Mayor Brandon Johnson’s new task force focused on digging into extremism among employees was met with fierce demands for fast, decisive action at a Sunday town hall after months of pressure from the city’s watchdog and progressives to root out such elements, specifically among Chicago police.
Representatives with the mayor’s office told a roomful of residents and community groups at the West Side gathering that Johnson’s working group would produce recommendations and policies to deal with city employees linked to hate groups. The group was assembled eight months after the city’s Office of the Inspector General recommended in a report last year that the mayor convene a task force.
At the time of the July 2024 report, the mayor’s office did not commit to doing so. It was only last week that the Johnson administration announced a task force that aims to “take a look at the City’s existing policies and make appropriate recommendations to root out anyone who belongs to a hate group.” The group will be co-chaired by Garien Gatewood, deputy mayor of community safety, and Carla Kupe, chief equity officer.
Gatewood touted the mission of the group Sunday as a comprehensive review of city employees across all departments — rather than reviewing the specifics of a now-closed investigation into eight Chicago police officers with purported ties to the Oath Keepers, a far-right and anti-government militia group.
“We’re looking at the entire apparatus, not just what happens in the Police Department. Obviously, there’s always a focal point on the Police Department, because they are the most visible form of government after five o’clock,” Gatewood said. “But the issues that we have in the city, the issues that we have in the country, don’t all lie in one department. They lie in the entire operations of all forms of government. So this is why we have to take a deeper approach and look at every agency that could be impacted.”
But many attendees pressed the deputy mayor on their demands for discipline within the Police Department. They argued that, being the only city employees tasked with public safety, rooting out police officers with extremist ties should be the city’s priority.
“The reality is, the agencies you just mentioned aren’t the ones who are an immediate danger — it is the people who are supposed to protect us,” said Gus Gonzalez, a resident in the 17th police district. “We know who these guys are. We’re not picking up dinosaur bones here, folks; we know who these guys are. They’re there, they’re prominent. … Can the city chew gum and walk at the same time?”
Many said during the town hall that any first steps should include reopening the twice-closed investigation into the CPD officers whose names were leaked in an Oath Keepers membership list.
“They didn’t take any action, and in my view — in all of our views — it’s because CPD knows that would be the tip of the iceberg,” said Faayani Aboma Mijana of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. “CPD knows that there’s a rot so deep in its department that doing that would set a precedent. And I’m not speculating here; we know the decades of history of police torture, wrongful convictions and killings of Black and brown people.”
The alliance is also pushing to take any investigations into police officers with suspected extremist ties away from the Bureau of Internal Affairs and put them in the hands of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, Aboma Mijana said, “because we can’t trust that the police are going to police themselves.”
The push to crack down on extremism in local government comes on the heels of President Donald Trump pardoning all Jan. 6 defendants on his first day in office last month. Gov. JB Pritzker reacted late last month by barring those people from state jobs , but Johnson at the time declined to endorse replicating that move on the city side — despite a campaign promise to do so.
“Active involvement in domestic terrorist organizations should be grounds for immediate dismissal from any city agency,” Johnson posted on X as a mayoral candidate during the second anniversary of Jan. 6. “Mayor Lightfoot must move to terminate the Chicago police officer with ties to the Proud Boys and the attack on the U.S. Capitol two years ago this day.”
Inspector General Deborah Witzburg’s office would later cite that statement in a July 2024 report and write, “to date, the City’s handling of extremism in its police ranks has fallen short of these commitments.” She alleged that Johnson had so far not implemented policies Witzburg called for to eliminate “extremist and anti-government activities and associations within CPD” sparked by the ties of several officers to the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys or Three Percenters.
“Any ongoing mishandling of the matter puts CPD’s public legitimacy at critical risk, and profoundly undermines its effectiveness by damaging the very public trust that the City and the Department are endeavoring to foster,” the report said.
Aldermen have recently begun clamoring for stricter guardrails in place for not just the Police Department but all city government agencies. Last week, Ald. Matt Martin, 47th, introduced a pair of ordinances that would ban Jan. 6 defendants and, more broadly, members of extremist groups from city government, including the Police Department.
Extremism constitutes activities that support the “overthrow” of the U.S. government by violence or other unlawful means, including treason, sedition, insurrection or rebellion, per one of Martin’s ordinances.
His legislation defines “actively participating” in extremist activity as: committing or threatening violence, providing “material support” for extremist groups or individuals, recruiting or training others in extremist activities, fundraising for such groups, “actively demonstrating” or distributing material in support of extremist activities, posting online in support of extremist activities — including “posting, liking, sharing, ‘re-tweeting’” — and more.
Complaints would be referred to the Inspector General, and employees found in violation could be subject to termination.
Martin told the Tribune on Friday that he intends to seek City Council approval of his pair of ordinances “as quickly as possible,” though he added he was pleased that the mayor’s task force was moving ahead.
“It’s been eight months, but I’m glad that it’s finally happening,” Martin said. “If you seek to overthrow a local, state or federal government, you shouldn’t be able to collect a government paycheck at the same time, and I think that’s a commonsense policy.”
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