Chicago’s police superintendent urged Black Lives Matter activists to join the police force as he announced the department’s intent to hire nearly 1,000 new officers.
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The breakdown is 516 new officers, 92 field-training officers, 200 detectives, 112 sergeants and 50 lieutenants, Guglielmi said.
(Officer Johnson) “I owe you a department stronger in numbers, equipped for the 21st century, richer in skills and best practices to manage and challenge peacefully and honorably”.
The hires may prove the most significant step taken by the police force in response to the more than 500 homicides committed in the city this year, a 46 percent increase from 2015 and on pace to exceed the rate of any year since 2003.
According to the Chicago Sun Times, the hiring surge “marks a turnaround for Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who has relied on police overtime in a failed attempt to stop the cycle of gang violence on the streets”. Eddie Johnson and Emanuel spent Wednesday talking about swelling police ranks to help combat violence, Emanuel’s Thursday night speech will detail other means to fight crime, such as building up the South and West Sides and providing opportunities for kids. Most said they support the concept, but some have concerns about how the cash-strapped city will pay for it.
Those are among the key elements of Mayor Emanuel’s proposed, crime fighting strategy.
Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson says adding almost 1,000 new positions to the police department will help stop increasing violence in the city and earn trust in the community. Emanuel campaigned in 2011 on adding 1,000 officers, but then only reshuffled officers that were already on staff.
The Chicago police union didn’t immediately respond to The Associated Press’ request for comment. “When I became superintendent, I pledged that I would look at the CPD from top to bottom to see what we could do to improve the city of Chicago”.
Chicago has seen a dramatic rise in the number of shootings and homicides this year.
Johnson says it’s a hard time to be a police officer with added pressures and cellphone videos. In August alone, there were 90 homicides, marking the first time in two decades there have been that many in a single month.
“The hiring of more police officers should come as good news to every law abiding citizen of the city of Chicago, to each of our local business communities and especially to the women and men (and family members) of the Chicago Police Department”.
In the past, when the mayor has promised to increase police pressence on the street, the reality has been a confusing pattern of rearranging officers already on the force – moving people doing desk jobs to the front lines, and shifting resources form low-crime areas to violent hot spots.
Johnson said the personnel hike is an outgrowth of his early days as police chief, when Emanuel asked him what the department could use if money was no obstacle.
However, activists who have called for additional community resources and leadership changes said resources should be used elsewhere.
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“The causes of crime and intra-communal violence exist because of the conditions of poverty that Rahm Emanuel has exacerbated for Chicago”, Black Lives Matter Chicago said in a statement.
