- Despite promises of staffing increases, the Chicago Police Department has fewer beat officers in patrol districts across the city than before Mayor Rahm Emanuel took office, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of city data has found.
Days after he was sworn into office last year, Emanuel announced the start of what he described as a major shift in how the police department assigns officers across the city. He promised to fulfill a campaign pledge by assigning 1,000 more cops to high-crime areas without reducing the police presence in other parts of the city.
“We cannot beat crime without more officers on the beat,” the mayor said then.
That was May 2011.
But, as of Oct. 15, a total of 6,638 rank-and-file officers were assigned to police beats citywide, down from 6,746 beat cops at the start of 2011, according to the data obtained by the Sun-Times.
And why would that be?
- The reason is simple: For every newly hired officer assigned to a beat during the past two years, six other sworn members of the department have retired.
And because about 1,200 retirements have sharply depleted the payroll, rank-and-file police staffing even in some high-crime areas where new officers were added last year is again declining, the Sun-Times found.
And that's not even accounting for the Units. Anyone seen the wait time to get an ET to process a job? Eight, ten, even twelve hours isn't out of the ordinary. The Crime Lab has ceased to exist for the most part. Detective attrition must have been horrific over the past 5-plus years they didn't make a class, and the 70 currently in the Academy? They are walking into a world of shit.
If you live in a "quiet" part of town, run the numbers for your midnight shifts. There is no police protection during the hours of darkness. Or the Airports? Some nights they are running a single car - one cop covering an airport the size of three or four suburbs.
But remember, crime is down. If the police don't show up, it never gets reported, therefore, it never happened.
If you live in a "quiet" part of town, run the numbers for your midnight shifts. There is no police protection during the hours of darkness. Or the Airports? Some nights they are running a single car - one cop covering an airport the size of three or four suburbs.
But remember, crime is down. If the police don't show up, it never gets reported, therefore, it never happened.