Is There a Lawyer in the House?

Is anyone looking into suing this asshole?

• Like the party guest who just refuses to leave, former 45th Ward alderman John Arena recently returned to capture headlines. Months after he was booed offstage in February’s aldermanic elections, Arena extended his losing streak by abruptly resigning his position with the city’s Department of Planning and Development (DPD). A plum post with the DPD widely thought of as a sinecure to prevent the failed alderman from being forced to walk the streets with a begging bowl, Arena departed his office in January after it was revealed he had engaged in guerrilla activism targeting his successor as alderman. Once described by Mayor Lori Lightfoot as an “asset” to the city, the machisma mayor discovered too late Mr. Arena was not merely a liability, but an outright embarrassment.
  
  However, in the period between Arena’s spectacular February election loss and his sudden resignation in January 2020, a curious development presented itself, a matter with which the defeated ex-City Council member will forever be associated. In early December 2019, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) quietly revealed 29 of 31 Complaint Registers (CRs) Mr. Arena lodged against members of the Chicago Police Department (CPD) residing on the Northwest side of Chicago were determined to be utterly groundless.

And he's not the only one who ought to be named:

• An obstructionist ploy COPA abused to conceal the depths of its probe and to extend the length of its investigation, it was only through the repeated filing of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests did any of the accused learn particulars over the ongoing investigation. An action which exposed COPA’s shady maneuverings, FOIA requests also uncovered Arena’s office had carried out surveillance of residents, the nature of which can only be described as Orwellian. According to FOIA requests, an employee working in Arena’s office, Leslie Perkins, monitored social media activity, maintained and regularly updated an elaborate Excel spreadsheet containing dozens of residents’ names, job descriptions, city departments in which residents worked or previously worked, and social media accounts under which residents posted comments.

Remember, these are government employees on the public dime, compiling an "enemies list" and using another government agency (COPA) to inflict as much personal and professional damage on them as possible - real East German Stasi and USSR bullshit here in the People's Republik of Chicago.

There ought to be thirty-one defamation lawsuits working their way through the Courts as we speak.