Safe Cop Editorial
By Sgt. Mike Barry PAPD (ret.)
Administrator of Safe Cop Program
In Memory of Police Officer Ella French
This editorial doesn’t involve the actual shooting of a police officer but it does involve the intentional disrespect of a fallen female police officer from Chicago by a callous civilian review board who sought to discipline the officer AFTER she was killed in the line of duty!
On Wednesday, November 10, 2021 Chicago’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) recommended a three-day suspension for Police Officer Ella French in connection with a 2019 incident where she allegedly failed to activate her body camera. But Officer French was later slain in the line of duty in August 2021 and now the police union is demanding an apology for the untimely, callous and cold-hearted public announcement of discipline. “This is the latest example of why that agency has zero credibility in the eyes of every CPD officer,” Chicago Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara said. “We demand an apology immediately for the intentional harm caused to Ella’s family, friends and co-workers,” Catanzara continued.
This is the second time that the murdered hero has been shown disrespect by the city she gave her life to protect. The night that PO French was fatally shot by a convicted felon, the Chicago Police Department’s second-in-command ignored a sacred ritual and refused to wait for the Emerald Society Pipe band to play the bagpipes as a final send-off for the slain hero. “We don’t have 20 minutes for this s—t!” CPD First Deputy Police Superintendent Eric Carter declared as the murdered officer’s body lay in a nearby ambulance, awaiting transport to the Cook County medical examiner’s office, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
On Nov. 10th, 2021, three months after the 29-year-old officer was gunned down during a traffic stop, COPA released the summary report of an investigation into an incident that took place in February of 2019. The report detailed a drug raid that was conducted at the wrong address and resulted in a naked social worker being handcuffed in her own home. CPD Superintendent David Brown has recommended the termination of the sergeant who led the raid and COPA recommended that half of the officers involved in the incident be disciplined, WGN reported. COPA’s report listed the recently-murdered Officer French as one of the officers who deserved to be disciplined for her actions. The civilian complaint boards report icily reads as follows:
“Officer French – COPA has considered Officer French’s complimentary history, her lack of prior disciplinary history, and her over 3 years of service to the Department, and her status as PPO at the time of the incident in mitigation,” the COPA report read.
“Officer French failed to timely activate her body-worn camera and failed to document the detention and search of the male and his vehicle in an Investigatory Stop Report. Accordingly, COPA recommends a 3-day SUSPENSION,” the report concluded.
Ironically, the report failed to acknowledge that the young officer had lost her life in the line of duty prior to receiving the discipline recommendation. In the opinion of this author, that complaint should have been adjudicated without mention of PO French at all, other than to say that the case against him was dismissed because she made the ultimate sacrifice for the Chicago PD and the people of Chicago. To recommend a three-day suspension for an officer who gave her life in the line of duty is the epitome of stupidity and callous, boorish behavior on the part of the Chicago Office of Police Accountability (COPA).
The family of PO French is due an official departmental apology.