CHICAGO (AP) — A newspaper investigation has found that Chicago police officers have opted to grieve their punishments more often in recent years, resulting in long punishment delays in some cases.
The Chicago Tribune ‘s analysis of city data found that as of mid-December, 280 disciplinary grievances remained open. Seven of those cases were filed about six years ago.
Officers can dispute and sometimes avoid or reduce their punishments by filing a grievance. An officer is allowed to work while his or her case is pending.
A police spokesman says the department’s Management and Labor Affairs Sections can’t track all of its cases without opening individual files.
It is unclear how many open cases are going through a typical grievance process and how many are open because department officials never got a response from the police union.
