COPA Overreach, Snelling Failure

If you had any doubts about how bad, corrupt and out-of-control COPA is, check this out:

• The agency charged with investigating wrongdoing by Chicago police officers recommended that an officer be fired for, mostly, posting a picture to Facebook of former Mayor Lori Lightfoot in “blackface,” when the image actually showed her in clown make-up, according to reports released Friday.

  After nearly five years of investigation, the agency sent its recommendation for termination to Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling in April. He rejected COPA’s recommendation, calling its recommendation of termination “egregious” and noting that the image did not show Lightfoot, who is Black, in blackface. It showed her in clown makeup.

  COPA accepted Snelling’s counter-recommendation of a 10-day suspension.

Here's the picture that was posted:

Hilarious. This was after Groot had called the head of the FOP a "clown" on an open microphone. Groot faced zero suspension time by the way. Also note - the Officer who posted this picture in a private social media group had nothing listed on his account that identified him as a CPD Officer. COPA got an anonymous tip and did some digging.

We had warned years ago to be careful using social media, especially after the Department came out with "guidelines" and rules that purportedly told you what you could and couldn't do on social media. It was after the blog rocketed to prominence, so we might have been to blame for part of it. 

In any event, COPA recommended firing the Officer for putting Groot in "blackface" and another picture of Rahm in a ballerina leotard with a rainbow dildo on his head declaring himself to be a unicorn. Again, hilarious....and completely protected by the First Amendment. They can tell you what you can/cannot wear and say on duty, but off duty, the Department and COPA can go fuck themselves.

And 'lo and behold, Larritorious fails completely at understanding the Law:

• Kersten and Haynam concluded that COPA had “grave concerns” about [the officer] and recommended his “separation from CPD,” citing the need for police officers to build trust with the community and not act with bias toward “historically marginalized persons.”

  Snelling slammed the COPA investigation as “not thorough,” noting that, despite taking years to investigate a seemingly simple matter, its investigators never even spoke to the person who filed the initial complaint.

  “We have no statement from the complainant as to why she was offended by the photo of former Mayor Lightfoot or if she knew or even assumed that the person posting the photo was a Chicago Police Officer,” Snelling wrote.

  And, Snelling noted, COPA never received a complaint about the Emmanuel image but tacked it onto the investigation after “scouring through the old posts made by  [the officer].”

  Snelling compared COPA’s termination recommendation with suspensions received by officers accused of seemingly more egregious social media posts that contained direct, disparaging comments, which  [the officer] ’s posts did not.

  The top cop countered with a recommended 10-day suspension for  [the officer]  which COPA eventually accepted.

Larritorious had it completely correct, until that last recommendation. There, he failed to be an actual leader and proved (again) to be a political hack, kind of like when he was helping to strip Officers for daring to exercise bodily autonomy over an untested, useless, poison jab. 

Fuck COPA and fuck Larry for being a pussy. Thin skinned politicians deserve every bit of crap flung their way.

(by the way, we'll post the Rahm dildo unicorn picture if anyone has it, and will consider anything with Larritorious or Kersten that isn't pornographic in nature)