The Chicago Police Board’s 2024 Annual Report is now available.  Below is the message from Police Board President Kyle Cooper that is included in the report.

Message from Police Board President Kyle Cooper

I am pleased to present this report on the Police Board’s activities and achievements in 2024. As you will see in the following pages, the Police Board continued to further the values of impartiality and transparency in Chicago’s police-accountability system. Before detailing the Board’s work in a variety of areas, I want to highlight the following developments from the past year.

On March 21, 2024, a Cook County Circuit Court judge ruled that rank-and-file Chicago police officers have the right to choose to have the most serious police disciplinary cases, those involving termination or suspension of one year or longer, heard by an arbitrator rather than the Police Board. While the police officers’ union, the Fraternal Order of Police, is appealing part of the Court’s ruling requiring arbitration hearings be open to the public, the City is not contesting any aspect of the Circuit Court’s decision, including the approval of the arbitration option. This litigation has significantly disrupted the police disciplinary process. Arbitrators cannot move forward without the establishment of a public arbitration process, and the Police Board cannot hold hearings without the accused officer’s consent. As a result, sixteen Police Board cases remain on hold, and the number of new cases reaching the Board has significantly declined.

In addition to deciding police-disciplinary cases, the Board considers appeals by applicants for a probationary police officer position who have been removed from the eligibility list due to the results of a background investigation. We saw an increase in the number of appeals filed in 2024, and the Board decided 67 appeals this past year.

The Board’s monthly public meetings, which are carried live by CAN TV, provide an important forum for discussion of police-related issues. During these meetings, the Board and the public receive reports from the Superintendent of Police, the Chief Administrator of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, Deputy Inspector General for Public Safety, and other civic leaders.  Outside experts are also frequently invited to give presentations on a variety of topics. And the communication is not just one-way—there is time at every meeting for members of the public to raise questions and offer comments, with the Board tracking follow-up to ensure responsiveness to the community’s issues of concern. These meetings generate significant public interest—for example, CAN TV informed us that the September meeting had over 32,000 live viewers and that the April meeting had more than 50,000 viewers.

Six new members joined the Board in 2024. Claudia Badillo, Kathryn Liss, and Justin Terry began serving in June and immediately made valuable contributions to the Board’s deliberations. Tyler Hall, Arlette Porter, and Cynthia Velazquez were appointed in December and approved by the City Council on January 15, 2025. I welcome them to the Board and look forward to working with them.

Finally, I want to thank three dedicated public servants whose service on the Board came to an end in December: Paula Wolff served as vice president since 2018, and Mareilé Cusack and Nanette Doorley each joined the Board in 2021. We will very much miss working with them as well as the energy and perspectives they brought to the Board. Vice President Wolff deserves my special thanks, for her wisdom was invaluable and her dedication to the public was inspiring throughout my first year as president.

The members of the Police Board are an impressive and diverse group of Chicagoans who deeply care about the City and work diligently to help ensure that all Chicagoans receive the most respectful, effective, and professional policing. I know that I speak for all my colleagues when I say that we are grateful for the honor of serving the people of Chicago.