Chicago’s rank-and-file police union fired back against Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Friday with an open letter marking the latest volley in a rhetorical battle between the new mayor and her longtime political nemesis.
The Fraternal Order of Police slammed the “inflammatory and false allegations” they say Lightfoot has lobbed against the officers’ union, most recently during the City Council meeting on Wednesday when she said she’d sit down for contract negotiations with the FOP “any time you’re willing to move forward on reform and not block every single issue.”
Union leaders insisted they have “accepted reform” following the scathing 2016 Justice Department report on CPD policies, though their letter immediately goes on to note a potential federal consent decree was rejected by ex-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and then calls the ensuing decree agreed to by the city and state “a host of senseless policies and bureaucracy imposed upon our officers that will only handcuff the police.
“The measures have also been extraordinarily expensive to both the Lodge and the taxpayers with no real benefit,” reads the three-page letter, which is signed by vice presidents Patrick Murray and Martin Preib, as well as legal defense co-chair Robert Bartlett — but not FOP President Kevin Graham.
