Punished by FOP for kneeling in protest

[GMDino]

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/criminal-justice/ct-met-fop-suspension-officer-protest-20211006-clzni3yucvgl5jjsicqyk3dpcq-story.html

Quote:Chicago police Officer Carmella Means sounds like the kind of member a union would like to have — she knows the contract and advises others on how to hold police bosses accountable to it, filing grievances when necessary.


But Means was instead suspended from the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 for challenging the organization in a public protest outside its headquarters, taking issue with what she thought was a discriminatory and wrongheaded position leaders had taken on officers who knelt to denounce police brutality.

In 2020, after John Catanzara, the lodge president, promised to suspend or even dismiss from the union any officer who knelt during protests, Means, who is Black, felt she had to respond.

She took a knee herself, in uniform with one arm raised, outside of the union’s headquarters on a Sunday afternoon on her lunch break.


“Kneeling to take a stand against racism, injustice and police brutality. #blacklivesmatter,” read her post alongside the photo on Facebook.


A post on Chicago police Officer Carmella Means' Facebook page showing her kneel outside the headquarters of the Fraternal Order of Police on June 15, 2020. (Jerome Rochelle)

The 26-year officer eventually was handed a six-month suspension by the union. She appealed it to the state FOP office, but was denied, and also notified the union’s national office.

Now, even with the suspension over, Means remains committed to reversing it, saying it was completely unjustified.


“Unfortunately, on this job, a lot of us have that mentality, if you criticize the police you are anti-police, you hate the police,” she said. “Really? I am pro-police because I want it to be better.”


Meanwhile, Catanzara is facing his own controversy: Next month he faces firing from his job as a police officer on 18 department charges, including that he made comments on social media that investigators deemed offensive and incendiary. Unrelated to the charges, Catanzara also faced national scorn for public comments he made, and later apologized for, downplaying the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.


A time of protest
The May 2020 killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer sparked a tumultuous summer of protests over policing in America.


Diverse crowds massed across the country, calling for major overhauls in policing, if not outright defunding of departments.


While protests in Chicago were largely peaceful, there were physical clashes between officers and citizens. Some police around the country, including here, also knelt alongside protesters while in uniform.
Catanzara had a strong reaction.


“Any member of Lodge 7 who is going to take a knee and basically side with protesters while they’re in uniform will subject themselves to discipline in the lodge up to and including expulsion from Lodge 7,” Catanzara said to WGN.


Means was home when she saw Catanzara’s remarks. Catanzara’s promise of a sanction for officers who took a knee immediately troubled her because Catanzara himself had posed in front of a Chicago police car in uniform, demonstrating his own political views by holding a sign expressing support for the national anthem, the American flag and the Second Amendment and saying he supported his president.


John Catanzara holds up a pro-police flag as members of the Fraternal Order of Police and their supporters clash with counterprotesters in Chicago's Loop on April 1, 2019. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

Means decided to kneel at FOP headquarters as a way to tell its leadership she thought they were silencing officers who want an end to police brutality in Black communities. And that officers taking such a position was not really a matter for the union to try to block.


She went to FOP headquarters June 15 of last year with a few close friends, and as she knelt, one took the picture.  She went home and posted it on Facebook. She said she didn’t hesitate much because she was confident in her position.


On June 26, Means was notified that a complaint was filed against her for “violating the preamble of the FOP Constitution and By Laws.”


The letter noted that she had posted a picture of herself kneeling outside the union headquarters.


“Your actions failed to create an esprit ensuring fidelity and failed to create a spirit of fraternalism and mutual helpfulness among our members,” reads the letter from the FOP lodge, a copy of which Means gave to the Tribune.


Complaint from within
The officer who filed the complaint, Frederick Collins, a 28-year department member, told the Tribune that he filed it because Means had expressed solidarity with Black Lives Matter while in uniform outside her union headquarters. Further, he had concerns she was not remaining neutral in her role as a police officer.


Collins, a Black officer who has run for political office — including for mayor against Rahm Emanuel — said he considers Black Lives Matter to be “anti-law and order,” based on verbal and physical attacks he has faced at protests.


He attributed the comments to the movement because he saw the phrase on clothing and heard protesters chanting it. He also questions whether the movement is helping the Black community on other issues, such as gun violence.


Collins, who said he has been involved in Chicago civil rights organizations and considers himself a community activist, said if Means had knelt simply to protest police brutality or racism, he would not have taken issue.
“I support anybody voicing their opinions,” he said. “I am 100% for that.”


When asked about Catanzara’s own history of expressing his political views, Collins said he has “disagreed” with him about some of his comments and that they have spoken about it.


