Mayor, top cop vow heavy police presence over July 4 weekend
Chicago residents and visitors will see more police officers riding the CTA, patrolling beaches and special events and on foot and bike patrol in neighborhoods that “need it most” to prevent a surge in violence over the July Fourth weekend.
Chicago Police Supt. David Brown refused to say how many additional officers would be deployed over the long holiday weekend, which got off to a violent start with a deadly mass shooting in the South Loop and the wounding of a police officer responding to a domestic violence call in Little Italy.
He would only say there would be “enough officers where we need them” after regularly scheduled days off were canceled yet again.
Personnel assigned to the city’s public safety headquarters have also been reassigned to what Brown called “precision deployments” in South and West side neighborhoods that “account for more than half of the violence,” Brown said.
“While I won’t give a number, we do have adequate resources … where we need them,” Brown told reporters at the city’s 911 emergency center. “Navy Pier obviously is a focus. All of our high-violence areas — obviously the top 55 beats — are a focus. As well as areas within every neighborhood … [and] our downtown.”
Last year, the July Fourth weekend was a bloodbath on Chicago streets with over 100 people shot, 19 of them killed. Thirteen children were among the wounded, five of them shot within a nine-hour period. Two Chicago police supervisors were also shot.
This year, the pressure on an exhausted and understaffed Chicago Police Department is intensified by a troubling surge in violent crime in the downtown area, even as tourism rebounds to some of the highest levels since the pandemic hit.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot joined her police superintendent in preaching the same tough-love message to parents and guardians that they used going into the Memorial Day weekend.
‘‘Parents, guardians, caring adults in our children’s lives, have a plan for them this
weekend,” she said. “Know where they are and who they are with. Critically important.”