Eddie Johnson worked as the Gresham District commander from 2008 to 2012.
Eddie Johnson may be well qualified to be Chicago police superintendent. Then again, maybe he’s not. We don’t know.
When Mayor Rahm Emanuel rammed Johnson’s appointment through the City Council Wednesday, the byword was due diligence be damned.
Neither the mayor nor any alderperson bothered to inquire about alleged police brutality that occurred under Johnson when he was commander of the South Side Gresham district between 2008 and 2012.
The rush job fits Emanuel’s pattern of hiring without vetting.
You might have thought the mayor would have learned something from his previous bad hires, but no.
Those include:
Johnson’s predecessor, Garry McCarthy, who has hired as Chicago’s top cop despite a documented pattern or civil rights violations and lack of internal discipline under his leadership at the Newark Police Department.
Ahmad
Byrd-Bennett
Amer Ahmad, who was hired as city controller while under federal investigation for a kickback scheme as the deputy treasurer of Ohio.
Barbara Byrd-Bennett who as CEO of Chicago Public Schools was a conspirator in a multi-million-dollar kickback scheme to which she has pleaded guilty.
Whether 15 federal lawsuits against officers who worked under Johnson in the Gresham district is cause for concern about his supervisory competence is an open question.
But Emanuel and the City Council should have looked into what Johnson knew when about the underlying misconduct and what, if anything, he did to stop or minimize it.
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Rob Warden was a co-founder of Injustice Watch and executive director emeritus and co-founder of the Center on Wrongful Convictions (CWC) at Northwestern University School of Law. During his 16-year tenure, the CWC was instrumental in exonerating 31 wrongfully convicted men and women in Illinois. Before launching the CWC, Rob was editor and publisher of Chicago Lawyer, where his investigations into Illinois capital cases launched a movement that culminated both in the founding of the Center in 1999 and abolition of the Illinois death penalty in 2011. His reporting at Chicago Lawyer was instrumental in 13 exonerations, including that of Gary Dotson, the nation’s first prisoner to be exonerated by DNA. Before that, Rob was a prize-winning investigative reporter for the Chicago Daily News and Washington Post. He has won more than 50 journalism awards and is the author of seven books.
Chicago’s new police superintendent: Due diligence be damned
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Eddie Johnson may be well qualified to be Chicago police superintendent. Then again, maybe he’s not. We don’t know.
When Mayor Rahm Emanuel rammed Johnson’s appointment through the City Council Wednesday, the byword was due diligence be damned.
Neither the mayor nor any alderperson bothered to inquire about alleged police brutality that occurred under Johnson when he was commander of the South Side Gresham district between 2008 and 2012.
The rush job fits Emanuel’s pattern of hiring without vetting.
You might have thought the mayor would have learned something from his previous bad hires, but no.
Those include:
Whether 15 federal lawsuits against officers who worked under Johnson in the Gresham district is cause for concern about his supervisory competence is an open question.
But Emanuel and the City Council should have looked into what Johnson knew when about the underlying misconduct and what, if anything, he did to stop or minimize it.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Rob Warden is co-director of Injustice Watch.
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Rob Warden
Rob Warden was a co-founder of Injustice Watch and executive director emeritus and co-founder of the Center on Wrongful Convictions (CWC) at Northwestern University School of Law. During his 16-year tenure, the CWC was instrumental in exonerating 31 wrongfully convicted men and women in Illinois. Before launching the CWC, Rob was editor and publisher of Chicago Lawyer, where his investigations into Illinois capital cases launched a movement that culminated both in the founding of the Center in 1999 and abolition of the Illinois death penalty in 2011. His reporting at Chicago Lawyer was instrumental in 13 exonerations, including that of Gary Dotson, the nation’s first prisoner to be exonerated by DNA. Before that, Rob was a prize-winning investigative reporter for the Chicago Daily News and Washington Post. He has won more than 50 journalism awards and is the author of seven books.
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