HOLLYWOOD MAKEOVER FOR CPD
Charlie Beck, interim top cop and former LAPD chief, launches major department shake-up
One of the biggest police reorganizations in Chicago in decades was launched Thursday by Charlie Beck, the former Los Angeles police chief who’s temporarily running the Chicago Police Department.
The changes include assigning detectives from five regional offices to the city’s 22 police districts and creating a powerful bureaucracy to carry out civil-rights reforms.
Beck says it’s no coincidence that the police departments in Los Angeles and New York also assign their detectives to police stations — and that the LAPD also has a powerful office of police reform.
The new organizational chart for the Chicago Police Department “is very similar to [those] two entities that I think are successful,” Beck said in an interview.
Beck, who was the police chief in L.A. from 2009 to 2018, said he never intended to maintain the status quo in Chicago when he took the interim position late last year.
“She didn’t hire me to be a caretaker,” Beck said of Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
“I was the chief of the second-biggest city in America for almost nine years. … I’m trying to get things done while I’m here.”
Beck says he’ll move detectives into police districts to solve assaults, robberies, burglaries and thefts. He hopes that change will be completed by the end of the year when the 22 district stations can be expanded to accommodate them. Those detectives will answer to district commanders.
Most of the city’s homicide detectives will remain in five regional detective headquarters, Beck said. But they’ll answer to deputy patrol chiefs instead of the chief of detectives.
The chief of detectives will supervise a separate team of detectives who’ll roam the city to investigate serial killings and other high-profile murders. The chief of detectives also will supervise narcotics and gang investigators, who previously served under the now-disbanded bureau of organized crime.
The department is creating its first counterterrorism bureau, too.
Taping the Chicago Sun-Times podcast, “The Fran Spielman Show,” Beck described the absence of a counterterrorism unit in Chicago as a “glaring omission” that he’s now corrected.
With responsibility over mass transit, O’Hare and Midway airports, the new unit will be staffed by “multiple hundreds” of officers currently assigned to the detective and organized crime bureaus, as well as the bomb unit, SWAT, canine and intelligencegathering teams.
“It will really be a full-service counterterrorism bureau reflecting what New York and Los Angeles have, and allow us to be at the table with them and our federal partners in a way that makes Chicago a much safer city,” Beck told the Sun-Times.
Anthony Riccio, the first deputy su
perintendent, will be in charge of the department’s overall crime-fighting operations.
Barbara West will become the No. 3 official in the department. She’ll be the deputy superintendent of the new Office of Constitutional Policing and Reform, which includes the police academy.
West will oversee reforms called for in the consent decree that the city entered into after the Justice Department found the police had engaged in systematic civil rights violations.
“That says that we care about how we police just as much as about how effectively we police,” Beck said.
In November, a federal monitor reported that the police department had missed 37 of 50 deadlines on putting specific reforms into place under the consent decree.
Beck was asked how quickly he believes Chicago can get out from under the consent decree and the costly constraints of a federal monitor.
“It took L.A. 12 years. And it took L.A. to get organized in the right way. Realistically for sure, it’s more in the 6-to-10-year range,” he said.
Christy Lopez, a former Justice Department lawyer who helped lead the investigation of the Chicago Police Department, said the creation of the new reform office run by West is “fantastic.”
“It’s quite encouraging that the person who is running this is highranking,” Lopez said, adding, “Charlie Beck came from LAPD. They had a very robust internal unit like this.”
Chuck Wexler, director of the Police Executive Research Forum in Washington, said he said he wasn’t surprised that Beck was making big changes.
“It’s obvious the mayor said, ‘Charlie, take the gloves off.’”
Beck said his advisers on the reorganization included Sean Malinowski, his former chief of staff in L.A. and a former chief of detectives there. Malinowski is considered a front-runner in the city’s search for a permanent Chicago police superintendent.
“Was Sean involved? Absolutely. Were other people at CPD? Absolutely,” Beck said.
Beck said putting detectives in the city’s 22 police stations will allow them to participate in strategy meetings with patrol officers.
“They’re more likely to get community feedback and cooperation when they are seen as part of that community,” he said. “This model should increase our clearance rates” for solving crimes.
Detectives and narcotics officers, who declined to give their names, said they were taking a wait-and-see approach before they pass judgment on the changes.
A narcotics officer wondered if the department will focus on small-scale “buy busts” at the expense of longterm investigations into drug dealers.
Beck has announced other big changes in recent months, including doing away with a controversial “merit-promotion system” that allowed for promotions to the ranks of detective, sergeant and lieutenant while ignoring exam scores.
And he scrapped a computergenerated list the department used to identify people likely to become victims or perpetrators of shootings.
New Chicago police superintendents often reorganize the department to fit their crime-fighting philosophies, but Beck appears to be making some of the most widespread changes in decades.
In 2001, then-police Supt. Terry Hillard brought back the position of homicide detective. The department didn’t have detectives who specialized in solving murders for more than two decades.
Then in 2008, Supt. Jody Weis eliminated the powerful position of first deputy superintendent and created two co-equal assistant superintendents, one in charge of administration and the other in charge of operations.
Weis’ successor, Garry McCarthy, reversed that change, reinstalling a first deputy superintendent. He also removed layers of management that stood between him and key divisions including patrol, organized crime, detectives, internal affairs, administrative services and organizational development.
Weis and McCarthy changed the department in other major ways, too. In 2008, Weis swept out most of his district commanders. McCarthy replaced many of his district commanders, too, and he emphasized technology-assisted policing.
In 2016, McCarthy was replaced by Eddie Johnson, who served as superintendent until he was forced out in December over what Lightfoot called “a series of ethical lapses.”
Still, murders decreased under Johnson’s tenure. Last year there were 492 murders, compared with 778 in 2016. The police said the murder clearance rate also improved.
The crime numbers for January are not good. Murders were up more than 45% from 22 in January 2019 to 32 this month. Shootings, fatal and nonfatal, were up 30% from 96 shootings last January to 125 shootings so far this year.
Beck blamed the spike on the warmer weather this winter.
“Do we have a lot of work to do? Yeah. Is it a much harder start than I would have liked? Absolutely.”
But he said “clearance rates so far this year [are] very good. It’s almost 70% in some of the neighborhoods. Given the variation in the weather and given the specifics of the crimes committed and our ability to solve those crimes, I think we’re moving in the right direction.”
Beck announced his reorganization plan at a meeting of police leaders Thursday, where they “asked a lot of questions.” He anticipates resistance. “Nobody likes change,” he said. But he added, “Cops are about the work. They may gripe about [longer] commutes. But what they really want to do is go to a place where they can make a difference, where they have value and where they are supported.”
Kevin Graham, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said he hasn’t seen the details of Beck’s plan and needs to “take a look and see where they intend to go with this.”
The focus on consent-decree compliance isn’t expected to sit well with Graham, who’s up for re-election. He has accused the Police Department of spending too much time and effort implementing the consent decree, which the union vehemently opposed and had no input in negotiating.
“SHE DIDN’T HIRE ME TO BE A CARETAKER. I WAS THE CHIEF OF THE SECOND-BIGGEST CITY IN AMERICA FOR ALMOST NINE YEARS. … I’M TRYING TO GET THINGS DONE WHILE I’M HERE.” INTERIM POLICE SUPT. CHARLIE BECK, with Mayor Lori Lightfoot in November