Though Mayor Rahm Emanuel has repeatedly claimed that he’s been making big investments in public safety, the number of Chicago police officers has dropped in the last three months, and the force is now more than 700 officers short of where it was five years ago.
Most recently, during a widely-covered press conference Monday, Emanuel listed police staffing as one of the major accomplishments of his first 100 days, claiming to have moved “nearly 750 additional officers to Chicago’s neighborhoods.”
The mayor's announcement made for smart politics, but the police ranks are actually shrinking. Last October, 11,178 police officers were on the city payroll. By June, shortly after Emanuel took office, that number had dropped to 10,923. As of earlier today, it was down a tad more, to 10,918, according to payroll data.
Still Shrinking
And we're sensing a sudden surge in retirements coming after the first of the year - sometime before May for some reason.