CHICAGO Chicago’s police department plans to hire almost 1,000 officers over the next two years in a bid to combat a surge of violence in the third-largest US city including more than 500 murders this year, the Chicago Sun-Times reported on Wednesday.
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There will also be promotions for existing officers, with 200 new detectives, 112 new sergeants and 50 new lieutenants, he said.
Johnson said a few months ago that Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked what the department would look like if the superintendent was building it from scratch and resources were unlimited. “This will go toward that end”.
In recent days, Emanuel’s administration has announced plans to add almost 1,000 new police officers, an expansion of body cameras and mandatory de-escalation training for all officers.
Earlier this week, former Chicago police superintendent Garry McCarthy, who was sacked from his position following the release of the McDonald video, suggested that police officers have been put in an untenable situation.
Mayor Emanuel, who is expected to address police and violence Thursday, fired Johnson’s predecessor, Garry McCarthy, following the McDonald protests, and the agency that investigates police shootings faces an overhaul. In August alone, there were 90 homicides, marking the first time in two decades there’ve been that many in a single month.
His speech also touched on new technology, including gunshot-tracing cameras; gun shop legislation; and the need for more neighborhood resources. “We need the police, the community, elected officials, clergy – everybody has a vested interest in resolving the crime issue in Chicago”. But the city’s budget office confirmed that the price tag for each first-year police officer, when salary, benefits and supervision are factored in, will cost the city $138,000 a year – a figure that when multiplied by 970 adds up to close to $134 million.
Superintendent Eddie Johnson will announce what will be the force’s largest hiring effort in years at a news conference later Wednesday, CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. “Because we stretched them so thin I think we’ve seen some really disappointing repercussions in our communities”, said 45th Ward Alderman John Arena.
“The shootings and gang violence haven’t been this intense in a long time and there are a lot of factors in that”, Johnson said. But, no details yet on where that money will come from.
Also casting a pall over the Chicago Police Department is Officer Jason Van Dyke’s trial, slated to begin later this year. But he says that Emanuel has assured him that it could be done without raising taxes.
Overall, the city has recorded more than 500 homicides this year – higher than in all of 2015.
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That’s a strategy Emanuel pushed for as a way to combat crime without resorting to what he said was the more expensive option of hiring officers. According to the group, the extra policing will cause more more violence and trauma in the black community. The officer has pleaded not guilty to six counts of first-degree murder in the 2014 death of Laquan McDonald, a shooting that sowed an already-fertile mistrust between police and Chicagoans.
