed to have?”
After spending two years detailed to the FBI and building the case against Watts, Spalding and Echeverria say they returned to their jobs, only to be blackballed in retaliation that sounds like a scene from the Al Pacino movie “Serpico.”