#598 Online: The Police Department for Fired Cops

The Illinois Answers Project found that 17% of all police officers hired by the Robbins Police Department since 2000 came on board directly after they were fired from previous law enforcement jobs, the most of any department in Illinois.

Those hires include two cops who lied about what they saw the night Laquan McDonald was murdered, an commanding officer who came to the department after getting fired for having sex inside his squad car, and an officer who was fired for using his police chief’s forged signature in a vacation request.

Illinois Answers made the determination after performing an analysis of state law enforcement data that tracks the work history of each police officer in Illinois. Further reporting showed that these “wandering officers” frequently surface in poor towns that can’t afford to pay the wages that would attract better candidates.

The investigation includes a database that shows the fired cops and the departments that subsequently hired them.