Chicago’s Inspector General Deborah Witzburg has asked state regulators to ban several Chicago police officers from the force after investigators discovered their ties to a right-wing extremist group.
In May, amid public outcry from Black faith leaders, Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said he would recommend termination, or discipline nine police officers who were found to have ties to Oath Keepers, a group accused of racist behavior, and whose members were convicted for their involvement in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The Southern Poverty Law Center named Oath Keepers a hate group.
The nine active-duty Chicago officers who appeared on the Oath Keepers data are Sgt. Michael Nowacki, Detective Anthony Keany, and Officers Phillip Singto, Alberto Retamozo, Matthew Bracken, Bienvenido Acevedo, Dennis Mack, Alexander Kim and John Nicezyporuk.
Witzburg, on Chicago ABC 7, did not provide names of the officers but a new Illinois law is allowing her to recommend state regulators de-certify several CPD officers.
Witzburg told ABC7 she has sent the names and alleged misdeeds of those officers to the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board, headquartered in Springfield.
According to the agency, the new law allows Inspectors General to ask that officers be defrocked for verified excessive force, tampering with official body or dash cam footage, evidence tampering and lying, and any other unprofessional or unethical conduct harmful to the public.
“In order to serve as a police officer in any department in Illinois, a person must be certified as eligible to do so by the State of Illinois,” Witzburg said.
“We have highlighted situations in which CPD members have been allowed to keep their jobs in the department despite having been found to violate the police department’s rule against false reports. Lying is specifically a category which is eligible for discretionary decertification. We take those cases very seriously. People who lie in reports should not continue to serve as police officers.”
As the I-Team first reported nearly two years ago, at least a dozen CPD officers have been linked to the Proud Boys, and Oath Keepers.
Witzburg won’t say whether they could have headed off state involvement in a city matter. One upside to decertification by Illinois officials: the action extends across Illinois and prevents bad officers from losing their job in one city only to find employment in another.
Witzburg has slammed previous CPD investigations into officers linked to the Oath Keepers and two other extremist groups that include the Proud Boys and Three Percenters.
Questions remain about Snelling’s decision after he vowed at a City Council meeting last October there would be “thorough investigations” into the officers and promised to “remove those members from our ranks.”
At that same meeting, Snelling also told Council members, “It serves the Chicago Police Department in no way, in no way good, to have members amongst our Department who are filled with bias, or members of hate groups.”
But Snelling on May 3 said the officers would not be punished. CPD released a statement saying, “We can confirm the investigation is closed and the allegations were not sustained.”
A WBEZ and Sun-Times investigation found 27 current and former Chicago police officers whose names appeared in leaked Oath Keepers’ membership records. Nine remained on active duty and some have troubling disciplinary histories, the joint investigation found.
Chicago Police Internal Affairs came under heavy criticism for its light treatment of Officer Robert Bakker, who lied to investigators about his close ties to the neofascist Proud Boys, another group involved in the 2021 Capitol riot.
Bakker was initially suspended for five days. But in November 2020, Witzburg wrote a letter asking the case to be reopened after investigators had overlooked incriminating evidence and noted that Bakker had made “inconsistent statements” to the FBI as well as the Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau.
Bakker ultimately entered into a mediation agreement and was suspended for 120 days, drawing criticism from alderpersons and activists who called for his dismissal.
According to the WBEZ Sun-Times investigation, another officer, Nowacki, got a three-day suspension in 2007 after he told Englewood community activist Deborah Payne’s email request for charitable donations, “I have no desire to help inner city poor people.” Payne called for Nowacki to be fired after learning of his Oath Keepers’ ties.
Nicezyporuk, another officer on the Oath Keepers’ list, was accused by Black men of using racial slurs during two traffic stops. He denied it and was not disciplined. In one case, Nicezyporuk’s accuser said the incident on the West Side in 2014 left him “scared to be around white people like that …. especially white cops.”