Staff Attorney Tamer Abouzeid Presents CPAC Plan to City Council

Staff Attorney Tamer Abouzeid made a presentation to the Chicago City Council’s Committee on Public Safety on Tuesday, October 21. Tamer’s presentation focused on the ordinance to create the Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC). The ordinance, spearheaded by the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (the “Alliance”)—and endorsed by CAIR-Chicago—would enshrine the ideal of community control of the police into Chicago law. CPAC would be directly elected by the people of Chicago and would exercise appointment powers, budgetary powers, and policy-making powers, among others, over the Chicago Police Department, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, and the Chicago Police Board. The four-and-a-half-hour-long hearing began with ten out of ten randomly selected callers voicing support for the CPAC ordinance, continued with a presentation on CPAC and another competing ordinance, and concluded with 2.5 hours of questions.