Some of the prize parts of this roll out:
- "Very clearly, we have a gang problem in the city of Chicago," Supt. McCarthy said at a press conference Tuesday.
No shit.
- Chicago's homicide rate at this point of the year is up nearly 50 percent. The vast majority of those homicides are gang-related.
"It's not OK that we had 53 shootings last week, but that 53 shootings is the same exact number of shootings that we had last year, so this is not a new problem. What it is is a new is the solution that we are applying to it," McCarthy said.
We had predicted the Department Administration would take credit for "They're killing each other at a slower rate." We were close as they're now saying, "Since the numbers are the same as last year, it's all okay." Of course, the one number that has changed? The number of officers employed by the city, meaning the "more with less" strategy is going to be touted as working.
- A computer program contains wants, warrants, known gang members with records, and their associates. That kind of information has long been available, but not packaged in quite this fashion, and within the next month, it'll be available on the frontlines to beat officers on the laptops in their squads.
Really? No mention of the entire system being down for almost 10 days? The lack of tower maintenance that's restricting our ability to get to info? The complete failure of the AIRA system (automated case reports) that means officers have to take the report on paper, then go to the station and type it into a land based system, meaning they're off the streets - a contradiction of Rahm's and McCarthy's insistence that more cops are on the street?
- As for the technology part of the equation, the superintendent says it shifts the emphasis a bit from "hot spot" policing to "hot people" policing.
So the entire last two months of "patrolling the box" was a waste of time? Just as it had been ten years ago? Has any one told the command staff who are still downing cars for "missions" that accomplish nothing at all?