Chicago PD Supt. Eddie Johnson Fired: He 'Intentionally Misled the People of Chicago,' Mayor Says

Nick Kangadis | December 2, 2019
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Chicago Police Department (CPD) Superintendent Eddie Johnson must have seen the writing on the wall concerning his tenure, because he announced he was retiring November 7th. But, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced that Johnson wouldn’t be heading towards his retirement without a little help.

Johnson was fired on Monday.

Lightfoot said during a “hastily-called City Hall news conference” that Johnson had lied to her concerning the October 17th incident in which Johnson was found slumped over and passed out in his vehicle. Johnson claimed that he had “a couple of drinks” during dinner. He reportedly had dismissed his driver for the evening and attempted to drive himself home.

"The findings...make it clear that Eddie Johnson engaged in conduct that is not only unbecoming, but demonstrated a series of ethical lapses and flawed decision making that is inconsistent with having the privilege of leading the Chicago Police Department," Lightfoot said at the press conference, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

According to the Sun-Times, Lightfoot hasn’t said what lies were told or what she had learned from the findings of a recent inspector general’s report:

Lightfoot refused to say what she learned from the inspector general’s report and from bodycam video of the incident that she didn’t already know on the day she told the Sun-Times the superintendent had been drinking. She said only: “The facts I know now are fundamentally different than the facts I knew then.”

Under repeated questioning, the mayor hinted strongly at some kind of a smoking gun that made the facts she already knew infinitely worse.

Johnson had also been in the news recently following being called out by President Donald Trump in late October for being the top cop in a city whose violence had become, according to Trump, “embarrassing to us as a nation.”

The 60-year-old responded to Trump by basically talking about the work the CPD has done to bring down crime numbers over the last three years and that he didn’t “need to respond to him,” referring to Trump.

It looks like Johnson can now retire early.

For video of the announcement, watch below:

 

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