Illinois police officer faces backlash after defending thin blue line
Mount Prospect, Illinois officer Lisa Schaps and Chief John Koziol join 'Fox and Friends,' with Schaps saying she was released from her position as a school resource officer because her comments had become a 'distraction.'
Mount Prospect, Illinois officer Lisa Schaps told "Fox & Friends" on Thursday that she lost her job as a school resource officer after sharing her "authentic" and "vulnerable" defense of her badge and thin blue line patch, which local residents claimed was "divisive."
Schaps reportedly served as the school resource officer at Prospect High School.
She explained that she spoke out about the thin blue line patches during a village board meeting on June 15th and then appeared on "Fox & Friends" on Tuesday where she did the same.
Journal & Topics reported that Schaps, who was one of two officers who came before the board to talk about what the thin blue line means to them, said when the patch was created in 2017, "it was never about hate. It was never about oppression."
"It's about honor. It's about pride. It's about kinship," Schaps told "Fox & Friends" on Tuesday. "You know, I even said love. I've got children. I've got family…it's all of those things and it's just really important to us."
Schaps told host Ainsley Earhardt on Thursday that the school district objected to her comments at the June 15 meeting, though she felt her statements were "authentic and vulnerable."
Earhardt then asked Schaps, "What did you say that they said was so wrong?"
"They had mentioned that I compared being a police officer to being Black when I really didn’t say that. I said, ‘Please don’t judge us like you would judge somebody on the color of their skin or their religion or their sexual preference,’" Schaps responded.
"It was really about the judgment and they just said that that was inappropriate."
The number of police officers shot in 2021 has reached 128, an uptick from the previous year, and the number of "ambush-style" attacks on law enforcement is particularly on the rise, according to the National Fraternal Order of Police.
There's been a 50% increase from 2020 in the number of ambush attacks on police, 27 already in 2021, which is up from 18 at this point last year, according to the Fraternal Order of Police that represents more than 356,000 members.
On Thursday, joining Schaps on "Fox & Friends," Mount Prospect Police Department Chief John Koziol, who went with Schaps to the meeting with a school official, said they were both "floored" that the school decided to find a new resource officer.
"We sat down with him and he explained he and the district had received complaints and probably from these same people that have an objection to our patch and I was giving him ideas on how to handle those calls; send them to the police department or the village," Koziol said.
"It really wasn’t their fight to fight."
"And it basically got to the point where he says, ‘We’re past all that, we want a new SRO [School Resource Officer]. We want Lisa gone," he continued.
Koziol explained that he contacted Earhardt after the meeting because he believes the school official "really believed in what he was doing."
"This small group of people has somehow got this much power to affect someone’s career, someone’s livelihood," Koziol added.
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He noted that being a school resource officer "has been a passion for Lisa."
"It’s been a job she’s always wanted," Koziol continued. "I know how much she does for those kids. If the wolf ever came to the door at that school, she is the momma bear you wanted there."
He stressed that her removal from the role has "been devastating for her."
"Here is a very strong, confident woman, which we want in all our police officers, and I saw her devastated in that meeting," Koziol told Earhardt, stressing that Schaps will land on her feet at the police department.
Dave Berry, the interim communications supervisor of Township High School District 214, said, "We did recommend the consideration of having a different officer assigned to this school in order for our focus to remain on our students."
"The school does not have the authority to fire or dismiss a School Resource Officer, so any assertion that the school terminated the School Resource Officer is not correct or accurate," the statement continued.
"The Mount Prospect Police Department and their personnel have been, and continue to be, great partners, and we look forward to that partnership continuing."
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Police misconduct and brutality have been at the top of the American conscience in the year since a White, now-former police officer in Minneapolis, Derek Chauvin, knelt on the neck of Georg Floyd for more than nine minutes; Floyd later died.
Chauvin has since been convicted of murder, but Floyd's death sparked nationwide protests and ignited the defund the police movement. Congress is currently mulling sweeping police reform legislation in an effort to hold cops more accountable for misconduct.
Fox News’ Stephanie Giang-Paunon and Marisa Schultz contributed to this report.
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