Brzeczek was born October 8, 1942, in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago to Elizabeth and Raymond Brzeczek, both of Polish descent.[1][2] He was the eldest of three children in his family.[2]
Brzeczek attended St. Helen's elementary school in Chicago, attended two years at Quigley Seminary, and graduated from Weber High School.[2]
January 11, 1980, having been appointed by mayor Jane Byrne, Brzeczek became superintendent of the Chicago Police Department.[1] At age 37, he was the youngest superintendent in the department's history.[2] He had only been on the force for nine years and ten months by the time he reached the top position.[2]
At the time he took office, he had to deal with an illegal Chicago Fire Department strike, and the potential for a police department strike to follow.[2]
His tenure received some praise. In 1993, then-superintendent Matt L. Rodriguez praised his tenure, by saying, "At the time he came into the superintendent position, the department was kind of parochial. He got the department moving out of that mode by getting the command staff into national and state police associations. And he expanded the system of training for managers. Both those things direct people's attention to what it was before and what it was when he left: state-of-the-art policing."[2] According to Rodriguez in 1993, Brzeczek laid a strong foundation for his successors.[2]
During the 1983 Chicago mayoral election, Brzeczek criticized candidate Harold Washington, declaring that downtown streets would become unsafe under a Washington mayoralty.[3] In April 1983, after Harold Washington won the election, Brzeczek tendered his resignation as superintendent, to become effective on April 29, 1983, hours before Washington would be sworn in as mayor.[1][2][3]
Controversies
Police department torture
In 1982, after the torture of Andrew Wilson, a doctor that saw Wilson afterward wrote a letter to Brzeczek.[4]
In 2006, after a four-year long investigation into allegations of torture conducted by Jon Burge and others in the Chicago Police Department, prosecutors concluded that as superintendent, Brzeczek was guilty of "dereliction of duty" and had acted in bad faith by failing to take action upon suspicions that Burge and other detectives under his command had engaged in mistreatment of prisoners.[5][6] The prosecutors alleged that, while publicly praising the detectives engaging in these activities, Brzeczek held private suspicions about their activities.[5]
1986 indictment and acquittal
On March 13, 1986, Brzeczek was indicted by a Cook County grand jury on 24 counts of theft and official misconduct, which stemmed from trips he took under the pretenses of attending meetings which the Cook County State's Attorney's office alleged had never taken place.[7] The indictment alleged he had misused $1,231 from the Chicago Police Department travel fund to travel to Minneapolis in December 1982 and San Diego in August 1982 for what he claimed were a meeting of the American Bar Association and a law enforcement seminar.[7] The indictment stemmed from an investigation begun two years prior after the Chicago Police Department received an anonymous tip that it should investigate its contingency fund.[7] It was alleged by prosecutors that he used the trips to visit a girlfriend.[8] Brzeczek claimed the charges were a politically motivated smear campaign related to the fact he ran against Richard M. Daley for state's attorney.[7][8] Brzeczek was acquitted on May 14, 1987, after Criminal Court Judge Robert Boharic found him not guilty of all counts, ruling that the financial records were kept by "bureaucratic forgers" and were not accurate enough to prove that Brzeczek had stolen city funds to visit a girlfriend.[8]
Brzeczek joined the Republican Party, and in 1984 ran as its nominee for Cook County State's Attorney, losing the general election to incumbent Democrat Richard M. Daley by a large margin.[9] Brzeczek's performance in the election was regarded as disappointing, as he lost to Daley even in many Republican leaning parts of suburban Cook County.[9]
Subsequent career
Brzeczek would open his own law practice on the Northwest Side of Chicago.[2]
Personal life
In January 1965, he married his wife Elizabeth.[2] They would have four children together, Natalie, Mark, Kevin, and Holly.[2]
Shortly after he became superintendent, he began a 3.5 year-long extramarital affair with a flight attendant he met on a flight.[2] Around this time, he also suffered from excessive drinking.[2] His personal difficulties would lead him to twice admit himself to a psychiatric hospital.[2]
Written works
In 1987, Brzeczek and his wife, Elizabeth, along with Sharon De Vita, co-authored the book Addicted to Adultery: How We Saved Our Marriage/How You Can Save Yours".[2]
Electoral history
1984 Cook County State's Attorney Republican primary[10]
