FOP Lodge 7 president: 'It's going to light up this summer'
Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 president tells AM 560 "The Morning Answer" that a firestorm of violence is brewing in Chicago
CHICAGO, May 11, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Dean Angelo, Sr., president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 in Chicago told AM 560 "The Answer" host Dan Proft with Upstream Ideas that disrespect for police officers in the city is at an unprecedented level and that coupled with poor morale, the current anti-law enforcement climate and the pending trial in the Laquan McDonald case could ignite a firestorm of violence this summer.
"It's going to light up this summer," Angelo said. "I'm worried about this city everyday. It will be accentuated if there is a not-guilty verdict. There is a tension on the streets right now that our officers see everyday when they're out there."
Angelo said politicians who are running anti-police campaigns are just stoking the flames.
"You have individuals who are elected to represent and keep safe their constituents. Some of the attempts they're making on minimizing policing, minimizing proactive policing specifically, is only going to further endanger their own constituents," he said.
The negative reputation plaguing the department has taken a toll on officer morale. As a result, investigative stops are down 90 percent year over year and drug arrests are tracking to be the lowest since the Nixon administration.
"They're just exhausted; they're beat up; they're sick and tired of the brush they're being painted with," he said. "You cannot expect working policemen to take away from their work day and all those calls for service and everything else they do and then throw this on top of them."
Other thoughts that Angelo shared include:
* On the heat the FOP took for hiring Jason Van Dyke, the officer accused of shooting McDonald: "That was my call and I wear that and I would do the same thing tomorrow."
* On the need for more officers : "I think we need a lot more policemen. I think we need a lot more detectives. We have the largest ratio of supervisors to subordinates. It's 14 to 1. Fourteen police officers to every sergeant. That's unheard of."
About Upstream Ideas
Upstream Ideas, under the leadership of Dan Proft – one of Illinois' sharpest political minds, provides expository content with new information and fresh perspectives meant to inform policy discussions, debunk faulty premises and challenge accepted orthodoxies. Proft is one of Chicago's most- respected talk radio personalities and a senior fellow at the Illinois Policy Institute, a free-market think tank. He is also a frequent editorial contributor to the Chicago Tribune.
SOURCE Upstream Ideas
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