NEWS BRIEF The Chicago Police Department plans to hire almost 1,000 officers to help reduce crime after the city saw a 50 percent spike in homicides, according to several early reports.
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Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said on Wednesday that some 516 new officers, 92 field training officers, 200 detectives, 112 sergeants, and 50 lieutenants will join a department now staffed with about 12,000 officers, according to the Associated Press.
The department has more than 12,000 officers now, and hasn’t had a hiring push of this magnitude in years, WGN reported.
“I owe you a department that is stronger in numbers, equipped for the 21st century, richer in skills and best practices to manage and challenge peacefully and honorably”, Johnson said. 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.
The total cost will be $134 million.
“We have been pushing for more bodies since this administration took office. and I don’t know if it was me or all the crime or the silent majority being heard that they need and want more police presence”, said Fraternal Order of Police President Dean Angelo. Aldermen said in 2015 they paid about $100 million in overtime pay, which they said would go a long way towards paying for the new officers the city hopes to hire. He said after school programs, summer jobs programs and mentors through groups like “My Brother’s Keeper” will do as much to root out crime as an expanded police force will.
The city has already recorded more than 500 murders for 2016 – a rate not seen since the 1990s, according to an analysis by the Chicago Tribune.
“The conversations that I’ve been hearing among police professionals, including people outside the city of Chicago, is that they’ve been understaffed for some time”, Cole said.
The mayor said he will not be raising taxes to pay for the new officers, but some aldermen still seem wary. In August alone, there were 90 homicides, marking the first time in two decades there’ve been that many in a single month. “Specifics of it, you’ll have to get from the budgeting office”, Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson told the Sun-Times in an exclusive interview. More than 3,000 people already have been shot in the city this year, a number that already has surpassed the 2,980 people shot last year.
Johnson said the staffing hike stems from a meeting he had with Emanuel months ago.
However, activists who have called for additional community resources and leadership changes said resources should be used elsewhere.
In the past couple of months, the department has drawn a host of negative headlines: The family of Paul O’Neal filed a federal lawsuit alleging wrongful death in the July fatal shooting of the 18-year-old; Nykea Aldridge, the cousin of National Basketball Association star Dwyane Wade, was shot in the head while on her way to register her children at a South Side school; and the department issued an apology to rapper Rhymefest after he posted video of officers “disgustingly” dismissing him as he tried to report a robbery.
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To make matters worse, the police department reportedly only solves about 30 to 40 percent of homicides, which are mostly fueled by gangs and the drug trade.
