Live reporting by
Dylan Comerford
Community members at a recent meeting of the 14th Police District Council worry that a private, unaffiliated group is sowing confusion and threatening the council’s police accountability work.
dylan comerford
@dyldocumenting
Hello! I’ll be live tweeting today on the 14th Police District Council - Logan Square/Humboldt Park/Wicker Park - meeting today for
@CHIdocumenters
#CHIdocumenters. The meeting begins at 1pm.
@CHIdocumenters
#CHIdocumenters. The meeting begins at 1pm.
12:51 PM Mar 2, 2024 CST
What are the Chicago Police District Councils? Chicagoans vote for up to three people to serve on the 22 different District Councils corresponding to police districts. The first District Council elections occurred in Feb 2023.
A key role of the district councils is building stronger connections between the police and the community: they work with the police to solve problems through community policing and restorative justice initiatives.
District councils also ensure that the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability gets input from the community so that the Commission’s work will be based on what people in neighborhoods across the city are concerned about.
District 14’s council members are Christopher M. Laurent – Chair, Ashley Vargas – Nominating Committee, and David Orlikoff – Community Engagement
A community member is bringing attention to the upcoming Mach 19th ballot, where residents can vote on Bring Chicago Home, which they feel is important for those interested in housing accessibility. For more:
bringchicagohome.org
A community member is expressing concern about how local police are using their resources, specifically that people who dont bear threats on the community are being harassed. They feel a police presence at these meetings could offer more accountability and discussion ops.
Other community members are also expressing a need for coordinating with the local police commander and a rep from OIG(office of Inspector General) to come to following meetings for accountability
The board approved previous meeting minutes. They are now discussing booking a different room for future meetings since this one is loud with background noise.
There seems to be some controversey between an independent group on local public saftey(for which a rep is present) and some local residents, who belive the group is being misleading, attempting to act as the CCPSA, even though they are an unofficial/unelected individuals.
A similar public concern was brought up at the last meeting. See more here:
"If there is work to be done, let's do it here[not the unofficial sub-committee]" a resident states, explaining how the offcial CCPSA body was created to address public saftey.
David Orlikoff is saying while there's nothing wrong with neighbor's meeting, there were some valid concerns by residents abt sub-committees such as the hosting of meetings right before official CCPSA mtgs and the use of official logos by an unofficial group.
residents are expressing that they couldn't tell if the sub-committee meeting earlier today was part of the official CCPSA or not which felt misleading for them.
David Orlikoff is explaining how the Avondale restorative justice community court addresses largely nonviolent, youth offenders. It is a collaboration btwn individual and the community to address a crime. He is asking if anyone is interested in joining peace circles there.
David Orlikoff is explaining how he believes investment in traffic stops is not a good allocation of police resources and takes away from responding to priority 911 calls.
The meeting has ended at 2:55pm. Next mtg will be at 1pm on April 6th.