McCarthy Reviews 100 Days

We have no idea what the fixation is on "100 days" but G-Mac makes the most of it:

• Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy, who will mark his 100th day in the job Tuesday, firmly believes the city is safer since he took office.

  As the native New Yorker sat with his back to the Chicago skyline at his desk in police headquarters last week, he ticked off the latest crime statistics to drive his point home.

  “Shootings: down 75 through today. That’s 1,516 last year and 1,441 this year. Murder: down 30 through today, from 290 to 260.”

  Asked how much he thinks his new strategies have contributed to the decline, he confidently responded: “I’d have to say it’s 90 percent.”

Wow. Seriously? No credit for the boys and girls on the front lines? Gee, you're welcome Garry. Could this guy put his foot in his mouth any more often than he already does? What a fucking egomaniac. We guess the other 10% of the credit goes to Rahm Emanuel for hiring G-Braniac.



In the meantime, the "goonings" or "wildings" continue unabated:

• Officials have charged seven teens today for beating and robbing an 18-year-old man Friday outside of the Cermak-Chinatown CTA station, police said.

  The attack happened about 11 p.m. at 138 W. Cermak Rd. outside of the Red Line stop, said Chicago Police News Affairs...

  The victim was robbed and beaten and sustained facial injuries and was taken to John H. Stroger Jr., Hospital of Cook County

This poor guy must not have fallen into the 90% of Garry's awesome crime-reduction success.

The Bigger the Lie...

This is a Whopper:
And here's another whopper - a much bigger whopper:

• Gang loitering, intimidation, flash mobs and violence had nothing to do with the Chicago Police Department’s unprecedented decision to close North Avenue beach on a sultry Memorial Day, Acting Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said Wednesday.

  One day after Mayor Rahm Emanuel blamed a surge of calls about patrons suffering from heat exhaustion for the beach closing, McCarthy stood at the mayor’s side and agreed.

  Asked point-blank what role, if any, gang activity or violence played in Monday’s 6 p.m. closing, McCarthy said without hesitation, “None.”

Wow. Seriously, Wow. We guess it's good to get the first one out of the way though. You tell a big enough lie, and all the little lies become that much easier after a while.

What we can't decide is if he's lying on his own or getting bad information:

• “There was no gang activity involved in the commander’s decision to close the beach. ... It was based upon the public safety concerns where we had to get ambulances to victims on the beach and the overcrowded conditions made it difficult for that to occur,” McCarthy said.

  “The folks who showed up at North Avenue, what I was informed of, were suburbanites who were coming to the beach to enjoy a nice day. It was simply an overcrowding situation. It had nothing to do with anything else that was going on.”

Based on this definition, we expect that the "overcrowding" at the Taste of Chicago, the Air & Water Show, the Chicago Marathon, the Polish Constitution Day events, Bud Billiken, and the mayhem at the Humboldt Park Puerto Rican Festival will be dealt with in the same manner.

By the way, here's Cook County Commissioner John Fritchey's Twitter feed on 31 May:

• Based on a couple of conversations that I've now had, yesterday's beach closure had more to do with crowd control concerns than the heat.
• And if the police can't get a handle on beach safety, there are going to be a lot of problems this summer...
• Even more interesting is that the papers so quickly bought into the heat story without reporting any of the real problems that went down.
• There is a growing problem at the beaches, one that I believe that are trying to keep under wraps.

But we suppose he's just making shit up, too. Like these people over at Reddit.com. Honest to pete, even the Sun Times comment sections are alive with first hand accounts of what happened.

McCarthy Era Begins

Here we go!

• Garry McCarthy made a beeline to Chicago Police headquarters after his boss Rahm Emanuel was sworn into office Monday morning as Chicago’s 46th mayor.

  McCarthy, the former Newark Police director, assumed the role of Chicago’s acting top cop as he awaits City Council approval to officially become the next police superintendent.

  McCarthy said he met with the department’s two assistant superintendents and other police brass. He said he was impressed with “a couple” of the officials but will have to “get a better feel” for others.

  Last week, Massachusetts consultant Robert Wasserman visited Chicago on McCarthy’s invitation to create a list of information McCarthy should ask the department to collect —including priorities for his first 30 days.