“Some of his political stuff is better kept to himself,” Collins said.


He noted Catanzara apologized on Facebook for his comments about the Capitol riot.


Catanzara, reached Monday, said the union doesn’t consider discipline of officers often. And he acknowledged he faced his own complaint after his comments about the events at the Capitol.


The allegations, that he brought discredit on the department, were unfounded, Catanzara said, because they were “meritless.”


As for Means, Catanzara said the complaint stemmed from her defiance of a leadership position, with the union deciding that “those kinds of acts against the lodge were not fraternal and were not going to be tolerated.”


“Officer Means took it upon herself to challenge the statement and the policy,” he said. “She basically dared us to take action. A member took her up on that dare. … She clearly was trying to make a public statement and challenge the position. Her bluff got called and there (are) repercussions for that kind of behavior.”


When asked for more details on what part of Means’ protest warranted the suspension, Catanzara abruptly hung up on a Tribune reporter, saying he had meetings to attend.


‘Tremendous power’
In the past two years, as policing in the country has faced sharp, sustained criticism and pressure to change, police unions have pushed back hard, often speaking against reform and challenging elected officials.
Their support for conservative political candidates has also continued, including with funding.


That makes the Chicago FOP position on Means curious, said Kirk Burkhalter, a former New York City Police Department detective and law professor at New York Law School.


“Unions themselves are very, very much political animals,” said Burkhalter, who is also director of the reform organization 21st Century Policing Project. “It’s not a problem with the police officer taking a political stance. It appears to be a problem with the police officer taking a stance that is counter (to the union).”


Burkhalter and others also challenged the initial, underlying assumptions that led to criticism of Means for kneeling or pledging support for Black Lives Matter.


“These protests that we saw, BLM, are about a group of people who perceive they have not been treated fairly and want to be treated fairly,” he said.


Police unions, he offered, could be part of a solution as departments try to strike this delicate balance of keeping communities safe while restoring trust in law enforcement.


“Unions have such tremendous power,” he said. “And they certainly would have an ability to inspire change.”


Fight not over
On Dec. 10, six months after the complaint was filed against her, the union contacted Means to see if she could appear for a hearing later that month. Her attorney, Victor Henderson, responded by asking which specific rule she had broken.


Catanzara’s reply was that a Dec. 28 hearing was set and that attorneys could not participate, according to letters Means provided to the Tribune.


After more back-and-forth on the schedule, the union set and refused to move a Jan. 8, 2021, date even though Means had a doctor’s appointment and she had offered up three alternatives. She ultimately did not take part.


“They were uncompromising, didn’t want to work with me,” Means told the Tribune, calling them “totally unaccommodating.”


Chicago police Officer Carmella Means was suspended for six months from the FOP union for kneeling in protest outside its headquarters. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

Means was notified on Feb. 10 that a panel of three board members had met, that Collins testified and that she was suspended for six months. The letter also said the board of directors had already approved the suspension.
Means notified city FOP officials on Feb. 27 she intended to appeal, and they directed her to the state FOP office. She contacted it on March 10.


When Means eventually appealed, she was told she had failed to file within the required 30 days — a deadline she said she had not been told existed.


Means and her lawyer contend that even though she was not aware of the deadline, their paperwork was still filed within that window. The Illinois FOP did not immediately return messages seeking comment.


She has since been told she can appeal at the FOP’s next state convention. That is in 2022, and Henderson said the union has not informed him how that process works. Means has also appealed to the national FOP for help, writing to alert them she felt a local chapter had discriminated against her because she is Black.


Means also said at one point she was told of a department complaint against her for the kneeling, but that there had been no follow-up.


Henderson said the suspension can be challenged for failing to cite which of the union’s rules or duties they allege she violated.


But he also said Means was ready to defend her decision to kneel and her support of Black Lives Matter, which he equated with the civil rights movement.


Means questions whether the union has sanctioned officers who support any other causes, including some that have drawn labels from organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League.


“Black Lives Matter or the movement is not trying to overthrow the government,” Means said. “It is trying to expose systemic racism.”


Henderson, however, said it was the difficulty Means faced from the start, from negotiating a hearing date to filing an appeal, that troubles him the most.


“At every turn (union leaders) disregarded their own procedures because they could,” he said. “If that is how they treat their own members and that is their mindset, that does not bode well for the public.”

Meanwhile John Catanzara was at one point suspended, an amazing history of complaints against him , and this past summer compared vaccine mandates to the holocausts. 

Chicago is a mess and the problems run the gamut from top to bottom, left to right.