By Joanna Putman
Police1
CHICAGO — The Chicago Police Department is now ensuring all officers will always have two days off in a row, NBC Chicago reported.
Newly appointed CPD Superintendent Larry Snelling internally announced the department would no longer be operating in a “tiered deployment system.” The Fraternal Order of Police said this system allowed the first day of officers’ time off to be canceled in a tiered fashion.
“It just allows you to have more of a normal life, and work overtime when you want to work it, not because the city’s making you work it,” FOP President John Catanzara told NBC Chicago.
The department will now make overtime voluntary, a move one city council member said would highlight the staffing issues facing the department.
“We’ll stop masking and sugarcoating the seriousness for what we’re dealing with in terms of our manpower shortages,” Ald. Raymond Lopez said.
The move comes just 10 days after Snelling addressed the Police and Fire Committee about officer mental health, the report states.
“We go to shootings, homicides, children who have been abused. Those things can take a toll on an officer and it can take a toll on an officer’s psyche,” he said in the Sept. 22 meeting. “So we need to make sure those officers are getting proper time off to decompress.”