A couple of comments said that the new supe is gathering resumes and beginning interviews of current exempts. While a wholesale decapitation and bloodbath (a la J-Fled) seems unlikely, there are enough nervous gold stars out there to fill a bus. McCarthy is on record saying there's "too much specialization" in regard to units, which we assume means overlapping areas of responsibility and bosses carving out little spheres of influence. This might be a bout to change. A top-to-bottom consolidation of redundant units would free up enough bodies to fill a few districts and since Rahm promised 1,000 more street officers, they've got to come from somewhere. The Academy certainly isn't filled.

Top Cop Press

Two front page articles on the Tribune and Sun Times websites. A sampling:

• [Tribune] But as McCarthy prepares to become the Chicago Police Department's next superintendent, his reputation in Newark as a crime fighter and administrator remains strong. He has been credited with increasing the professionalism and skill of the police department, while negotiating a thorny political landscape with the thick skin that he developed in decades of climbing the ranks of New York's top brass.

• [Sun Times] On Monday, Emanuel introduced McCarthy, 52, as his choice for Chicago police superintendent. McCarthy awaits City Council approval. Newark’s city councilmen and union leaders said their relationship with McCarthy was sometimes rocky, but they credited him with the 12 percent drop in overall crime in Newark during his tenure. Shootings and murders plummeted 40 percent over that period.
  
  
• [Sun Times] He vowed to shift more Chicago Police officers onto patrol from specialized units.
  
  He pledged to steer some non-emergency calls away from the 911 center to the 311 center — to allow cops to get out of their cars and do more proactive police work, instead of going from call to call.
  
  McCarthy said he wants his officers to “sweat the small stuff” such as stopping people from drinking on street corners. Addressing those types of problems can lead to making arrests for more serious crimes such as gun possession, he said."

Broken Windows" comes to Chicago. Definitely interesting times ahead.

Welcome Aboard Mr. McCarthy

This should be a welcome change:

• McCarthy arrived in Chicago the day after a U.S. special operations team killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaida. The incoming police superintendent has not had a chance to get a detailed assessment of Chicago's counter-terrorism plans. Although he was only marginally involved in the creation of NYPD's plan, McCarthy said he knows how it was created.
  
  "It might be the model that local police agencies should pursue," McCarthy told the Tribune. "(Chicago) should probably have a robust component for counterterrorism."

Remember, the prevailing attitude around here has been, "It would be impractical to train the entire police department" for anything resembling a 9-11 type attack, including having people familiar with a downtown evacuation or how to shut down highways or raise the bridges or similar doomsday scenarios.

"Just winging it" isn't going to cut it and neither is relying on the feds to get troops here in a timely manner.

Hopefully McCarthy is allowed to bring in needed change. But we remember wishing that before around three years ago. He's going to need all the skill and all the luck in the world here undoing the damage of the past administration. We heard he's bringing in a First Deputy again - that will be a telling first appointment.

Outsider to be Named Superintendent

We went to bed on the news Osama bin Laden was dead, covered in bacon grease and buried at sea. Now we wake up to Garry McCarthy being crowned by both newspapers as the new superintendent of police:

• [Sun Times] Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel today will introduce Newark, N.J. , police chief Garry McCarthy as Chicago’s new police superintendent, sources said, gambling that McCarthy’s big city experience will overcome the fact that he is another outsider.

  McCarthy replaces Jody Weis, a career FBI agent who rank and file police officers never accepted because they viewed him as an outsider who didn’t have their backs.

  Last week, McCarthy, who will celebrate his 52nd birthday later this week, demonstrated that he is keenly aware of the morale problems he is inheriting.

• [Tribune] Newark, N.J., police Director Garry McCarthy, who debuted innovative and controversial crime-fighting techniques during a long career in New York, will be named Chicago's new police superintendent on Monday, a source with Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel's transition team said Sunday.
  
  McCarthy, who was a contender for the Chicago job in 2003, was one of three finalists named Friday by the Chicago Police Board following weeks of interviewing and background checking. While the board is not scheduled to present its list to Emanuel for official action until he is sworn in May 16, the mayor-elect never planned on waiting that long and conducted his own candidate search that put McCarthy at the top.

