It’s important to take a long look at the scandals now emerging at one of the county’s largest police unions, the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) Lodge 7.
Right now, the most pro–law enforcement president in the modern history of the nation is in office, proving time and again his willingness to back the police. At the same time, Chicago is ground zero for the radical Democrats seeking to expand their power throughout the country. The key strategy of this Democratic faction is a war on the criminal justice system.
One would think that an alliance of the Trump administration, particularly the Department of Justice, and the Chicago FOP would be a match made in heaven. Imagine the things they could get done. One would think that public appearances between Trump and the leader of the FOP, John Catanzara, would be frequent and friendly.
Consider. In his first administration, Trump already signaled his willingness to rescue Chicago from the grip of the radical lunatics now governing almost every institution in the city and state. For example, Trump and his DOJ quickly nixed the imposition of a consent decree on the Chicago police, one generated in the politicalization of the DOJ that took shape under Obama and Biden.
Never to be distracted from the war on law and order that now drives the depraved, radicalized Democratic Party, Chicago/Illinois political hacks former attorney general Lisa Madigan and former mayor Rahm Emanuel stepped in to resurrect the consent decree through legalistic trickery. In the wake of this dirty Chicago political move, the FOP folded like a cheap suit and the Democrats got their consent decree. But it was through no fault of the Trump administration.
When Trump came to Chicago in his first administration, he was met by former FOP president Kevin Graham at the airport, a meeting broadcast throughout the world.
But search the media and you will find no such photo-op, let alone the slightest indication of any communication or cooperation between Trump’s administration and the Chicago FOP under its current president, John Catanzara. In fact, you will find just the opposite.
In what many regard as a sign Trump wants nothing to do with Catanzara, the FOP president was reportedly turned away at the capital for a conference of big city police union leaders. Rather than work with Trump’s DOJ to root out the endemic corruption within Chicago by harnessing the power of the DOJ, it appears that either Catanzara, the FOP board, or both are being targeted in an investigation by the DOJ.
The FBI investigation seems tied to at least some allegations made against Catanzara by his first vice president, Mike Mette, allegations in which Mette claimed a host of financial abuses by Catanzara with FOP money. Mette’s allegations were dismissed by the FOP board and then by the state lodge, both entities that Catanzara holds great influence over. The allegations now head to the National FOP, where Catanzara’s influence is close to nil.
In the long list of claims and counterclaims surrounding the DOJ investigation of the FOP/Catanzara and the charges by Mette, two issues may illuminate just what is at stake.
In 2011, Officer Clifton Lewis was murdered while working a side job. Three Spanish Cobra gang members were ultimately charged with the murder. In the all-too-common corruption of Chicago’s depraved criminal justice system, the charges were ultimately dropped by Kim Foxx, the poster child for the radical Democrats’ war on cops.
Many of the scandals surrounding Foxx took place while Catanzara and the current board were in office, yet Foxx and her political allies never showed any signs they were concerned about the FOP.
Nevertheless, any police union that had the slightest moxie, the barest ability to navigate the political and legal channels of their city, would rally to right this depravity, including communication with the DOJ to assert the DOJ’s right to intervene on the Lewis murder case by bringing their own charges against the gang thugs, a move that would humiliate the Chicago radicals who have destroyed the criminal justice system in Chicago and their media lapdogs. In doing so, a sense of moral outrage would guide the actions of the FOP.
But the FOP has done little to nothing about this case, and there are no signs they are about to. Has the FOP in Chicago become so pathetic, so weak, so caught up in its internal bickering that it cannot even undertake an action to recharge the gangbanging scumbags for the execution-style murder of one of their own?
The second issue surrounds the allegation by Mette that Catanzara took money from both the Lodge and the state FOP to run for national president, totaling some $20,000. Despite taking the money, Catanzara ended up not running for national president, likely realizing he lacked the political support to do so. When asked about the money, sources say Catanzara claimed he used it to buy T-shirts with the image of slain police officer Ella French on it. Yet sources say Catanzara has not provided any receipt for this purchase, only an invoice.
Has the receipt been turned in? Is the absence of this receipt an issue that the feds are looking at in connection with Catanzara and the board, as well?
It’s a disturbing question, to say the least.
Consider all these issues in the face of the fact that an FOP election is approaching this winter. Rumors abound that Mette will run against Catanzara in that election. Just recently, FOP board members initiated their own charges against Mette, allegedly based on the fact that Mette approved paying for legal defense for an officer in a DUI case.
The approval was made more than a year ago, but charges are emerging only now. There is no accusation that Mette pocketed any money or benefited in any way from the approval. He made a judgment call, as many FOP board members have made in legal defense issues, none of whom have faced similar charges.
And so a question lingers in the dusty, putrid air of Chicago politics. Are the charges against Mette, in fact, politically motivated? Are they aimed not at misconduct but rather at the next election?
How would bringing charges against Mette affect the election? Simple. If Mette is found culpable by the FOP board—the same FOP board that rejected far more ominous charges against Catanzara, charges that seem to have interested federal investigators—Mette could be suspended and therefore become ineligible to run in the next election against Catanzara. With his main opposition sidelined, Catanzara could then glide into his third term as president of the FOP.
FOP members can now stand back and watch with one question lingering: Would the FOP board sustain charges against Mette that would prevent him from running for office and deprive many members the right to a candidate they strongly support simply to commandeer an election victory?
But no. It can’t be.
Not in Chicago.
Martin Preib is a retired Chicago Police officer. An author of three books, The Wagon and Other Stories From the City, Crooked City, and Burn Patterns, Mr. Preib’s written work has also been published in Playboy, Virginia Quarterly Review, New City, and Tin House. For his essay appearing in Virginia Quarterly Review, Mr. Preib was awarded the Staige D. Blackford Award for Nonfiction in 2005. In addition to his role with the City of Chicago, Mr. Preib served as the Second Vice President of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7.