The Attorney General's Office and the City carefully reviewed the nearly 1,700 comments received and negotiated changes to the consent decree based on the comments. The Attorney General's Office and the City filed the revised consent decree in federal court on September 13, 2018. The federal judge overseeing the case accepted written comments on the draft consent decree until October 12, 2018, and held public hearings on October 24 and 25, 2018.The judge approved the consent decree on January 31, 2019.
If you have feedback or questions regarding the implementation of the consent decree, you may email policereform@atg.state.il.us or call 833.243.1498. Your feedback or questions may be shared with the independent monitor at www.cpdmonitoringteam.com, the City, and/or CPD.
If the Attorney General's Office receives a request for copies of records that include your feedback, it may be required to provide a copy of your feedback to the requestor pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act. However, information that would reveal your identity (name, home address, personal telephone number and personal email address) will not be disclosed.
Following an extensive selection process, Judge Robert M. Dow Jr., who is overseeing the case, appointed Maggie Hickey and her team as the independent monitor to help oversee implementation of the consent decree.
The independent monitor will evaluate and issue public reports on whether the City and CPD are meeting the requirements of the consent decree. These reports can be found on the independent monitor's website at www.cpdmonitoringteam.com/reports/ and/or here. The independent monitor will report to Judge Dow on the progress of implementation and compliance with the many requirements in the consent decree by the City and CPD.
Hickey and her team were appointed by Judge Dow from a pool of nine applicants of policing experts from around the country. The independent monitor Request for Proposals can be found here. The nine teams of experts, which included current or former law enforcement officers, academics, policy analysts, lawyers and community outreach specialists, submitted applications in response to the Request for Proposals. These applications and supplemental information requests and responses are below:
Muhammad, Wilson & Wolf Application
On October 18, 2018, the Attorney General's Office and the City announced four finalists for the role of the independent monitor. The finalists were:
- Coar Monitoring Team
- Police Foundation Monitoring Team
- Schiff Hardin-CNA Monitoring Team
- StoneTurn Monitoring Team
As part of the process of recommending a final monitor to the federal judge, the Attorney General's Office and the City sought public input on the four finalist candidates by hosting two public forum sessions on Saturday, November 3, 2018 at the James R. Thompson Center, 100 W. Randolph St., Chicago. At the forums, the four finalists made presentations and answered questions from the public. A transcript of the morning public forum can be found here, and a transcript of the afternoon public forum is available here.
In addition to providing feedback on the independent monitor at the public forums, the Attorney General's Office and the City sought additional written feedback from the public.
Also as part of the process of making recommendations about a final monitor candidate to the federal judge, the Attorney General's Office and the City created an Engaged Stakeholder Committee made up of a small group of individuals and organizations who have been involved in the consent decree process or police reform litigation and engaged in policing matters in Chicago. The committee interviewed and provided input on the four independent monitor finalists. Members of the committee were:
- Pastor Robert Biekman, senior pastor of Maple Park United Methodist Church and urban ministry coordinator for the Northern Illinois Conference of the United Methodist Church;
- Chicago police Sgt. James Calvino, treasurer of the Chicago Police Sergeants' Association;
- Maria Hernandez, community organizer with Black Lives Matter;
- Katya Nuques, executive director at Enlace Chicago;
- Chicago police Sgt. Chris Pettis, vice president of the Chicago Police Sergeants' Association;
- Autry Philips, executive director of Target Area Development Corporation;
- Jeanette Samuels, civil rights attorney of Samuels & Associates;
- Eric Wilkins, founder of the Broken Winggz organization, a non-profit support group for Chicagoans with permanent disabilities and paralysis from gunshot wounds; and
- Richard Wooten, former Chicago police officer and a community advocate and president of the Gathering Point Community Council.
Transcripts from the Engaged Stakeholder Committee's interviews with the four independent monitor finalists are provided below: