By Bill Ruthhart and Annie Sweeney
Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — Heal a deep lack of public trust. Cooperate with a federal civil rights investigation into the use of force. Reform a police department with a history of corruption. Deal with some of the nation’s most intractable gun and gang problems. And work for a famously demanding mayor now governing in the midst of his most severe crisis.
It’s a daunting to-do list for Chicago’s next police superintendent, a person Mayor Rahm Emanuel will hire in the coming months to navigate the turbulent environment that has erupted since the court-ordered release of a video showing a white police officer shooting a black teen to death.
Law enforcement experts say the new top cop should have a strong personality, understand police work and its dangerous nature, and recognize past abuses. And if Chicago is to realize true change, they say, it’s important that the person brought in have a large measure of independence from the mayor — or at least be working on the same reform goals — and the freedom to make decisions without political influence.
But relinquishing such authority to a strong-willed police superintendent could be difficult for Emanuel, who is known for hands-on governing and asserting tight control over many facets of city government. That includes calling top aides and cabinet members at all hours to question decisions, demand plans and express displeasure.
Garry McCarthy was no exception.
Chicago’s former police superintendent received frequent phone calls from Emanuel, who micromanaged police headquarters at 35th Street and Michigan Avenue from his suite of fifth-floor City Hall offices, sources familiar with McCarthy’s tenure said. McCarthy also had to deal with what was described as Emanuel’s approach of governing day to day and crisis to crisis and lack of a broader vision of how to fight and prevent crime, the sources said.
Two senior Emanuel administration officials conceded there is no doubt the mayor calls his top deputies often, but they challenged the assertion that he micromanaged the Police Department.
“When you have some of the things that have gone on, kids and babies getting shot, the mayor wants to know what the plan is to address it, and you’re going to get calls from him at 2 in the morning. It’s an enormously stressful job,” said one of the Emanuel aides, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “It’s not about telling (the police superintendent) what to do. ... The mayor gave Garry a pretty high level of deference, but you work for Rahm, so you’re going to have to pick up the phone.”
As Emanuel embarks on a search for a new police superintendent, it’s in the interests of the mayor’s office to portray his relationship with McCarthy as a mostly healthy one of mutual respect. But Emanuel’s decision to publicly back McCarthy early during the Laquan McDonald shooting controversy only to turn around and fire his top cop days later in the glare of the national spotlight could leave some top candidates hesitant to apply for the job.
While Emanuel aides acknowledge there could be concerns from prospective candidates about working with the mayor, they say those should be outweighed by the chance to reform one of the nation’s largest departments with the help of a federal civil rights investigation.
“This is a huge opportunity at this moment in time. The Department of Justice investigation will give the new leader a lot of cover to do things that he or she would not otherwise be able to do, because of internal and external politics,” said the Emanuel aide. “It is an exciting opportunity to be able to come in and hit the reset button in Chicago and get a lot accomplished.”
Ald. Howard Brookins, who has worked as a public defender and assistant state’s attorney, said City Hall has long had a heavy hand in the Chicago Police Department, dating to the tenures of both Mayors Daley. That tradition, Brookins said, will have to change when the city’s next police superintendent is hired if the department truly is to change.
“The next person needs to be a strong leader who has the ability to get the job done,” said Brookins, 21st, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush in the March Democratic primary. “And whether or not that person will have free rein from the mayor to get in there and fix the problems will be the key.”
‘Trust And Respect’
During the 1990s, Los Angeles grappled with a police scandal that led to a Justice Department investigation of its police force. The probe took hold after the Rampart scandal that revealed officers physically abused suspects and tampered with evidence. A review concluded the department had engaged in systemic excessive force, false arrests and unreasonable searches and seizures, leading to a 2001 consent decree.
A judge appointed a federal monitor to ensure court-ordered reforms were implemented. Such a result already is widely expected in Chicago. It took 12 years for the judge in LA to lift the decree, but today the LAPD is recognized nationally for its improved community relations.
