Oak Park’s board of trustees voted to give the village’s citizen’s police oversight committee a role in the after-the-fact investigation into the multi-agency police response to the large crowds of teenagers in downtown Oak Park on Halloween night.
The board voted 6-1 Tuesday, Nov. 11 to pass a motion directing CPOC to be part of the investigation into the incident. Community members had called for an investigation after River Forest police officers deployed multiple rounds of pepper balls in two locations in downtown Oak Park after Oak Park police called for help controlling a crowd of some 500 teens and young people after reports of fighting and shots fired in the area.
An after-action investigation into the events of the evening would’ve occurred no matter which way the board voted on if CPOC had a role in it, Village Manager Kevin Jackson said. The original motion by Trustee Chibuike Enyia had been for CPOC to review the incident and report back to the board.
“One of the things that’s critically important is that we get clear information out to the trustees and the public about what occurred and how our system works,” he said.
The move to include CPOC in the process comes after the village board voted over the summer to accept a consultant’s report that laid the groundwork for reshaping how the volunteer oversite board operates, eventually giving the body more responsibility and village staff support. The village will likely sign another contract with Pivot, the consultant who developed the CPOC report the board accepted this year, to support the committee as a “professional facilitator” in its role in the investigation, Jackson said.
Oak Park Village President Vicki Scaman said that the investigation is intended to help village leaders learn from how the night played out and provide answers to residents.
“This is about us and our review,” she said. “Truly for all of us to be able to wrap our brains around not just what the police are going through but how the whole situation unfolded. A third-party investigator is a good way to do that and also a somewhat common practice.”
“We aim to have a mechanism here in Oak Park where we have that immediate response to our community to answer questions.”
Oak Park Police Chief Shatonya Johnson addressed the board table with an impassioned defense of her officers’ actions on the scene, as they navigated a chaotic and dangerous situation.
“We were trying to get these kids away from Forest Avenue where the shot went off and to ensure that we didn’t have anyone hurt and to prevent individuals from being trampled on trying to flee the scene,” Johnson said. “It took us about three hours to gain control of what was a chaotic scene with a great deal of disorder. I was out there and from my perspective, officers maintained a great deal of restraint as they were being sweared at, threatened and completely disregarded.”
“We are on the heels of the anniversary of our officer being murdered just a few blocks away from where the gunshot went off. To see over 500 kids in the area, anyone of them could’ve been struck by that, anyone of our officers.”
She also warned board members that a village investigation could discourage other area police departments from responding to Oak Park’s requests for mutual aid in the future.
Halloween was the first time that Oak Park police had made a crowd control mutual aid request since 2020, when it had asked for support amid demonstrations in Downtown Oak Park following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, the chief said.
Trustee Cory Wesley said that aside from the RFPD’s use of pepper balls, he felt that law enforcement handled the situation as well as could be asked of them.
“This was chaos, I don’t think there’s any other way to word it,” Wesley said. “I do want to call out that we had about 500 largely Black kids and young adults in Downtown Oak Park who were not there to have a good time, they were there to create turmoil, and they all walked away with their lives and their freedom. There are many places where that wouldn’t happen. So, I am deeply appreciative of our police force.”
“Had the pepper balls not been deployed, I probably wouldn’t have had a second thought about this. That’s the only part of this that makes me uncomfortable”
Trustee Jim Taglia was the only trustee to vote against including CPOC in the investigation.
“I would say that there’s a tendency in our community to try to micromanage our police department,” he said. “At some points, I think we need to allow the police department to review its own situations.”
Wesley and Johnson both referenced seeing posts online in the days following Halloween from young people saying that they were planning to come back to Oak Park for another so-called “teen takeover.”
“There are lots of posts saying that ‘we should go back’, I know, because I’ve seen them,” Wesley said. “We are sitting here contemplating the situation in a way that’s different from the people who showed up to create the chaos. They are not contemplating this as ‘oh my God, we went to Oak Park and had a horrible time and barely made it out with our lives.’ They’re contemplating this as ‘we went to Oak Park, we staged a huge crowd of folks in Downtown Oak Park and it was so great that we’re thinking about going back.’ I don’t know what to think about that.”
Trustee Jenna Leving Jacobson said that the village had to move forward considering the fact that chemical munitions were turned on a crowd that included many minors.
“I think we all share a lot of the same questions about what happened, most importantly how do we prevent a situation like that in the future in our community where children are violated in that way with dangerous weapons,” she said. “I think clarity is what all of us want.”
River Forest officials told Wednesday Journal last week that its officers had used the chemical munitions in response to the fights and the report of gun shots.
River Forest said its officers are provided with pepper ball guns after proper training and that it had reviewed body cam footage from the evening and concluded its officer had “properly deployed” the pepper balls and been successful in helping disperse the crowd.
“Pepper balls were deployed in two instances,” said River Forest officials. “The first was in the area of Lake Street and Forest Avenue right after a confirmed report of a gun being fired. The pepper balls were deployed at the ground at an individual armed with a bat and disobeying an officer’s commands. This intervention de-escalated the situation and dispersed the crowd.
“The second incident in which a River Forest officer deployed pepper balls was in the area of Lake Street and Harvey Avenue. The officer was responding to assist Oak Park police with a fight in progress. The pepper balls were deployed at the ground at numerous individuals [who were] actively striking a victim. This intervention de-escalated the situation and dispersed the crowd,” said the River Forest statement.
