Chicago FOP President Defends His Cops
Last week, Fraternal Order of Police President Dean Angelo told “Chicago Tonight” he met with Vanita Gupta, Assistant Attorney General for the civil rights division, who is heading up the Department of Justice investigation into the Chicago Police Department; and Zachary Fardon, U.S. Attorney General for the Northern District of Illinois.
Angelo says the union set the meeting up before U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced the investigation because he felt the announcement was inevitable. He says the attorneys questioned him on topics like the FOP contract with the city of Chicago and police morale, but said the meeting was mostly personal, off the record and for the purpose of information sharing. He says he wanted to see how the FOP could “help facilitate the moving parts of the investigation.”
The meeting with Gupta and Fardon came on the heels of Mayor Emanuel’s speech on Wednesday to City Council that addressed a “code of silence” that he says exists throughout the department.
Angelo called the mayor’s speech “unnecessary” and “not constructive.”
In a memo to rank-and-file union members, Angelo wrote:
“ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! It is about time that all of those in political office, from the fifth floor to the council chamber, end the finger pointing, the blame and the over the top anti-police rhetoric. In a very short time, the Lodge has gone from being sought after for political endorsement, to the three-headed monster nightmares are made of. How quickly (and easily) it is to turn on the FOP, who were lauded for our organizational leadership and professionalism shortly after our Contract was ratified. The recent political detestation of Police Officers is a great lesson for all of us learned on how quickly politics can cause someone to go from friend to fiend.”