“What the politicians rarely understand is what it takes to completely transform an intransigent, warrior, predator police department,” said Connie Rice, a longtime civil rights attorney and department critic who was asked to help lead the Los Angeles reform efforts.
More than a decade later, the department has not only revised training and the complaint investigation process, but also developed a comprehensive gang-violence reduction strategy that draws in former gang members to work with department commanders. They have tried an intensive community policing programming in public housing.
Rice said LA’s efforts worked because the mayor at the time, Antonio Villaraigosa, stayed out of the way, allowing then-Chief Bill Bratton to push the reforms. Critical to the success, she said, was Bratton’s outsize personality, his decision to bring in a whole new team and his reputation in law enforcement — he had once led the New York Police Department. He has since returned to the same position.
“It has to be done by people the police can trust and respect,” Rice said. “The Chicago Police Department is as deeply steeped in warrior policing and circle-the-wagons policing as any I have seen. … To deal with that kind of pathology, you have to have a real big team and you have to have somebody who has a gargantuan ego like Bratton. And I say that with all due respect.”
National policing experts agree that stepping in to reform Chicago’s police culture will require a personality strong enough to make potentially unpopular decisions like firings or reorganization. It will demand a leader who not only appreciates police work and the deep bond the dangerous work engenders, but also who is sensitive to the decades of law enforcement abuses and scandals that have targeted minority communities.
In addition, the power of social media and an instant video image has changed the landscape, as Chicago has recently seen. Meanwhile, fatal police shootings and in-custody deaths in cities across the country have sparked an organized protest movement, forcing departments everywhere to re-examine confrontational tactics of policing.
“The habits they have engaged in in the past (are) not going to be acceptable in the future,” said Jim Bueermann, president of the Police Foundation, a nonpartisan police research group.
Modern-day policing, Bueermann and other experts agree, requires a radical new approach to how agencies engage with the public they protect. Experts say some departments are looking to move away from an old-school “warrior” approach and toward a “guardian” model with deeper, more tangible partnerships with communities on how to solve crimes. The head of the department will set this tone, calling on all parts of the community for help to reduce violence and address behaviors that contribute to it, Bueermann said.
“Astute police chiefs use the bully pulpit to try and organize things around (looking) at the underlying causes of crime,” he said. "… Cops don’t like to be referred to as social workers, but there are things that cops see and come into contact every day that can be helpful to developing healthy and resilient young people. Every young person (in trouble with the law) doesn’t have to go to jail.”
In Chicago, these factors are in play even as the city continues to fight aggressive gangs and a proliferation of guns unique to other big cities. Some experts call it nothing short of a high-wire act.
Additionally, the rapport between the new leader and Emanuel will be crucial, experts said, adding that tension between the mayor and his new police superintendent would undermine the chances of dramatic reforms being made.
“The relationship between a mayor and superintendent has to be open. It has to be trusting, and it has to be confident. Both ways. It is one of the most important relationships in urban government,” said Richard Aborn, president of the Citizens Crime Commission in New York, a nonpartisan policy organization studies policing issues. “The No. 1 responsibility of any government is to provide the safety of its citizens, and the police are the primary way we do that. And if the mayor doesn’t trust the head of the police and vice versa, it is not going to work.”
Politics And Race
Emanuel fired McCarthy on Dec. 1 in the midst of the fallout from the police shooting of McDonald, 17, in October 2014.
The mayor and City Council signed off on a $5 million settlement for McDonald’s family in April, just after Emanuel won re-election. For the better part of a year, Emanuel fought to keep a police video of the shooting under wraps. Hours before a video was released last month showing Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting McDonald as the teen walked away and then as he lay in the street, prosecutors charged the cop with murder.
The timeline has led some Chicagoans to take to the streets in protest, accusing Emanuel and Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez of being complicit in a cover-up. Adding to the controversy has been the subsequent release of city records that revealed six officers at the scene of the shooting, including Van Dyke, had filed false reports saying McDonald had approached officers before he was shot, when, in fact, he had walked away.
