Chicago Sun-Times

ADIEU TO BLUE?

After a tumultuous last month, Police Supt. Eddie Johnson says he’s considerin­g retirement, citing toll job has had on his health, family

- FRAN SPIELMAN REPORTS

Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson said Monday he is giving serious considerat­ion to retiring from his $260,044-a-year job, citing the toll the job he never sought has taken on his health and his family.

“I love this job. I love this city. I have given 31 years now to this city and almost four as superinten­dent. But, I recognize also that, at some point, it’s time to create a different chapter in your life,” Johnson told reporters during a break at his third — and probably final — City Council budget hearing.

Johnson said he’s “been toying” with his decision for some time, and it has nothing to do with Inspector General Joe Ferguson’s ongoing investigat­ion of him.

“When my family and I went to London for the Bears game, that’s the first vacation like that that I’ve had since I became superinten­dent. And I looked at my family. It made me realize how much of a sacrifice you make for your family when you take on positions like this,” the superinten­dent said.

Last month, Johnson was found slumped over in his police SUV around 12:30 a.m. near the 3400 block of South Aberdeen — after dismissing his driver and attempting to drive himself home.

Johnson initially blamed a change in his blood pressure medication and his failure to fill the replacemen­t prescripti­on.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot subsequent­ly told the Sun-Times that the superinten­dent told her he had a “couple of drinks with dinner.”

Ferguson is investigat­ing the circumstan­ces surroundin­g that incident, including whether Johnson should have been driving, why he was not given a sobriety test and whether the rules were bent to protect the boss.

Freedom of Informatio­n requests for body-cam video of the incident have been denied pending the outcome of Ferguson’s investigat­ion.

Johnson was asked whether he plans to make up his mind about retirement before the IG issues his report.

“I’m not concerned about that. Really, I’m not,” the superinten­dent said.

Nor is he concerned about hanging on to the job until April, when he will be fully vested in his superinten­dent’s pension.

“The vested part of a pension really has never mattered to me because, remember, I didn’t apply for this job. So that part of it doesn’t matter to me. It really doesn’t,” he said.

“What matters to me is seeing CPD trusted by the communitie­s that we serve and to see this crime go down — and we’ve done that. … The officers and communitie­s have come together now. I just cannot be more encouraged by what I’ve seen.”

Nearly four years ago, Emanuel plucked Johnson out of obscurity, even though Johnson didn’t seek the job. Johnson at the time was the department’s chief of patrol.

Emanuel rejected all three finalists chosen by the Police Board after a first nationwide search, then persuaded the City Council to cancel the charade of a second nationwide search required by law.

At the time, the Police Board president was Lightfoot. Now, Lightfoot is the mayor who may choose a new superinten­dent.

Lightfoot was reluctant to change police superinten­dents heading into summer, when gang violence traditiona­lly surges.

Asked last month whether the drinking and driving incident would play a role in whether she’ll keep Johnson on, Lightfoot told the Sun-Times: “I don’t want to speculate like that . . . . We’ll see where the facts take us.”

The mayor noted then that Johnson is probably one of 10 or fewer people in the entire nation who is capable of leading the nation’s second-largest police department.

“He came in . . . and really stabilized things when a lot of people felt like the department was unmoored. We have to give him credit for stepping into the breach when the department was under siege. I will take that, of course, into considerat­ion,” she said then.

On Monday, Johnson referred to those tumultuous early days.

“When I took over in 2016, everything was a mess. The crime was a mess. The police morale was a mess. The community didn’t trust the police at all. We had activists trying to chain themselves to the door of police headquarte­rs,” he said.

“Now, those same people are partnering with us to make this city better. Are we where we want to be? No. We’re not. But I think we’ve made significan­t progress and we need to continue that momentum and get this city in a place where we can get out there and say Chicago’s one of the safest big cities in this country.”

Johnson’s decision to consider calling it

quits is not surprising, considerin­g what he has endured over the last month alone.

It started with the long-awaited release of an IG report identifyin­g Johnson as among police brass who saw the Laquan McDonald shooting video before it was publicly released and believed the shooting was justified.

Several influentia­l black aldermen said the African-American community would have trouble trusting Johnson because he remained silent.

Johnson, on the defensive, held a news conference with key members of the City Council’s Black Caucus. He said he did not see the video until two weeks after the fatal incident and that, as a deputy chief of patrol at the time, he was not involved in any decisions about disciplina­ry action following uses of force.

“To be clear, I never thought and I never said that the shooting of Laquan McDonald was justified.”

Then came a no-confidence vote in Johnson taken by the Fraternal Order of Police, stemming from Johnson’s decision to boycott President Donald Trump’s speech to the Internatio­nal Associatio­n of Chiefs of Police meeting in Chicago.

Trump used that speech as a forum ridicule and vilify Johnson.

 ?? SUN-TIMES FILE PHOTO ??
SUN-TIMES FILE PHOTO
 ?? RICH HEIN/SUN-TIMES FILE PHOTO ?? Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson says, “The vested part of a pension really has never mattered to me because, remember, I didn’t apply for this job.”
RICH HEIN/SUN-TIMES FILE PHOTO Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson says, “The vested part of a pension really has never mattered to me because, remember, I didn’t apply for this job.”

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States