For four days, and nearly around the clock, Chicago police guided, cajoled and blockaded roaming groups of NATO protesters, following a set of strategic goals that laid the foundation for everything they did.
Keep protesters from damaging property or hurting anyone; keep any trouble south of the city's famous Michigan Avenue retail district, where many international dignitaries were staying; and do it all with a "soft look" that belied the overwhelming police presence and kept violent confrontation to a minimum.
By all appearances, it worked.
That's a testament to the resiliency and dedication of the street officers for sure. That doesn't come from some outsider attempting to re-invent policing in Chicago, though we fully expect him to be taking all the glory.
We certainly expect the FOP to have an entire scrapbook of videos and articles, especially the ones quoting McCarthy and Rahm about police professionalism, ready to go at the end of June.