City Colleges, DeVry U. to train veteran cops

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has promised to open auxiliary police training facilities — and build a new academy shared by police and fire — to maintain a continuous pipeline of candidates needed to bolster the police force by 970 officers over the next two years.

Now, the mayor is delivering on that promise by forging a partnership with the City Colleges of Chicago and DeVry University.

Shifting the training of veteran officers and candidates for promotion to the rank of field training officer, detective, sergeant, lieutenant and captain to the seven City Colleges and DeVry will free up the cramped and antiquated police academy at 1300 W. Jackson to become a factory for new police recruits.

The police academy that Emanuel hopes to someday replace desperately needs the space if it hopes to follow through on the ambitious hiring schedule outlined by top mayoral aides.

It calls for having two new classes enter the police academy by the end of 2016. One will start at the end of this month, the other in December.

That would be followed by classes of 100 recruitsper-month beginning in January and continuing for 11 of the 12 months next year.

The mayor’s plan also calls for: Filling all vacancies in the ranks of field training officer in January and February, then proceeding to fill the 92 new FTO positions; hiring enough detectives to fill existing vacancies by March, followed by a second class of 100 new detectives by April; filling lieutenant vacancies by March; establishing a June 2017 deadline to fill vacancies in the all- important rank of sergeant; and adding 37 new sergeants and filling any additional openings created by promotions to the rank of lieutenant filled by June.

The City Colleges and DeVry locations are needed to make certain that the Police Department doesn’t miss a beat in the all- important training of veteran officers that’s desperately needed to stay one step ahead of a federal civil rights investigation triggered by the police shooting of Laquan McDonald.

It includes training veteran officers in de- escalation tactics and a new use- offorce policy and certifying 30 percent of the all sworn officers in crisis intervention training to serve people with mental health issues. The course in “force mitigation skills and de- escalation tactics” requires 16 hours of training.

The temporary training facilities, first disclosed by the Chicago Sun- Times, also woold be used for “promotional training above the rank of police officer.”