COPA leader defends agency after report
Offers pushback on watchdog over video releases
The head of Chicago’s civilian agency that probes police misconduct offered rare pushback against the city’s government watchdog for that office’s report suggesting the agency has not released video or other investigative material in a number of police use-offorce cases within a required 60-day period.
At a public meeting Thursday night, Sydney Roberts, who leads the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, sought to downplay the delays cited by the city inspector general’s office by trying to provide context to what the IG described as COPA’s failure to comply with the city’s video release policy.
In a report released Tuesday, the IG found that of 122 cases that were posted on COPA’s website over three years, 33 of them were found to be have posted after the 60-day deadline. In 14 of those cases, the IG found, COPA employees relied on the notification date of the use of force rather than the date it occurred, which COPA has said was an “oversight” error, according to the IG’s findings.
Roberts said Thursday night those 14 cases were only delayed by one day.
During the monthly meeting of the Chicago Police Board, Roberts insisted there hasn’t been any “deliberate or intentional delay of video in any officer-involved shooting or investigation that qualified for release.”
“We own our actions and have and will make necessary corrections,” said Roberts. “That’s the essence of responsibility on which we hold ourselves accountable.”
Roberts said there have been times when policeinvolved shootings or other use-of-force incidents occurred during the 11 p.m. hour on a given day, or some time in the late evening before midnight, and Chicago police didn’t get around to notifying COPA of the incidents until after midnight when a new day had already begun.
Instances like these caused COPA to mistakenly begin the 60-day countdown for releasing video, 911 recordings and police reports a day late. The clock started at the time COPA investigators were notified of the incidents instead of when they actually occurred, as required by policy, Roberts explained.
This scenario was to blame for the 14 cases cited by the IG, she said.
“Again, delaying the release for just one day,” said Roberts. “And this has been corrected.”
In another batch of 12 cases, the IG’s office found delays resulting from the “flagging” process during which COPA employees were trying to determine if the reported use of force mandated public release.
For that finding, Roberts explained that when those 12 complaints were filed, her investigators did not immediately learn through their preliminary reviews that a use of force causing a serious injury had occurred.
They only learned of that when those complaint investigations were underway, and the 60-day countdown only began in those cases when COPA established that officers used significant force. Roberts explained COPA investigators can figure out if police actions led to serious injuries through their review of medical records, an interview with the complainant and other factors.
The video release policy only requires investigative material to be made public on COPA’s website if the agency learns someone was shot by police or suffered other serious physical harm during a confrontation with an officer.
“And in these 12 instances, COPA released the transparency materials 60 days after confirming that the complaint was eligible for release,” Roberts said. “These are but a small fraction of the more than 300 use-of-force transparency releases COPA has carried out.
“But they are instances in which we take, I take, full responsibility.”
IG officials have stressed that their report’s conclusions and recommendations are significant, considering the deep distrust in the Chicago Police Department and the need for a “robust disciplinary system” that instills confidence for officers and the public.
On Thursday night, Roberts did not address other shortcomings the IG pointed out in its report, including how the Office of Emergency Management and Communications, which retains some of the video and audio COPA gathers, is often backlogged turning the evidence over to COPA — which means some evidence could be missing when COPA posts it.
“COPA reported that as a result of this backlog, many of the incidents on (its) case portal are missing all relevant video and audio files,” the IG report stated.
The IG report notes that OEMC personnel reported that the office has increasingly been asked to provide video and other material to
“We own our actions and have and will make necessary corrections. That’s the essence of responsibility on which we hold ourselves accountable.” — Sydney Roberts, who leads the Civilian Office of Police Accountability
an “increasing number of agencies.” But the workload increased — without an increase in staffing, the report said.
The policy calling for a 60-day release window was created in 2016 in the wake of the fatal on-duty shooting by a white officer of Black teenager Laquan McDonald. Video evidence of that shooting, which showed officer Jason Van Dyke firing 16 shots into McDonald as he was walking away, was withheld by the city under Mayor Rahm Emanuel for a year before a court order forced its release.
In response to the sustained protest and outrage over the delay, Emanuel created the Police Accountability Task Force, which was headed by Lori Lightfoot before she announced her candidacy for mayor. The task force wrote the video policy, which was said to be the first of its kind in the country.
It was heralded as a long-overdue effort at the kind of transparency that can restore public trust between the community and police.
The policy, however, was always intended to be reviewed after the first year to see whether the 60-day deadline should be updated.
Randall Samborn, an attorney and former longtime spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago who served on the working group that drafted the policy, said the 60 days, with a 30-day extension option, was chosen to allow for the fact that the city was launching a first-of-its kind policy. The group wanted to give city officials enough time to establish a sound process for how they would gather and publish the material.
“But we put the ongoing review section in the policy because of our belief at the time that the review might demonstrate that an earlier timeline would be feasible and manageable,” Samborn said “That it would not only be manageable but would serve the interest of transparency and building community trust.”
In a statement Friday, COPA spokesman Ephraim Eaddy said the office has engaged in “numerous discussions” aimed at improving its operation.
Eaddy said the policy is, however, currently undergoing a “more substantive review” with Chicago police, OEMC and the mayor’s office.
“These discussions will include the feasibility of reducing the time period for release as well as providing more transparency to the process itself,” Eaddy said.