See if you can defend your brethren here, Manimal!
CHICAGO Seven police officers here will be disciplined for failing to detect a 14-year-old boys impersonation of a police officer for five hours, including driving a patrol car and pulling a suspects arm behind his back so officers could handcuff him.
The Chicago police superintendent, Jody P. Weis, said Tuesday that an internal investigation into the teenagers charade uncovered troubling lapses in department policy and that the seven officers had violated department rules. The officers will remain on duty until the final disciplinary action, which could range from a verbal reprimand to dismissal, is determined, Mr. Weis said.
The fact that this happened at all is outrageous, he said. Fortunately, a lot of tragic things that could have happened did not.
Mr. Weis said the teenager slipped past officers at the Grand Crossing police station on the South Side on Jan. 24, arriving in a store-bought uniform with neither a badge nor identification. The impersonation ended at 7:40 p.m. when the teenagers identity was questioned and he was arrested.
The teenager, who was released from juvenile detention on Friday after pleading not guilty to impersonating an officer, is being kept under electronic monitoring at home.
He was caught by a supervisor who recognized the boy was not who he claimed to be, Mr. Weis said. The other officers were either not paying attention or perhaps they were just too relaxed.
Citing the confidentiality of personnel matters, Mr. Weis said the names of the officers would not be made public.
Last month, Mr. Weis appeared at City Hall before an outraged Mayor Richard M. Daley and aldermen, vowing that the internal investigation, which included 150 interviews with department personnel, would help prevent the breach in police security from happening again. Mr. Weis said all officers in the department would receive additional training in dealing with impersonations.
The Chicago police have already arrested eight people this year on charges of impersonating a police officer and made 24 such arrests in 2008.
The police have also warned drivers to be wary of suspicious vehicles with flashing lights, after a recent report from a woman who said three men impersonating police officers in the Humboldt Park neighborhood tried to sexually assault her after asking her to pull over into an alley.
We are a little more hypersensitive about this problem, but its not an epidemic, Mr. Weis said.
The department has posted the photographs of the accused police impersonators on its Web site, www.chicagopolice.org, with the exception of the 14-year-old.