By Jeremy Gorner

Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — Chicago’s government watchdog recommended that a high-ranking Chicago police official face possible firing for directing officers under his supervision for nearly a year to drive his child from school to his police station in a squad car and baby-sit the kid on the city’s dime.

But in the end, the Police Department gave the official only a seven-day suspension despite his claims that it was all part of a “test case” for a new community policing study, according to a new report released Wednesday by the watchdog.

Without identifying the official, the city’s Office of Inspector General said the supervisor had a lower-ranking supervisor assign on-duty officers to pick up the commander’s child from a school outside the district’s boundaries and bring the child to the police station most Wednesdays from September 2017 until at least July 2018.

A Chicago police spokesman was not immediately available for comment on why the supervisor was given only a seven-day suspension.

The lower-ranking supervisor and the other officers also had to baby-sit the child at the undisclosed police station for at least two to three hours at a time, Inspector General Joseph Ferguson’s office said.