Emanuel to name controversial training center for slain cop
The $ 95 million police and fire training academy in West Garfield Park that has drawn opposition from Chance the Rapper and college students around the nation will be named after slain Chicago Police Cmdr. Paul Bauer.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced the honor late Friday as Bauer’s widow, Erin, who also works for the city, prepared to bury her husband on what would have been their 16th wedding anniversary.
Bauer, the 53- year- old commander of the Near North District, was shot six times on Tuesday afternoon in a stairwell outside the Thompson Center, where he had confronted a man who was fleeing other officers.
Shomari Legghette, a career criminal wearing body armor, was charged and held without bond for Bauer’s murder.
“Paul Bauer may be gone from this earth, but his legacy as a great police officer and a great man will live on forever,” Emanuel was quoted as saying in a press release, issued after he consulted Bauer’s widow and 13- year- old daughter, Grace.
“For decades to come, every police and fire recruit learning to protect and serve Chicagoans will train in the Paul R. Bauer Academy and be inspired by the example he set for us all.”
The decision to turn a project that has become a source of controversy into a symbol of heroism is a high honor for the grieving Bauer family and a political masterstroke for Emanuel.
In November, Chance the Rapper accused the City Council of having misplaced priorities, but the celebrity scolding did not stop aldermen from authorizing a $ 9.6 million land sale that will pave the way for construction of the new training campus.
The rapper, whose real name is Chancelor Bennett, then argued that bolstering mental health services and school funding should be higher priorities than the police training that was a primary focus of the U. S. Justice Department’s scathing indictment of the Chicago Police Department.
“There’s a lot of ways to transform the city that don’t have anything to do with police training,” said Chance, a graduate of Jones College Prep.
Chance isn’t the only one who has opposed the project and questioned the mayor’s priorities.
Earlier this week, Emanuel’s speech to college students at UCLA, where his son is a student, was interrupted by a handful of protesters opposed to the new training academy.