City Council Punts Again

As the FOP president says, they're looking to have the judge take the heat for their gutlessness:

• The future disciplinary forum for determining punishment for Chicago police officers accused of the most serious wrongdoing is now in the hands of a Cook County judge.

  Mayor Brandon Johnson’s City Council allies made that happen Wednesday by using a parliamentary maneuver — for the second time in a week — to delay a vote on whether to reject an arbitrator’s ruling that would allow Chicago Police Department officers recommended for firings or suspensions over one year to bypass the Police Board in favor of an arbitrator who would hold proceedings behind closed doors.

  [...]

  Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara accused Mayor Brandon Johnson and his Council allies of trying to “have it both ways.” By dodging Wednesday’s vote, they punted the decision to Cook County CircuitJudge Michael Mullen, so he can “do their dirty work for them” by enforcing the arbitration option.

  “They want to be able to tell the squeaky wheels and the screamers that show up in handfuls that, ‘We said no, but the judge made us do it,’” Catanzara told the Sun-Times. “They don’t have the guts to do the right thing. They want to do the easy thing because they’re cowards. They carry the mayor’s water.”
  

The judge is required to do what the law says....and the law says cops get to choose arbitration. Hopefully this will be the end of a long road.

Catanzara is looking to hammer the city for years of denying arbitration and in the process, might make a lot of coppers rich....or at least financially whole again.