It will certainly be interesting to see how well he can run up against the entrenched political forces here who appoint gold stars without regard qualifications, educational experience or police ability. We sense another mass bloodletting similar to what happened when J-Fled arrived in town. We wonder if it will turn out any better this time, because it would be hard to see it turning out worse.

Wysinger Out?

So, was Sneed wrong? Or is this a change from what was leaked? Or another classic case of misdirection by Shortshanks Rahm and the Machine before naming someone not even on the list?

• Garry McCarthy — the director of the Newark, N.J., police department — emerged as the odds-on favorite to become Chicago’s next police superintendent on Friday.

  The Chicago Police Board is recommending that Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel pick McCarthy or one of two Chicago Police insiders with less experience to replace police Supt. Jody Weis, whose contract expired in March.

  The other finalists are Chicago Police chief of patrol Eugene Williams and Debra Kirby, a deputy superintendent overseeing the Chicago Police Department’s Bureau of Professional Standards. But only McCarthy was on Emanuel’s separate list of top contenders.

We're pretty sure Rahm stated he wanted a Chicago guy (or gal) in charge. But someone is pushing for McCarthy awfully hard to make Spielman and Main write this stuff that's so obviously different from the line Sneed was selling.

And word from HQ is the exempts are in-fighting pretty heavily trying to line up support for keeping their spots (or advancing) once the new supernintendo takes over.

Two Different Tracks?

There's a process, or so we heard. And Rahm is doing his own thing, too:

• Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel today said he's waiting for the police board to submit the names of three finalists for police superintendent so he can name Chicago’s next top cop.

  “I have to respect a process, and that’s my goal,” Emanuel said. “I look forward to getting those names.”
  
  The Chicago Police Board must interview candidates, conduct background searches and recommend three finalists. Emanuel has been been doing his own interviews of potential candidates as the police board does its work.

So is the Police Board wasting time if Rahm has his own career track for his picks?

Wysinger?

This is what Rahm wants:

• The competition to become Chicago’s next police superintendent has come down to a three-man race between a veteran Chicago cop and a pair of outsiders, with a final decision possible later this week, City Hall sources said Monday.

  The top three are: Newark Police Chief Garry McCarthy; national drug czar R. Gil Kerlikowske and Chicago’s deputy chief-of-detectives Al Wysinger. Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel was asked Monday whether an outsider can improve the morale problems that dogged career FBI agent Jody Weis.

The Sun Times' Frank Main does half of Rahm's hit job for him with this section of the article:

• The only hitch for McCarthy could be a 2005 disorderly conduct conviction stemming from McCarthy’s attempt to get his daughter out of a parking ticket.

And then completes the picture with this paragraph:

• Wysinger earned his chops on the day in 2007 when he ran down a gunman who shot a woman in a West Side gangway near his grandmother’s 80th birthday party. His appointment would almost certainly play well with the rank-and-file.

Looks like all of Rahm's pieces are coming together just in time for the inauguration.

The Latest Name

The most recent flavor of the day:

• According to the Chicago News Cooperative, the biggest name is Gil Kerlikowske -- currently President Barack Obama's drug czar. Kerlikowske met with Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel last week in Chicago and was back in town over the weekend for an interview with the Chicago Police Board, the CNC reported.

  Kerlikowske's official title is director of White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Before his current post he was the Seattle police chief for 9 years and also had been Buffalo New York's police commissioner.

  The CNC also lists the following applicants:

• Garry McCarthy -- Newark New Jersey's director of police, also a former NYC deputy commissioner
• Gene Williams -- Chief of Patrol, CPD
• Al Wysinger -- Deputy Chief of Detectives, CPD
• Deb Kirby -- Asst. Deputy Superintendent, CPD
• Michael Shields -- Head of security for CPS
• Dan Isom -- The Chicago Tribune reports that St. Louis' police chief has also thrown his name in the hat.

Was McCarthy the one who called Chicago's last supernintendo search a joke and rigged against outsiders? Or are we misremembering our NYPD applicants?

40 Applications?

That many gluttons for punishment? We're surprised:

• More than 40 people have applied to become Chicago’s next top cop, officials said Tuesday.

