McCarthy also took a shot at the media, pointing to a recent Gallup poll showing trust in news organizations at a new low, yet he said reporters are criticizing police on trust issues.
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The department will add 970 officers to its force including 516 patrol officers, 92 field-training officers, 112 sergeants, 50 lieutenants and 200 detectives, police Chief Eddie Johnson told the newspaper.
Former Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy says although he wasn’t asked for his opinion at the time, he would not have released video showing the fatal shooting of 16-year-old Laquan McDonald.
By contrast, New York, the largest USA city, experienced its safest summer in more than 20 years, according to its police department’s crime statistics. The rate of homicides there has declined in recent years. The move is a departure from how Mayor Rahm Emanuel has handled staffing at the department during his tenure, resisting pressure to add to the department’s ranks and instead paying thousands of dollars in overtime.
There has not been as many police officers hired for several years, according to FOX News.
Throwing overtime hours at the problem has not resulted in the city’s murder rate going down.
The city has already tallied more than 500 homicides in 2016 – more than NY and Los Angeles combined – and more than 3,000 non-fatal shootings.
So far in 2016, there have been over 500 homicides in the city.
Chicago has seen more than 500 homicides already – higher than all of 2015. Also, as WTHR reported, that it is more than all of the homicides so far this year in “Los Angeles and NY combined”. Besides the murder rate being at a record-setting pace, there has also been a dramatic increase in the number of shooting incidents in Chicago in 2016; the number now sits at more than 2,500. Some of the aldermen were skeptical, saying resources should also be poured into education and creating jobs. Hiring new police officers, they argued, “would bring additional health care and pension costs”. Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson will detail the plans in a speech scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.
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Emanuel’s administration has proposed a new system to investigate police-involved shootings, officer complaints and department practices, which City Council members are considering.
