By John Byrne, Hal Dardick and Bill Ruthhart
Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — Reeling from Chicago’s deadliest month in 20 years and facing criticism about his new police oversight plan, Mayor Rahm Emanuel tried to change the subject Friday by floating the vague notion of hiring more cops to fight the city’s scourge of shootings.
But Emanuel would not say where he’d find the money for the officers or whether the new cops would be enough to keep up with the hundreds who have left the Police Department or are expected to retire.
Instead, the mayor talked generally about “putting more police on the street” and offered a series of elusive answers when pressed for the details.
“I’m working, (police) Superintendent Eddie Johnson and I have been working through this for a while,” said Emanuel, who noted he is planning a Sept. 20 speech on policing. “And we will have the resources for more officers.”
The mayor was asked if he was just talking about keeping up with Police Department attrition or actually hiring new cops to patrol the city’s most violent neighborhoods, with a reporter noting that CPD has about 400 vacancies for sworn officers.
“That’s not true. That’s not true,” Emanuel responded.
Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi, however, said the department is about 468 cops short of full staffing — which is 12,600 sworn officers. Guglielmi said an additional 100 officers just graduated from the academy and an average of 200 to 300 officers retire each year.
In raising the notion of hiring more cops, Emanuel also stressed his usual talking points of needing stronger gun laws and more investment in struggling neighborhoods.
“It is a complex problem with multidimensional facets to it,” the mayor said of the city’s surging homicide numbers. “It’s not just about more police, but it will include that. But it’s also about more resources for our children, more resources for our neighborhoods and stiffer laws that reflect the values of our city.”
Talk of hiring more cops allowed Emanuel to pivot from what has been a less-than-desirable week of news for his administration on the city’s policing front.
August marked the most violent month in Chicago since 1996, with at least 472 people shot. There were 92 homicides, the most since 1993, according to police statistics. Overall, the Police Department has recorded 474 homicides this year — closing in on last year’s 481 with nearly four months left this year.
Emanuel also received strong pushback this week on the plan he laid out to overhaul civilian oversight of the beleaguered Police Department by replacing the long-ineffective Independent Police Review Authority and replacing it with a new Civilian Office of Police Accountability, or COPA.
While the new agency would have more powers to probe alleged police misconduct, Emanuel’s proposal ensured that the mayor’s office would retain significant control over how cops are investigated and disciplined.
Emanuel’s head of IPRA would move over to run the new agency, and the mayor’s plan doesn’t spell out how future directors of the agency would be selected. To the dismay of several aldermen, COPA also would not have a guaranteed budget, allowing for the possibility it could be weakened in the future through spending cuts. A new police watchdog would be appointed by the city’s inspector general, who also is appointed by the mayor, and COPA would not be free to hire its own attorneys separate from the Emanuel-controlled Law Department.
Earlier this week, Emanuel’s City Council floor leader tried to use the possibility of hiring more cops as an argument against creating guaranteed funding for the new oversight agency. Ald. Patrick O’Connor, 40th, said it would be better to determine COPA’s funding in the context of the entire city budget, which the mayor will propose in October.
“I just think with all the strain on our budget — and the desire to actually hire more police, not just hire people to watch the police — we might be better to have this conversation as a whole thing surrounding the police budget and not just the budget of this entity,” O’Connor said Wednesday.
By Thursday, O’Connor was offering cryptic talk of Emanuel hiring more cops, telling the Chicago Sun-Times the mayor would hire “hundreds” more. After teeing up the topic for Emanuel, O’Connor did not respond to several messages seeking comment.
Emanuel’s talk of hiring more officers also comes as members of the City Council’s Black Caucus have discussed adding funding for as many as 500 additional officers on top of the hundreds lost through attrition.
“I have been trying to get the temperature of my colleagues about hiring more cops and would there be the stomach for it, and specifically the number I’m throwing out is about 500, and the cost would be about $50 million,” said Ald. Howard Brookins, 21st. “And would there be the stomach to raise taxes to do that?”
Brookins, who noted last year’s record-high property tax increase to cover police and fire pensions, said it’s easier politically to raise taxes when residents know they are getting something in return. More police officers could fit that bill.
For years, many aldermen have been criticizing Emanuel’s policy of using cops on overtime to flood troubled neighborhoods when violence flares. They have unsuccessfully pushed the mayor to hire more officers, with the administration contending it’s more cost-effective to use overtime because that doesn’t push up benefit costs.
Ald. George Cardenas, 12th, said the city needs to go beyond hiring only enough officers to replace those who are retiring, as has been done in previous years.
“We are going to take the opportunity and do the math,” Cardenas said, “and not just keep up with the attrition.”
But on Friday, Emanuel wanted no part of math or specifics.
“I’m going to be really clear: more cops on the street — kids, guns, gangs off the street,” Emanuel said. “And the resources will apply directly.”