On a day when the Chicago police superintendent honored the best of the department, he was also pressed for answers about whether officers showed preferential treatment to one of their own, who is charged with driving drunk and causing a fatal hit-and-run.
"We absolutely have to make sure all protocols were followed, that our procedures were not deviated from, and that's what I've got our internal investigations looking at right now," said Supt. Weis.
Officer Richard Bolling is accused of hitting and killing 13-year-old Trenton Booker then fleeing the scene.
But Bolling was not given a breathalyzer test until four hours after last week's accident, his blood-alcohol level registering just under the legal limit of .08.
Bolling's first court appearance on Sunday was scheduled for noon but took place an hour early, before Booker's family and reporters arrived.
Superintendent Weis says he knows there are a lot of questions about the way Bolling was treated.
"The optics on that are horrible," Weis said. "From the initial stage of the investigation, I'm very confident that there's no preferential treatment given to this officer."
Weis says the department is working hard to earn the public's confidence and says the mistakes of few should not influence opinion of the entire police force.
"It's human frailties, it's people making bad decisions and we have to work real hard as a department to focus on our education prevention, intervention and make sure people are fully aware the consequences one bad decision can make," said Weis.
