With Chicago suffering a 35 percent spike in murders this year, police Supt. Garry McCarthy announced a reshuffling of his command staff Friday, replacing commanders in five of the city’s 23 districts.
McCarthy also promoted three supervisors to deputy chief positions. He said the changes were made to “strengthen the department’s ongoing efforts to reduce violence” and create a “more efficient departmental structure.”
McCarthy promoted James Gibson as commander in the Morgan Park district; Lynette Helm in Grand-Crossing; James O’Donnell in Jefferson Park; Maria Pena in Marquette, and Barbara West in Austin.
A police spokeswoman said no district commanders were demoted to make way for the changes in those five districts. They replaced commanders who were promoted to other positions or retired, she said.
Right there, that kind of negates the claim of a "shake-up." And officially promoting someone who conducted at least one witch hunt in violation of Department Orders is some amazingly bad judgement.
And what's that? Murders up 35%? Sounds there ought to be quite a few demotions attached to that number: Now how about the Deputy Chief positions that were filled:
Kathleen Boehmer, former commander in the Town Hall district, was promoted to deputy chief of detectives.
Keith Calloway, former commander of detectives in the Calumet Area, was named deputy chief of the organized crime bureau.Boemer and Calloway’s previous positions were eliminated in a department consolidation last month. McCarthy merged the Town Hall and Belmont districts and reduced the number of detective areas from five to three.
McCarthy also announced that Eddie Johnson, former commander of the Gresham district, has been promoted to deputy chief of patrol for the newly created Central Area.
And they still manage to claim "crime is down" in the article:
As of Thursday, there have been 114 murders this year in Chicago — up 35 percent compared with the same period last year.
But department records also show that, through March 18, overall crime has dropped 10 percent throughout the city compared with the same period in 2011.