City IG: CPD officers need training, formal agreement to work in CPS schools

Chicago Police Department officers are working in 75 Chicago Public Schools without specific or sufficient training on dealing with young people - and neither agency keeps track of which officers are working where, the city's inspector general has found.

Schools and police officials must also hammer out a current agreement outlining the roles and responsibilities of such "school resource officers," emphasizing that school officers should not get involved in routine student disciplinary matters, Deputy Inspector General Joseph Lipari wrote in a letter introducing the 44-page report published Thursday. The last such agreement expired at the end of 2016, leaving no legal framework in place.

"OIG has concluded that CPD's recruitment, selection, placement, training, specification of roles and responsibilities, and evaluations of its SROs assigned to CPS are not sufficient to ensure officers working in schools can successfully execute their specialized duties," Lipari wrote to Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the city council.

Neither agency could provide a current, accurate list of which officers are assigned to which schools.

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