Former Chicago Fraternal Order of Police President Dean Angelo Sr. died Tuesday after a weekslong battle with COVID-19, for which he was hospitalized in late September. He was 67.
Angelo was president of the police union from 2014 to 2017, during the murder of Black teenager Laquan McDonald at the hands of white police officer Jason Van Dyke and the first wave of Black Lives Matter protests. Angelo spent more than 37 years on the police force.
The Cook County medical examiner’s office Wednesday said Angelo succumbed to pneumonia as a complication of a COVID-19 infection.
Angelo earned a master’s degree in criminal social justice and human behavior from Lewis University in 1995 and went on to get a doctoral degree from Loyola University Chicago. He would later teach law enforcement classes at National Louis University and the College of St. Joseph.
Angelo sought reelection to the three-year post representing the city’s largest police union but was defeated by Kevin Graham during a hotly contested runoff election in April 2017.
Despite his loss, he sat on the union’s executive board due to his position as immediate past president. Martin Prieb, a second vice president under Graham, then attempted to have Angelo thrown out of the union for speaking to reporters during then-Officer Jason Van Dyke’s 2018 trial for McDonald’s fatal shooting. But a disciplinary panel found no evidence of wrongdoing and recommended no disciplinary action be taken against Angelo, and the union’s executive board voted in agreement, clearing him of any wrongdoing.
Graham himself later would be suspended from the union for three years after allegations he left a tiny camera in his former office, then occupied by the union’s current president, John Catanzara; Graham denied the allegations and said he forgot to tell Catanzara — who Graham accused of being politically motivated to oust him — about the camera.
Angelo tested positive for COVID-19 in mid-September and had been in intensive care since Sep. 26, according to a post on the union’s Facebook page.
Funeral arrangements have not yet been announced.