  The Chicago Police Board will interview the candidates for Chicago police superintendent and present three finalists to Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel, who takes office May 16.

  Many of the candidates are members of the Chicago Police Department.

  “Of the external candidates, many are current or former leaders of large organizations,” said Demetrius Carney, president of the Chicago Police Board.

Someone had a good suggestion in the comments earlier. Name all forty. Then list their letters of recommendation so everyone knows what favors are to be owed upon appointment. Plus, it'd be useful to have a list of everyone's connections who didn't make the cut.

Does anyone know if the Police Board have to conduct "open meeting" type notifications for interviews and such? Or does everyone have to rely on spies and Sneed to watch the front door to see who shows up what day?

Last Chance to Apply

Last chance is tomorrow:

• Monday is the deadline for those interested in becoming Chicago's next Top Cop. While Philadelphia's Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey removed himself this week from the running, it's expected there will be a healthy competition of those who want the job. Some are Chicagoans, some are not. After the written applications are read, the nine-member Police Board will hold interviews for perhaps 10 candidates. The board will then present three choices to Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel for his final choice.

  Included in the application -- four letters of recommendation and answers to four essay questions. Also, the Police Board is trying to predict ahead of time how the next superintendent might handle a legal crisis. Those interested must answer the question, "Have you ever invoked the 5th Amendment, and why?" Police experts are calling it the Phil Cline question.
  

The going salary seems to be between $330,00 and $400,000 per year. Plus car, condo, and who knows what else.

$400,000? Hahaha!!!!

Instead of waiting for the shoe to drop, Ramsey - by accident or by design - withdraws from the field of battle:

• Philadelphia police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, who was a front-runner to become the next Chicago Police superintendent, is no longer a candidate — and money was a key reason.

  Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel, who takes office next month, has praised Ramsey, who formerly was a deputy superintendent with the Chicago Police Department and chief of the Washington, D.C., police. Ramsey had said he was interested in the Chicago job.

  But a source said Ramsey was asking for a compensation package of more than $400,000 and Emanuel found that unacceptable.

J-Fled got $330,000 a year for three years and he had never run a police department, nor served in municipal law enforcement, in his life. Ramsey probably asked for pie-in-the-sky numbers (again, on his own or at Rahm's direction) to withdraw somewhat gracefully.

At least now he's just a greedy man instead of an Emanuel patsy.

Uh...What?

Either Rahm is going to pull a rabbit out of his hat or Sneed is hitting some dope that is waaaaay past the "sell by" date:

• Sneed hears Cortez Trotter, the city’s first African-American Fire commissioner and former head of the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications — is emerging as a serious contender for Chicago’s next top cop.

This could be true we suppose. Trotter was never a firefighter, yet managed to land the Fire Commissioner spot. J-Fled was never a cop and ended up running the Police Department (into the ground) along with another non-cop (Masters Masters Masters). Hell, Huberman was never a school teacher or a bus driver and he ended up fucking up both the CTA and CPS. So we suppose there is precedent for having unqualified people in positions where they can do maximum damage to whatever department they end up heading.

Ramsey Article

A well written article about Ramsey's tenure in Washington DC that should give pause to anyone considering how he might be a good idea:

• The changes began in 1998 with a Washington Post series on DC police that described “a pattern of reckless and indiscriminate gunplay.” Chief Charles Ramsey had just taken over the department. Shocked by the newspaper series, he became the first police chief in the nation to invite the Justice Department in to review the police department’s use of force. In 2001 Justice drew up a memorandum of agreement with the DC police revising the regulations governing the use of force. The result put in place a system for controlling and disciplining cops, including the creation of special divisions and an outside monitor to investigate police behavior.

  The apparatus seems to investigate cops with more rigor than it investigates criminals. What started in 2001 as a system to monitor cops who used their weapons too often has developed into a blunt instrument that punishes some of DC’s best and brightest and allows criminals to use the system against officers trying to make streets safe.

The article was written in 2007, immediately after Ramsey left DC for Philly. While we realize Washington is a hotbed of all sorts of political intrigue, is inviting the Justice Department into your bailiwick when your city was vying with Detroit for Murder Capital of the USA to second guess your police shootings really a good idea?

Another Nominee?

