New COPA Chief Administrator Andrea Kersten Addresses Accountability, Botched Raids, Flaws In CPD Body Cam Program
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The Chicago city office in charge of investigating police misconduct has a new leader.
Andrea Kersten has been given the top job at the Civilian Office of Police Accountability. She sat down Thursday with CBS 2 Investigator Dave Savini to talk about some of the challenges.
COPA's new leader said she is up for those challenges – at one of the most challenging times for policing and the public trust.
Savini began by asking Kersten how it made her feel to state her new title of chief administrator for COPA.
Kersten: "Excited. I'm looking forward to continuing to lead this agency as we move forward, and all of our – you know, the gains that we've made over the last almost five years – our five-year anniversary as an agency is coming up in September. And I've been here for all of that, and just look forward to continuing to serve in this role."
Savini: "What do the people of Chicago mean to you?"
Kersten: "I mean, the people of Chicago are why I do what I'm doing, and I think it's why everyone here at COPA does what we are doing. I don't approach this work because I'm working against CPD. In fact…"
Savini: "You have to balance. You have to balance the need for helping the public, but finding truth."
Kersten: "Yes."
Savini: "Where are the flaws?"
Kersten: You know, I think something we focused really hard on as an agency, we came into existence under sort of the pale of the Department of Justice report about the Police Department, as well as its accountability systems – knowing that our predecessor agency had a lot of criticisms about the lack of investigative integrity; the quality and quantity of the work product that was coming out. So sort of our first most clear vision, you know, at COPA here was that we had to ensure strong investigative process and outcomes in our investigations that would withstand a level of scrutiny that they have to whether it's sustained findings or not; whether it's public scrutiny or scrutiny within the process – meaning the superintendent's review and the Department of Law's ability to prosecute them at the Police Board. So we've really spent the first years of as an agency focused – kind of laser-focused, really – on increasing and improving that investigative integrity. I feel we've made tremendous gains in that area. And I look to my tenure as chief administrator to really be about delivering timeliness and these investigations."
Savini: "How do you balance accountability and transparency with the need for the public to know what you're doing in this office when it comes to misconduct among police officers?"
Kersten: "One of our biggest, most signature pieces of our budget for this year. was the creation of a dedicated unit of staff whose sole focus is on providing transparency, whether that's under Freedom of Information Act requests, or the mayor's Executive Order relative to body worn camera evidence."
Savini also addressed some cases involving botched police raids that predated the infamous raid on the home of Anjanette Young. Three years ago, Young was handcuffed naked and terrified in her home by officers pointing guns – but the officers were looking for someone else who didn't live there.
Savini: "There are cases that are still languishing that predated and Anjanette Young's case that haven't come to a conclusion, officers are still on the street haven't been disciplined. And there's body camera footage that shows acts of misconduct happening. What do you say about that?"
Kersten: "We still have a volume issue that makes it hard to just do that across the board starting today."
Savini also asked about the case wrong raid on the family of then-9-year-old Peter Mendez.
A team of Chicago police officers burst into the innocent family's home on Nov. 7, 2017. Guns were pointed and every part of the home was searched.
The children can be seen on police body camera video scared and crying – especially when they saw their dad in handcuffs.
COPA closed its investigation into that raid at the end of January, but has not revealed what it found.
Savini: "Can you say anything about the Mendez case? Will there be findings of misconduct?"
Kersten: "I can't speak to any cases that are under review right now."
Savini further asked about critical breakdowns in accountability the CPD uncovered when it comes to body cameras.
Savini: "There's at least three cases that I'm looking at right now, where the first productions of video were missing body camera footage of officers I could see where there on the scene - critical officers. Who's dropping the ball there?"
Kersten: "We haven't all had this access for that long, and so we've been working with it and learning from it, but that's going to be continuing to improve."
Savini: "Does the body camera footage system need an overhaul?"
Kersten: "I think it's fair to say it's an imperfect system right now, the way that it's utilized by the department."
Kersten said the CPD has to do better at properly matching body cams to all the officers on a scene. She said COPA has reduced its backlog of preliminary investigations from 800 cases to 200.