But the McDonald case and Emanuel’s stunning public acknowledgment that a “code of silence” exists in the Police Department when it comes to misconduct do not mark the first time a Chicago mayor has had to search for a new leader to restore confidence in a Police Department mired in controversy.
In 1960, when then-Mayor Richard J. Daley was left searching for a reformer in the wake of the Summerdale scandal, he made what even decades later seems like a radical move. He tapped criminologist and California college dean O.W. Wilson for the job. At the time, Wilson’s scholarly background was criticized as not steeped enough in policing to address the misconduct, which came to light in the North Side Summerdale District when eight officers were named in a burglary ring.
Wilson ran the Chicago Police Department for seven years until he retired, and eventually was credited with an overhaul that included improving morale, reducing the number of districts by nearly half, upgrading equipment, increasing rank-and-file pay and ramping up manpower.
His October 1972 Tribune obituary outlining the changes reads like a blueprint for what Chicago might again have in store more than a half-century later.
“New young faces began appearing in high places in the department, and outside consultants became a common sight. They were brought in to spot things that needed correcting. Most important, Wilson obtained the complete backing of Mayor Daley. However, Wilson was not without his critics,” the obituary noted, adding that “in addition to the usual sniping from the City Council, many of the policemen who had risen through the ranks under the old system” had “suddenly found themselves purged” and offered “attacks that became personal.”
The job of Chicago police superintendent has never been just about reducing violence. A top demand, at least on paper, has always been the seemingly impossible task of mending the broken trust between citizens and police in Chicago’s minority neighborhoods. The top cop has to do all this while navigating Chicago racially charged politics.
That has been front and center in recent months as the City Council’s Black Caucus grew increasingly frustrated with McCarthy. The group called on him to resign in October hours after McCarthy promoted then-Chief of Detectives John Escalante, who is Hispanic, to succeed the department’s highest-ranking African-American officer, Alfonza Wysinger, who had abruptly retired.
Escalante immediately received the support of the City Council’s Latino Caucus. He recently said he’s interested in keeping the job permanently but had yet to decide if he will apply.
“I think I’m pretty well-versed on some of the major issues we’re dealing with now ... and I think there is always a learning curve for someone who comes from the outside,” Escalante said in a brief interview. “I have the advantage of not having to go through learning policies and procedures, learning the people, learning the communities, learning the issues.”
While Latino aldermen have lauded Escalante’s work, members of the Black Caucus have expressed their preference for an African-American police superintendent who can help rebuild trust in black neighborhoods on the South and West sides. And many aldermen agree the department should include more minorities to better reflect the makeup of Chicago.
“More important than the race of the person sitting at the top is the underlying issue that both the Black and Latino caucuses are trying to present — that the Police Department should look like the people it serves,” said North Side Ald. Ameya Pawar, 47th. “That means we need more diversity, not just in the command staff, but diversity in terms of who the superintendent is and who is out in the streets.”
Mayoral aides say community outreach is a top priority for the new superintendent, but they also stressed the best candidate must have a vision for reducing crime, develop creative partnerships throughout the criminal justice system and possess expertise in dealing with the modern-day threat of terrorism.
Emanuel’s nine-member Police Board issued applications for the superintendent job this month. They are due Jan. 15. After that, the board will interview candidates before publicly selecting three finalists from which Emanuel will choose.
Asked recently what he’ll be looking for in his next top cop, Emanuel responded, “I’m looking for professionalism, and to lead the department on multiple fronts.”
The mayor said he wants someone who can deal with gang and gun violence, but also drive down less violent crimes like burglaries, auto thefts and robberies. Just as important, he said, is restoring the public’s confidence in the department. The mayor noted there is a federal investigation and that he appointed a task force to look at policy reforms, though it’s unclear what kind of substantive changes the panel will come up with.
“We’re at a different juncture because (of) both the Department of Justice and the task force, so how do you lead a cultural and policy change within the Police Department for the legitimization of the Police Department on the outside?” Emanuel said. “It’s a different level, much higher, much more central to the next superintendent.”
Copyright 2015 the Chicago Tribune