FOP’s clownish ‘no confidence’ vote only gives Superintendent Eddie Johnson extra job security, for now
When it’s all over — when he steps down of his own volition in a few months — Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson ought to pen a gracious note of thanks to his critics at the local Fraternal Order of Police union for throwing him a lifeline when he needed it most.
Wednesday, the FOP Lodge 7 board of directors announced on Facebook a vote of no confidence in Johnson. This came less than a day after the FOP posted a statement critical of Johnson’s announcement that he won’t be attending President Donald Trump’s speech to a gathering of the International Association of Chiefs of Police on Monday at McCormick Place because, a department spokesman explained, “the values of the people of Chicago are more important to him than anything the president has to say.”
The story would have passed with little notice in a city preoccupied by a teachers strike. But the FOP amplified it with a statement that the union was “extremely disappointed” and that “such a gesture would be an insult to both President Trump and the office of the presidency itself and would be a mark of disgrace upon the city throughout the entire nation.”
In an interview on WFLD-Ch. 32, FOP representative Bob Bartlett added that Trump “has been a leader to the police officers across this country and he deserves our respect.” On WLS-AM Bartlett said, “If you want to make a political statement, maybe you should take your uniform off and put a suit on. … This was the final straw as far as we were concerned.”
Johnson could hardly have asked for a better time to become a face of local opposition against Trump, who is resoundingly unpopular in Chicago. The president received just 12.4% of the citywide vote in 2016. He has made false claims about our gun violence problem — saying that Chicago has the toughest gun laws in the United States, for example, or implying that Chicago has notably high per capita rates of violent crime. He has disparaged members of immigrant and ethnic communities.
Johnson, meanwhile, has been under a cloud. The Oct. 9 release of documents related to city Inspector General Joseph Ferguson’s investigation of the Laquan McDonald case confirmed old news reports that Johnson, then the department’s deputy chief of patrol, had been among the top brass who took an early look at the damning dashcam video of Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke gunning down McDonald and agreed that the shooting was justified.
I was among those who expressed the view that Johnson’s failure at what turned out to be a critical moment in the recent history of the city was disqualifying and should cost him his job.
Then police found Johnson asleep behind the wheel of his parked car early on the morning of Oct. 17. He said he found himself overcome with fatigue as a result of a change in the medications he takes for high blood pressure.
Johnson had also had “a couple of drinks with dinner,” according to Mayor Lori Lightfoot. But the officers who woke him didn’t conduct a field sobriety test before allowing him to drive off, which has resulted in an investigation of the matter by the city’s inspector general.
The irascible FOP loves to pick public fights — with superintendents, state’s attorneys, academics and media organizations — but this one has backfired, giving Johnson a hero’s cape to wear.
“As police officers, our job is to be the voice for the voiceless and ambassadors to the communities that we serve,” he said in a statement responding to the police union. “I can’t in good conscience stand by while racial insults and hatred are cast from the oval office, or Chicago is held hostage because of our views on new Americans.”
When it comes to insulting the presidency, Trump certainly got there first. His boorish behavior, profiteering, coarse language and schoolyard taunts at his political foes have lowered the dignity of the office beyond measure. And if he doesn’t respect the office, why should Eddie Johnson respect him? The true “disgrace upon the city” would be for him to enable Trump’s lies and hypocrisies with polite attention and social deference that implies assent.
Once rampant speculation that Lightfoot will soon replace Johnson, which she denies, has dimmed. The vote of no confidence has, ironically, extended the lease on his professional life and will probably allow him to retire in the spring when reportedly his pension fully vests. No way will the mayor want to be seen as knuckling under to the heavy-handed, petulant, Trumploving FOP, one of whose vice presidents she called a “clown” on a hot mic during a City Council meeting in July.
The clowns have smashed a shaving-cream pie into their own faces.
On further review, praise for Pence withdrawn
Vice President Mike Pence took a vigorous and appropriate whack at China, the NBA and corporate enablers of tyranny during a speech Thursday in which he stood up for human rights and freedom of speech. “Far too many American multinational corporations have kowtowed to the lure of China’s money and markets by muzzling not only criticism of the Chinese Communist Party, but even affirmative expressions of American values,” Pence said in Washington. “And some of the NBA’s biggest players and owners, who routinely exercise their freedom to criticize this country, lose their voices when it comes to the freedom and rights of the people of China. In siding with the Chinese Communist Party and silencing free speech, the NBA is acting like a wholly owned subsidiary of the authoritarian regime.”
I was prepared to offer my praise.
Then I remembered how, in October 2017, Pence ostentatiously recoiled at an exhibition of free speech he didn’t agree with at an Indianapolis Colts game. After more than a dozen members of the visiting San Francisco 49ers took a knee during the national anthem to protest against police mistreatment of African Americans, Pence and his wife marched out of the stadium, saying he wouldn’t “dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our flag or our national anthem.”
So I won’t dignify his hypocrisy with any accolades.
Re: Tweets
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