Chicago Police Officer Breaks His Silence

Get ready for a rare and candid interview with a Chicago police officer and Federalist Staff Writer Evita Duffy-Alfonso. They discuss the surge of violence, political corruption, gun control, Black Lives Matter, and rap music. To protect the officer’s safety and his job, he has been granted anonymity. Note that this transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Police Officer (PO): I’ve been living in Chicago my entire life. I actually did not want to become a police officer growing up, but I think engaging with the police on various occasions played a role in me becoming the police at a later time. 

When I was in college, there was a recession, so I had to choose a career where I could actually pay back a lot of those loans and things. Plus, I thought law enforcement would be a great opportunity for me to improve the community, so I ended up being involved in law enforcement. I’ve been an officer for 10 years. 

Changing the Music to Make Chicago Safer

Evita Duffy-Alfonso (ED): As an officer now, how would you say safety and crime in the city is and maybe compare it to when you first started out?

PO: I think crime has definitely gotten worse since I’ve been an officer for a variety of reasons. I think it’s people failing to prosecute and the offenders continuing to commit crimes. Education plays a role, as well. If a person is not getting a proper education at their local schools, that affects a person’s ability to be productive, and they’re more likely to get involved in criminal activity. 

One of the main ways I think we can make Chicago safer is to change the music that our children are listening to and try to find a way to stop a lot of these big music organizations and executives from exploiting our children to promote their own destruction. And I say that in regard to rap music or a specific sector, drill music.

So let’s just say you’re part of a gang, and I’m a part of a gang, and we’re both rapping, but we are in opposition to one another. I rap about your group, you rap about mine, but my group comes and kills someone from your side. And then I rap about it. I mock killing your loved one or your best friend, or a person in your gang. You get back on the same song or different song, and now you rap about retaliating — coming to kill someone that means something to me, and it just goes back and forth.

And a lot of these executives, they come into our low-income communities, and they say, ‘Oh, man, this guy got 5,000 or 10,000 likes on his song, let me give him $1,000,000 to rap about that stuff at a bigger level,’ so people around the country can listen.

Kim Foxx and the Failure to Prosecute

ED: Kim Foxx has caught a lot of flak for dropping cases. Some of the cases that people are really upset about are murder accusations, sex crimes, attacks on police officers, and people accused of shooting other people. How do you think Kim Foxx has done as the D.A.? 

PO: I really didn’t feel the effects of Kim Foxx’s policies until they started affecting me personally. Without saying too much, I know someone that was the victim of a murder, and the detectives were able to get substantial evidence to present to the state’s attorney in order to prosecute the case. However, in court, the case was rejected for what I feel would be minor or minimum reasons. And as a result, that person, the offender, remains unarrested and free to walk the streets as he will.

I felt like that was very unfair to the family of the victim, especially when there was substantial evidence — what I felt would have been beyond a reasonable doubt — to prove that person committed the crime and should be arrested.

The Problem with Banning Semi-Automatic Weapons

ED: J.B. Pritzker passed a law banning semi