For many years, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) has harbored at​ least two dozen members of the Proud Boys, Three Percenters, and other white supremacist and fascist groups. The scandal, well-documented in the local media and official city investigations, has come and gone from the public view. Two mayors, two police superintendents, two city councils have passed the buck on the issue, and for now there is no resolution in sight.

Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s Mayor, a former Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) organizer, is known for his radical rhetorical flourishes and his attacks on President Donald J. Trump’s policies. Yet, Trump’s fascist allies on the CPD are allowed to continue to serve and, as far as anybody knows, to recruit to their organizations. The Proud Boys and Three Percenters were directly involved — and later pardoned — in the January 6th coup attempt and political violence across the country during the past decade.

Tom Schuba and Dan Mihalopoulos, reported last year on WBEZ, Chicago public radio station, that:

Facing sharp criticism for tolerating officers with ties to extremist groups, the Chicago Police Department implemented new rules earlier this year aimed at barring officers from joining such organizations. But the department’s registry of “criminal and biased organizations” does not list any of the far-right groups officers have associated with, such as the Ku Klux Klan, Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. The document includes 675 gang factions department members are forbidden from joining — but no hate or extremist groups.

The serving Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling, a Johnson appointee, cleared all accused officers, which became public in May 2024. Johnson publicly backed him. This move was criticized by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the respected watchdog research center of the far right. In a letter to Johnson, also signed by several of the Mayor’s closest allies on the city council. The SPLC letter emphasized that many of the cops freely admitted joining the Oath Keepers between 2009 and 2013, when they “were one of the most active and combative antigovernment extremist groups operating in the U.S.”

In February 2025, Johnson formed “a new task force to examine how to rid the Chicago Police Department of........

© CounterPunch