>> The agency charged with investigating Chicago police misconduct is getting new leadership.

It comes as Andrea Kirsten, the former leader of the civilian Office of Police, Accountability or Copa has resigned.

The move happened after the city's police oversight board.

The Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability issued a letter to Kirsten saying they were planning to take a vote of no confidence in her leadership.

The office says it identified, quote, critical failures of leadership that seriously undermine the quality and integrity of Cooper's work.

Kristen slammed the allegations as unfair and unfounded.

Joining us now, our Anthony driver, president of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability and military.

The commission's vice-president.

Welcome back to you both.

Thank you for joining us.

goodness.

Anthony.

Let's start with you.

Please.

Should Chicagoans be concerned that the city's police accountability system has failed?

Well, I think Chicagoans should know we're doing our job actually working.

>> The commission when it was created was tasked with overseeing the police report Co players the Chicago Police Department.

So we're doing our jobs Chicago should know that, you know, we're behind the and we're going to make sure we get this right.

>> What more do you think could have been done to improve some of the concerns that you had a before coming to the point of no confidence vote?

Well, I wouldn't say that things could have been done to improve.

thing is that there were there are employees who worked for culpa, who just will decide to come forward.

Complaints are commission.

We heard them out.

We talked to some of them are valid and we were moving in that direction.

We did not take a vote of no confidence.

You Commissioner Kirsten, you know, she resigned.

so now our task is to find the right person to lead the agency in a future military.

How would you describe the working relationship between your agency CCPS a and COPPA?

>> Well, I think that we have a very good relationship in terms of the fact that the employees there feel comfortable enough to come forward and speak to us.

I think that says a lot, especially with a lot of the things that we learned in our process of having these conversations with the employees who came forth as well as with Chief Carson.

So I think we're excited about an opportunity to have new leadership, one that we can be very clear about the expectations that they will be held to and that this commission will not take take our eye off the prize in terms of holding people accountable, no matter which were only serve.

just so our viewers know what were some of the complaints of those employees came to with?

There concerns related to having information around patterns in practice investigations that were not sort of move forward within the department, which is a beak responsibility of the department.

There are also concerns about, you know, failures to hold people accountable when actions were taken in.

Even in conversation, we learned that some of that has been corroborated.

So we were very intentional in not just hearing things but ensuring that we had everyone waiting in one ear positions and made decision from there.

Your letter on the criticize public statements that former coca leadership made about pending investigations, specifically the decks to reach shooting.

>> What was said that the commission considered crossing the object.

I want >> There is information that was put out.

That was president percent presented as You know, there's no way to know that there were 5 people on the scene day.

5 officers who stopped next to reading and obviously tax to rid himself.

Who was president.

Those are the only people who can say definitively why they pulled him over.

If you hear that from someone else that wasn't on the scene who may have come later, even if true, even if it's something that you heard from somebody else, it's hearsay.

So until you can verify that, we believe that that's not something that put been put forward unless that was verified by someone who was on the scene.

>> Okay.

Andrew Person, she also sent a response letter claiming that she believes that she was treated unfairly.

It reads in part, quote, Now that chief administrator has finally begun fulfilling these mandates that became enshrined in the consent decree to do the hard things that the city asked of it.

has apparently decided that it wishes the Copa and the city's accountability system retreat from this reform pathway has rendered one of the hardest jobs in the city in city government even more difficult.

Anthony, what's your response to that?

>> You know, I respect you, Commissioner Kirsten, her pay not just because patently false.

He's not we're commission.

That was to to have accountability.

And unless, you know, the officers who are going through this process believe that the process was fair and the citizens need to know that if and officers doing something wrong, they were taken off the street.

That is our responsibility.

These are not pro account all pro accountability.

Folks are are anti police focused.

It's a multitude of folks over 10% of the workforce civilian office of Police accountability came forward.

Allegations and they were hurt.

If that's the case.

I would ask her why the people that you promote promoting multiple times, people who are in your inner circle, people who you hired.

Why did they feel need to come forward of everything was going so well.

And to be clear, you just said that 10% of the staff at more than 10% agency had complaints about leadership.

initially there was only >> a few folks.

And we just referred that.

You'd expect General best a body that this is appropriately handle that because the fact finding a distributor to Chicago.

>> What happened with after 2 people who were whistleblowers were fired after coming forward.

It created avalanche were more and more and more people start to come forward with their stories.

>> Less October, arching reported Copa found a pattern of undocumented aggressive traffic stops on the city's west side a year before the decks to reach shooting that we've already discussed, but took no action.

If the chief administrator had done her job differently at the time, would read still be alive, had something had flag raised.

>> We you know, we can't predict the future.

What would actually occur, but it would be good to know that that was actually being, you know, taking action was being taken on this sort of scenario, right?

Because that's serious information that should have been moved forward that we eventually learned was not just with that particular police district.

What other tech with teens and no action had been taking in.

So those are significant concerns for us.

And really hinders stance higher accountability system.

>> If you know something is wrong, you ever think that, you something is wrong.

You're the oversight agency.

You have a responsibility to bring that Ford had that come forward.

We can't whether or not Mr. Reid still be still be here with us today.

Ahead, the agency come forward with these complaints.

We would have been been able to do our job to hold the superintendent of police Department accountable.

You can't do that don't have any knowledge of what happened.

>> And what did you learn about how the city's police accountability system is functioning based on your examination of persons tenure there?

Well, I think there's a lot of checks and balances, right?

so that's essentially what the as we're body that oversees 3 different agencies within the city.

There's a multitude agencies in city Chicago.

Some people call it a convoluted.

But I think this is an instance where it actually shows that the process is working.

>> Where if one thing fails, there's a fail-safe to make sure that that can be corrected.

>> You also say the problem is not just a couple leadership but also systematic problems.

What else do you think needs to be?

>> did all those those comments were every guards to the consent decree specifically, but that this is not, you know, as I said before this, do Chicago Police Department is not in the consent decree.

The city of Chicago is on the consent decree.

That means the mayor's office, human resources, the commission koper the OIG PSA.

I can keep going on a lot.

All of those folks are responsible for ensuring the consent decree.

It's carried out invest far.

The narrative only been on the Chicago Police Department and I'm okay with that.

But I will say and so the city of Chicago in all the entities are supported bison to the consent decree will never come from under.

>> City data Rimmel shows the taxpayers spend at least 107 million dollars to resolve lawsuits alleging Chicago police misconduct in 2024.

43% more than in 2023.

Do you think your office is doing enough to reduce police misconduct which would then reduce the cost to taxpayers?

I think that we're on a path to address all of these concerns as president driver has pointed out, right?

We are still fairly new commission.

And I think that we've had a lot of success.

We are very proud of the selection of superintendent selling.

>> We do stand behind a lot of the initiatives that he's implementing.

And I do believe that we'll see a change in the tide and a lot of the concerns.

But those things take time.

So if there's an expectation that overnight, we're going to see a significant decrease.

We would all love that.

That's what we're pushing for.

However, we understand that slow drips, can, you know, create a water.

And also at there's a lack.

>> All right.

So cases are being predate start of a happening now.

they are pretty day our commission.

Yes, before we're even know existed.

And speaking of timing and we're almost out of it.

But what is the timeline for finding a new leader of c-pac?

So we're in the process of developing and hiring a search firm, but internal goal and what we will say is that we're hoping to have this