That Sneed - she's pimping big time for the Rahmulans. She's jumping in with both feet big time:

• Sneed hears rumbles John Timoney, 62, the Irish born former top cop of Philly and Miami, is being floated as a possible pick for Chicago Police superintendent.

  Translation: “He’s highly regarded and served with the New York Police force (from 1967 until 1998), where he rose to the No. 2 spot,” said a Sneed source. “He was also a protégé of LAPD Chief Bill Bratton, when Bratton was New York’s Police commissioner. (Sneed is told Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel is a big fan of Bratton, who expressed no interest in leaving LA.)

  Backshot: Emigrating to America in 1961, Timoney served as Philly’s Police commissioner from 1998 to 2003 before leading Miami’s police force from 2003 to 2010. Timoney “was recruited to be chief in Miami by the business community to reduce police-related shootings,” a source said. He turned around the scandal-ridden department, the source said: “He was highly successful.”

  The kicker: Timoney, who is now serving as an advisor to a home security company, is also a close friend of Philly’s police commissioner, Charles Ramsey, who has been reported to be a top contender for the Chicago job.

To "reduce police related shootings"? We'd hope that means encouraging stiffer sentencing for jagoffs that shoot at police and more training for police so assailants never get the opportunity to shoot at the police again. Or breathe again for that matter. Because anything else is too stupid to even contemplate.

Begin the Charade

Here's the veneer of legitimacy to Chicago hiring:

• The Chicago Police Board said today it has begun accepting applications for a permanent successor to former police Superintendent Jody Weis.

  Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel has said he hopes to name a new superintendent when he takes office on May 16.

  The applications are being accepted on the police board’s web site, ChicagoPoliceBoard.org, until April 11, Demetrius Carney, the board’s president, said in a statement. The police board is responsible for nominating three candidates for superintendent.

  The application requires candidates to describe their qualifications, “address important challenges facing the police department” and reveal if they have ever taken the 5th Amendment in a court proceeding.

  Among the four essay questions, applicants must explain how they would improve the morale of the department, a sore point for Weis, a former FBI agent seen as an outsider during his three-year term. Applicants are also asked how they would build on the department’s success in fighting violent crime. Last year murders were at their lowest since 1965.

And here's the link to the actual application. As stated above, the deadline is 11 April. Rahm already has his pick, so unless you have received the call, don't bother filling out the application. We did hear that at least three applications have been filled out in SCC's name, one of them by J-Fled himself who scrawled at the bottom, "If these bastards think they can do a better job...."

We don't know about better, but we couldn't do it worse. And we could do it cheaper, too.

Rahm Touts Ramsey

Looks like a return to the old days - which means business as usual?

• Philadelphia Police Chief Charles Ramsey has “great strengths” that would be “natural for the job” of Chicago police superintendent, according to Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel, who nevertheless vowed to “follow the process” laid out by law.

  “From Chicago. Two proven departments under his belt of leadership. A proven record on community policing, which is important to us. The trust of the department (to solve) the morale issue, which is essential,” Emanuel told the Chicago Sun-Times in a recent one-on-one interview.

  “He’s right. He doesn’t want to be rounding out any list (of finalists),” Emanuel said.” He rises in the list because of all of his natural strengths — by character, by leadership, by experience and by a proven rec­ord. ... He has a lot to offer. No doubt about it. Very strong candidate. Ramsey has some great strengths that would be natural for the job.”

And a return to the days of CAPS - the vampire program that just wouldn't die.

Who's Got the Inside Track?

Next up - an insider:

• Picking a new police superintendent, getting more cops on the street and looking at where they're deployed will be considerations for Chicago's new mayor.

  Mayor Richard Daley's successor also will have to figure out a way to deal with the Chicago Police Department's perception problem: Statistics show the city is safer than it has been in decades, yet high-profile, persistent gun violence in some neighborhoods has blunted that message.

  Police Superintendent Jody Weis has served as a political football during the campaign, with the four top mayoral contenders saying they won't renew his contract.

  Candidates Gery Chico, Miguel del Valle and Carol Moseley Braun say they'll name someone from within the department's ranks.

So who has the inside track? Rumors are that our leaders are going to take a page from the "Chicago Code." What does everyone else hear?