Of the 79 people who successfully appealed their rejections from the Chicago Police Department:
• • Eighteen were former drug users. A woman said she was a cocaine dealer at age 12. Others gave seemingly far-fetched excuses: One man, whose father is a Chicago Police sergeant, said he was in Mexico and smoked a cigarette but stopped when he realized it was pot. A woman said she only smoked pot in Amsterdam, where it's legal.
• • Five, including a former Calumet Park cop, were arrested on domestic battery charges. One of them admitted hitting his daughter with a watch during a spanking and was accused of abusing a child in the Cook County juvenile detention center. Another man admitted striking his mother.
• • Four were arrested for battery, including a man who slashed someone with a knife in a bar fight, a man who pushed a teacher down a stairwell as a youngster, a bar brawler and a Cook County Jail guard accused of beating an inmate. He kept his jail job after criminal charges were dropped.
• • Six were in the military and ran into disciplinary problems, including a man who admitted he was diagnosed with a personality defect in the Navy, a man with a "troubling history" in the Navy that previously barred him from the Chicago Police Department, a woman who failed to show up for National Guard duty and a man who was absent without leave.
• • Four were rejects from other police departments, including a woman forced to resign from a Michigan department, a man who failed a Milwaukee Police Department background check, a man who failed an Elmhurst police polygraph and a man who failed a Phoenix Police Department polygraph.
• • Three were tied to gangs in the past, including a Cook County correctional officer who said he was a former Two-Sixer and failed to disclose a disorderly conduct arrest.
• • Two were fired from jobs, including a Cook County sheriff's deputy fired from two security jobs.
• • Two were relatives of crooks, including a woman whose husband is a convicted murderer and member of the Vice Lords street gang.
• • Others were involved in theft, reckless driving, turnstile jumping and underage drinking.
• • Three were endorsed by aldermen despite prior problems with the law. Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. (27th) backed a woman arrested for impeding a shooting investigation; Ald. Helen Shiller (46th) vouched for a man who threatened to shoot someone, and Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th) supported a man who sold drugs in the late 1990s.
Some of these things I can see waivering. Minor juvenile offenses? So what. Assault, impeding, fired from other departments? No. These people should not even be considered for law enforcement.
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