Today, a vote will be held on whether to investigate alleged bias in the Chicago Police Oversight Board

A board of supervisors is scheduled to vote Monday on whether to ask the city’s independent oversight agency to investigate whether the Civilian Office of Police Accountability conducted biased investigations, the Sun-Times has learned.

Without providing details, the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability announced that its newly installed leadership would vote at 6:30 p.m. Monday “on a motion to recommend an investigation (by the Office of the Inspector General).”

According to sources, more than six people – none of whom spoke to each other – made “consistent” and “credible” allegations of bias in COPA’s investigation.

“We are aware that the commission has scheduled a public meeting for this evening,” Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said in an interview. “We look forward to any recommendation that comes from the commission. We look forward to working with them. We have no further comment at this time.”

A COPA spokesman declined to comment.

The vote comes after Police Commissioner Larry Snelling repeatedly criticized COPA chief Andrea Kersten’s handling of the investigation into the fatal police shooting involving Dexter Reed. Reed was killed in a volley of bullets in March after injuring an emergency officer.

Snelling’s dispute initially centered on COPA’s decision to publish a letter from Kersten urging the superintendent to relieve the officers involved in the shooting of their police powers. In the letter, Kersten questioned whether the officers had lied about the reason for the traffic stop that led to the shooting.

The dispute escalated in April at a Chicago Police Board meeting when Snelling criticized Kersten’s report on the shooting as “misleading at best.”

“I have not made any statements about this because I do not want to poison the atmosphere surrounding this shooting,” Snelling said, adding that COPA “does not exist to create bias” and warning that any possible wrongdoing “compromises the integrity of this investigation.”

John Catanzara, president of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, sharply criticized Kersten’s “insane disciplinary recommendations” in a YouTube video on Sunday and called on the commission to “do something about it.”

However, sources said the commission’s vote had “absolutely nothing to do with” the FOP’s long-standing allegations of bias.

The police union had previously sharply criticized COPA’s investigation into the explosive allegations that Chicago police officers were guilty of sexual assault against immigrants. Catanzara called the investigation a “witch hunt” and it was eventually closed without any wrongdoing being found.

While the investigation was ongoing in July 2023, Kersten sent a letter to Catanzara claiming that a union official had called COPA Vice Chair Sharday Jackson, inquiring about the status of the investigation and threatening to file a complaint against her with the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.

Catanzara immediately countered, arguing that the union official had not threatened Jackson but merely wanted to find out whether COPA was complying with its own rules and the collective agreement.

Catanzara raised concerns that a COPA investigator contacted an officer’s former partner “under the pretense” of investigating another disciplinary case. He claimed the investigator eventually began asking questions about migrants that “were unrelated to the stated purpose of the call.”

Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times

Weeks after the heated exchange between Kersten and Catanzara, Inspector General Witzburg received a letter, allegedly from “several concerned COPA employees,” raising alarm about the agency’s investigative tactics in the case. These allegations are only a “very small” part of the broader allegations that prompted the commission to vote, a source said.

In her first report as inspector general in June 2022, Witzburg warned that COPA and the police department’s Bureau of Internal Affairs lacked policies to ensure that officers accused of misconduct receive fair and consistent punishments.

The letter accused Jackson and lead investigator Kimberly Edstrom-Schiller of instructing staff to document investigative steps in a document outside the agency’s case management system “to streamline communications and ensure that only select information becomes part of the official file.”

Jackson, Edstrom-Schiller and other senior COPA officials also failed to properly document “confidential conversations with witnesses” and others involved in the investigation, the letter said. And Jackson and Edstrom-Schiller allegedly asked staff to record similar statements.

Kersten had previously said the union’s actions amounted to an “inappropriate attempt to interfere in the investigation.” She also rejected the whistleblowers’ allegations and said she welcomed a review of the COPA investigation.

“I think the work speaks for itself,” she said.