A high-ranking Chicago police supervisor faced withering public criticism last week for his involvement in a wrongful 2001 murder conviction that was reversed last year by the Illinois Appellate Court.
And now at least two CPD district councils plan to hold symbolic no-confidence votes in John Foster, commander of Area 5 detectives, who oversees the investigations into the most serious crimes across the Northwest Side.
The confrontation unfolded Monday evening during a public meeting at Kosciuszko Park, attended by Foster and other Police Department officials. During the public comment portion of the meeting, more than a half dozen people invoked Foster’s ties to the prosecution of Kevin Jackson, a man wrongfully convicted in a 2001 murder in West Englewood.
“We’re not here to make false allegations (or) accusations against this commander,” Jasmine Smith, co-chair of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, said at the meeting. “This is indeed the facts.”
“If innocent people are in prison, where are the real criminals?” Smith added. “They’re still on our damn streets and that ain’t right.”
Jackson, who spent more than two decades in prison before he was released, was among those in attendance. It was the first time he’d seen Foster since 2001, when he and Detective Brian Forberg, his partner, placed Jackson under arrest. Jackson did not make any statements about his conviction.
Several meeting attendees told the Tribune that Foster did not address the comments related to the Jackson case and sought to discuss the status of current sexual assault investigations in Area 5. Foster did not respond to a request for comment last week.
A CPD spokesperson declined to comment on the meeting. The Police Department, as a matter of practice, typically does not comment on personnel matters.
Anthony Tamez, chair of the Albany Park (17th) District Council, said he plans to hold a non-binding no-confidence vote in Foster’s command at that council’s next meeting.
“There is never not a time when someone can be held accountable for their actions or their past actions,” Tamez said.
“It was an open, public meeting where they are talking about investigations in Area 5, and residents — rightfully so — asked some pretty tough questions along the lines of, ‘How are we supposed to be able to trust you and trust that these investigations are being conducted in a way that’s ethical and that is in line with what the majority of Chicagoans want to see from our Police Department?’”
City records show the Shakespeare (14th) District Council plans to hold a no-confidence vote in Foster during its next meeting as well.
The Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability has authority to remove the CPD superintendent, chief administrator of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability and the president of the Chicago Police Board.
The commission, which also oversees the district councils, has no say in the department’s command staff. Those decisions rest solely with Superintendent Larry Snelling, who recently assumed most of the duties of the department’s first deputy superintendent, Yolanda Talley.
Foster joined the department more than 30 years ago and has spent most of his career as a detective and supervisor. In 2001, he was a homicide detective in Area 1 on the South Side, partnered with Forberg.
Ernest Jenkins was shot and killed in May 2001 in a gas station parking lot at Garfield Boulevard and Damen Avenue. Jackson was arrested and charged the next month. Foster and Forberg — who retired from CPD in 2023 and was rehired six months later, records show — were the two detectives assigned to the case.
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Jackson was found guilty in 2003 and sentenced to 45 years in prison. In October 2024, a panel of Illinois Appellate Court judges ordered Jackson’s release.
Cook County prosecutors dropped all charges against Jackson in February, court records show. Soon after, Jackson’s lawyers filed a 152-page petition for a certificate of innocence — usually a precursor to a federal civil rights lawsuit — though the case remains pending as the attorneys seek to reassign the case to a different judge.
The decision by the state appellate court to free Jackson came after several years of reinvestigation by special prosecutors who found Jackson’s conviction “presents a microcosm of the many ways in which a police investigation into a serious violent crime can fail.”
The special prosecutors’ report noted that the state’s case against Jackson in its entirety was based on statements that witnesses gave to detectives, only to then retract at trial, alleging a number of coercive tactics.
One such witness was a pregnant woman who said the detectives threatened that she’d give birth to her child in jail and lose custody if she didn’t name their suspect, the report said. It also said that detectives ignored evidence of a different perpetrator.
Any reasonable review of the case, the panel of judges said, would determine “these convictions resulted solely from coerced and false statements.”
Eric Winstrom, chief of police in Grand Rapids, Michigan, since 2022, was commander of Area 5 detectives before Foster.
Winstrom previously told the Tribune that he recruited Foster, who until that point had spent his career on the South Side, to Area 5 in 2020. After Winstrom left CPD for Michigan, he called Foster “the best investigator in the Chicago Police Department.”
And data suggest Foster has found success.
Police Department records obtained by the Tribune via the Freedom of Information Act show Area 5 had the highest homicide clearance rate of any of the CPD’s five areas in 2024.
Winstrom says there were three main reasons he tapped Foster — who he described as “a workaholic” and “the most tenacious guy you’ve ever met” — to become the Area 5 homicide lieutenant.
“That he actually cares about people, that he will work a 48-hour day if it’s required, and, not only is he a very smart guy, but he’s kept up with all the changes in technology,” Winstrom said. “I mean, he was perfect. Those were all the reasons I brought him (to Area 5).”