GOOD QUESTION: How Can You Be a Cop in a City That Hates You?

There might be no city in America that monitors its police force more than Chicago. There are at least six oversight agencies scrutinizing the department’s every move. There are even 22 civilian councils—one for each police district—tasked with moving grievances up the chain. Plus, noncitizens—“regardless of immigration status”—get to contribute their “perspectives and experiences” through a first-of-its-kind Noncitizen Advisory Council. Then there is the fact that since 2019, the department has been under a 236-page federal consent decree. That followed a lawsuit won by Black Lives Matter Chicago and other activist groups.

A lawyer who helped represent BLM Chicago told me the group has a “direct role in shaping oversight” of the police department’s reform process. The NAACP also has “intervention authority,” the lawyer said.

Given all of that, perhaps it is no surprise that Chicago police are struggling with a suicide rate that was more than 60 percent higher than the national average, according to a 2017 report from the Justice Department.

Through public records requests, The Free Press was able to uncover that 53 officers, including 12 retirees, have committed suicide in the past decade. The situation is much worse than previously thought, with past estimates putting the figure at “more than 30 police employees.” The Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago, which distributes police pensions, told me that one out of every five deaths they logged since 2015 was a suicide.

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