CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago police are investigating sexual misconduct allegations towards officials involving a migrant who used to be dwelling in a police station after arriving within the metropolis, Chicago’s police oversight company mentioned Friday.
The Chicago Police Division mentioned in an e mail despatched past due Thursday that the dept’s bureau of interior affairs, in addition to the Civilian Place of job of Police Duty, had opened an investigation into allegations involving an officer or officials, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Chicago is one of the U.S. towns suffering to offer refuge and different assist to loads coming back from the southern border, with households slumbering in police station lobbies. Migrants, in large part from Central American international locations, had been bused to Chicago and different primary U.S. towns from Texas because the spring.
The Civilian Place of job of Police Duty mentioned in a commentary Friday morning that the investigation started Thursday after it realized of a sexual misconduct allegation involving “contributors” of the Chicago Police Division and “a migrant briefly housed on the police station” within the division’s tenth District at the metropolis’s West Facet.
After notifying the police division’s interior affairs bureau of the allegations, interior affairs then “officially opened this investigation,” the COPA commentary added.
“Whilst COPA investigators are lately figuring out whether or not the information and main points of this allegation are substantiated, we wish to guarantee the general public that every one allegations of this nature are of the perfect precedence and COPA will transfer abruptly to deal with any misconduct by means of the ones concerned,” spokesman Ephraim Eaddy mentioned within the commentary.
A Chicago Police Division spokesperson didn’t cope with the Tribune’s questions on whether or not any officials have been stripped in their police powers.
The dep. additionally didn’t reply Friday to questions from The Related Press in quest of to verify whether or not any officials have been reprimanded.
The Chicago Police Division, in accordance with questions from The Related Press, referred the AP to a commentary pronouncing handiest that, “Those allegations are beneath investigation with CPD’s Bureau of Interior Affairs and the Civilian Place of job of Police Duty.”
COPA mentioned in its Friday commentary that, “this investigation is ongoing, and all data is initial.”
A spokesperson for the workplace of Mayor Brandon Johnson instructed the Chicago Tribune that “town takes those allegations, in addition to the care and well-being of all citizens and new arrivals, very severely.”
A message in quest of further remark at the allegations used to be left Friday morning by means of the AP for the mayor’s workplace.
Since August 2022, about 11,000 migrants have arrived in Chicago, in step with Cristina Pacione-Zayas, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s deputy leader of team of workers, who addressed Chicago Town Council contributors on June 28.
Lots of the ones migrants have discovered themselves in quest of refuge in Chicago police stations, as town has struggled to seek out good enough housing for them.
Since April, each and every of Chicago’s 22 district police stations — at the side of a number of different city-owned or another way unused constructions — have turn out to be a short lived house for loads of migrants, every now and then drawing the ire of native citizens.