Councilperson Chaundra Bishop on Police Reform, Then and Now – Urbana, Illinois

Some of the new Urbana, Illinois City Council members appear to have flip flopped regarding their campaign promises on police reform.  One of the most notable examples is Ward 5 Council Member Chaundra Bishop, who listed police reform at the top of her platform, but now appears to be taking her marching orders from the Fraternal Order of Police.

Bishop began her political career when she lost the race for Champaign County Coroner, but she quickly put her name on a different ballot and landed a seat on the Urbana City Council. 

Bishop puts “Accountable Policing” at the top of her priorities on her campaign website.  She writes “There are things we can act on right away”, then provides a long list of items (see the PDF at the end of this article for the full list or click here).

Two of the items on Bishops “right away” list are:

• “Make police disciplinary records completely transparent.”
• “Completely review, update, and overhaul the police department’s use of force policy. Then make sure the police are actually held accountable to follow the new use of force policy.”

However, during the time that Bishop got involved with Urbana City Council, the City has been cited in numerous illegal schemes to conceal police records, and several lawsuits regarding Urbana’s illegal concealment of police regards are currently ongoing (see here, here, and here).  Urbana City Officials have issued no explanation for their felony destruction of 40 years of police complaints, and Urbana Officials have completely scammed the public in regards to police use of force review.  Urbana’s current Police Chief has illegally repealed police TASER review entirely, but Bishop still voted to reappoint him.

Bishop has not addressed or acted to correct any of these issues.

Four months into her term as members of the public continued to express frustration over police accountability, Bishop said that “change doesn’t happen overnight”.  Eighteen months later, Bishop voted for a three year FOP contract that makes no changes at all in terms of police reform, and she also spoke positively about “getting the ball rolling” on a review of “public safety” which would take at least another eighteen months.  Many advocates of police reform believe that the eighteen month review is just a way to shut down and delay discussion on real change.

Bishop, referring to the eighteen month public safety review said, “we’ve already waited some time to get this started so, you know, another year or so won’t be very long.”

At this rate, it is a near certainty that the current City Council members will have already finished their four year terms before any significant changes could even be considered by the Council.