SEPTEMBER 2020
ADVISORY CONCERNING THE CIVILIAN OFFICE OF POLICE ACCOUliiBpW'S PRACTICE OF v-AQM IN IS1RAT|VEk? TE^M IN ATI NG " DISCIPLINARY INVESTIGATIONS^ r'
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JOSEPH M -FERGUSON INSPECTOR GENERAL
CITY OF CHICAGO OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL 740 NORTH SEDGWICK STREET, SUITE 200 CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60654 TELEPHONE (773) 478-7799 FAX. (773) 478-3949
SEPTEMBER 10, 2020
The Public Safety section ofthe City of Chicago Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducts, on an ongoing basis, reviews of individual closed disciplinary investigations conducted by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) and the Chicago Police Department's (CPD) Bureau of Internal Affairs (BIA). In the course of these reviews, OIG identified issues with COPA's use of "administrative termination" to conclude disciplinary investigations short of an investigative finding.
To close an investigation, COPA may use either non-finding or finding dispositions, which are laid out in COPA's Investigations Manual (the Manual).1 Despite the fact that it does not appear in the Manual, COPA uses administrative termination as a non-finding disposition. OIG found that administrative termination is ill-defined and frequently misapplied, with inconsistencies and inaccuracies in its use falling into two general categories. In the first category of cases, the criteria for use set forth in COPA's Administrative Termination Memorandum template were not met, although they were sometimes recorded as met in contradiction with the facts and circumstances ofthe investigation.7 In the second category of cases, investigations were closed via administrative termination when there were more clearly defined and closely applicable dispositions avail...
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