By Fran Spielman
City Hall Reporter
CHICAGO, Ill. — Determined to shake up the scandal-scarred status quo, Mayor Daley today has chosen an FBI official from Philadelphia to become the second outsider ever to serve as Chicago Police superintendent.
J.P. “Jody” Weis, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Philadelphia field office, replaces Phil Cline, whose retirement was hastened by the department’s handling of barroom brawls involving off-duty officers, allegations of excessive force and by a continuing scandal in the newly-disbanded Special Operations Scandal.
Weis’ name was first revealed by Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed.
Daley has a history of choosing insiders for top jobs.
But, he recently chose a Los Angeles attorney to restore public confidence in investigations of police wrongdoing. And he has apparently concluded that the Chicago Police Department also needs that kind of shake-up that only an outsider can provide.
Ald. Isaac Carothers (29th), chairman of the City Council’s Police Committee, believes the mayor made the right call by choosing an outsider.
University of California at Berkeley criminologist O.W. Wilson was the last outsider to serve as Chicago Police superintendent. In 1960, he was appointed by Daley’s father, former Mayor Richard J. Daley, after the cops-as-robbers scandal in the Summerdale police district.
“In view of what’s been happening for the last two years in the police department all the difficulties we’ve had, past superintendents have all been from the inside and we still continue to have trouble. Maybe going to the outside might bring a fresh look — a guy who knows no one and owes no one,” the alderman said.
Earlier this week, Police Board President Demetrius Carney told the Sun-Times that an outside candidate likely to become a finalist for superintendent had threatened to withdraw his name if the Police Board publicly identifies the three names, as it has in the past.
Carney said the board was waiting for a private investigator to complete exhaustive background checks of the top candidates and planned to vote on the three finalists next week before forwarding the names to Daley.
Instead, Daley reportedly ordered the board to speed up the process and apparently started interviewing candidates, even before getting the three names.
In August, Daley asked the Police Board to reopen its nationwide search because he was not satisfied with the three names they gave him: Chicago Deputy Superintendents Charles Williams and Hiram Grau, and New Yorker Thomas Belfiore.
Earlier this month, Daley told the Sun-Times editorial board that the new superintendent need not be an outsider. But, he has also adamantly assured community policing volunteers that “there will be change” in a Chicago Police Department rocked by scandal.
“The mayor is looking for a change agent. He’s looking for an outsider. We’re back to where we were with O.W. Wilson. He thinks the crisis is that severe,” said a top mayoral aide, who asked to remain anonymous.
Copyright 2007 The Chicago Sun-Times