By Fran Spielman
The Chicago Sun-Times
CHICAGO, Ill. — Chicago needs a police superintendent who will “shake up the status quo,” realign police beats and adopt a “more aggressive, grass-roots approach” toward curbing school violence, one of Mayor Daley’s staunchest City Council critics said Tuesday.
“This administration continues to want to move police officers around after the murders happen. We need to prevent crime — not react to it,” said Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd), pointing to the 25 Chicago Public School students gunned down this year.
“This administration has been unwilling to even talk about beat deployment. . . . We need somebody who will at least talk about. It has to be someone who’s willing to take on the administration.”
One day after the search for Phil Cline’s successor was narrowed to a rainbow of three finalists, Munoz demanded that City Hall lift the veil of secrecy surrounding the selection process.
Munoz wants the Police Board to offer a public explanation for its choices and post online all materials it considered, including resumes, background checks and answers to four essay questions on strategies to confront police misconduct, build public trust, improve diversity and continue crime reductions.
A candidate for Congress, Munoz further demanded that the three finalists — New Yorker Thomas Belfiore and Chicago deputy superintendents Charles Williams and Hiram Grau — air their ideas on reducing school violence at a “public assembly” or City Council hearing.
Beat realignment is a sensitive subject at City Hall and for good reason: somebody’s ox has to be gored.
Four years ago, Daley turned his back on a campaign promise to realign Chicago’s 279 police beats, arguing it would undermine community policing and deprive middle-class neighborhoods of the officers they need to deter crime.
Instead of picking a fight with aldermen who represent middle-class wards, Daley chose the path of least resistance. He unveiled plans to make the Police Department as mobile and flexible as the gangs it chases — by creating elite units deployed to crime “hot spots.”
Daley is expected to start interviewing the three finalists next week. The mayor’s pick must be approved by the City Council.
Copyright 2007 The Chicago Sun-Times