Aldermen demand Lightfoot restore community policing cuts
Aldermen from across the city are demanding that Mayor Lori Lightfoot restore cuts to a community policing program that once was a national model before being left to wither because of inadequate training, insufficient funding and incessant bureaucratic shuffling.
Lightfoot’s proposed 2020 budget reduces spending for the Chicago Police Department’s Office of Community Policing by $381,936 — roughly 7%. Sixteen jobs will be eliminated, including 13 community organizers.
First Deputy Police Supt. Anthony Riccio tried to soften the blow, saying all 16 jobs are already vacant. Aldermen were not appeased.
“You talk a lot about building trust with the communities and that technology can’t do it all. But if the budget is knocking down 16 positions in community policing, that says something entirely different,” North Side Ald. Harry Osterman (48th) told Police Supt. Eddie Johnson.
Osterman wondered how much gang violence might have been avoided on the South and West sides if “a community policing officer” had been “engaging with residents, engaging with youth, engaging with churches, nonprofits and community organizations.”
“That’s gonna help us rebuild the trust that is the ballgame,” Osterman said.
“I don’t want to belabor the point. I don’t want to argue the point. Here’s what I want. What I want is for your department to put together how you would use those 16 positions if they’re in the budget for next year.”
Ald. Jason Ervin (28th), chairman of the City Council’s Black Caucus, says talking about “how well we want to do in engaging with the community” doesn’t jibe with cutting 16 positions.
“District law enforcement is down. CAPS is down. Detectives are down. Crisis intervention is down. Organized crime is down . . . . Help me to understand how the vision of the department equates to the document that’s before us,” Ervin said.
Johnson promised to take another look at the community policing cuts and “see if we need to readjust somewhere.”
“I know there are certain cuts in the document. I do know, too, that some of those cuts are vacant positions that were never filled . . . . So we’re not losing anything. Those were just positions that were there and haven’t been utilized,” Johnson said.
After a two-year hiring surge that added 1,000 officers, CPD is now treading water, hoping to hire only enough officers to keep pace with an expected 550 retirements this year and next, Johnson said.
With help from the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab, Johnson said CPD is “in the midst of a manpower analysis that will help us ensure that the officers we brought in have been deployed to the areas of greatest need.”
In 2017, an advisory committee created by Johnson proposed a top-to-bottom overhaul of Chicago’s moribund community policing program. Johnson followed through by appointing Dwayne Betts as deputy chief for community policing, reporting directly to the superintendent.
But little progress was made on other changes, including: training officers in “cultural diversity and competency, active listening and effective community engagement tactics” and creating a citywide Youth Advisory Council and similar councils in each of CPD’s 22 districts.