SURGE SUCCESS
After weekend with no murders, top cop vows to keep extra police on street
Chicago’s five most violent police districts will get 600 additional weekend officers — and police will continue to break up large unsanctioned parties — “until we’re comfortable things are stabilized,” Police Supt. Eddie Johnson said Monday.
The costly overtime that is difficult to sustain was hastily authorized to prevent a repeat of the previous weekend’s bloodbath that left 71 people shot, 12 of them fatally — and it worked.
Another hot summer weekend came and went without a single homicide and 33 shootings, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
During an unrelated news conference on CTA security, Johnson was asked how long the additional attention and manpower would last at a time when the Fraternal Order of Police has warned of burnout by officers whose requests to take time off have been refused.
“Until we’re comfortable that things are stabilized, we’ll continue to have ’em out” there, the superintendent said.
Pressed on what made the difference between a weekend bloodbath and a weekend without murders, Johnson said, “It’s not that CPD did anything particularly different. We looked at large gatherings … and paid attention to ’em. But crime is cyclical. You never know when this stuff is gonna pop out. So we do what we do every weekend to keep crime down in the city.”
Mayor Rahm Emanuel applauded Johnson for “getting on something immediately quick” and “making adjustments” in police tactics.
But he argued that the decision to concentrate on large gatherings and flood the streets of the five districts besieged by gang violence with 600 additional officers was only part of the story behind a comparatively tranquil summer weekend in Chicago.
There was also the annual Bud Billiken parade, the largest African-American parade in the country, celebrating students going back to school.
“When the community comes together with law enforcement embracing our children and our future, better things happen,” the mayor said.
“While there’s always a valid question about tactics, I also think there’s a valid observation about culture and partnership. And what I saw this weekend is a city embracing their children, embracing the start of the school year, coming together as a neighborhood, working with law enforcement, working with neighbors.”
Emanuel touts new cameras paid for with ride-hailing fees
Emanuel and Johnson talked about the relatively peaceful weekend during a news conference called to highlight the previously disclosed decision to replace decade-old standard-definition cameras with high-definition cameras and install new cameras at four stations along the CTA’s Blue Line: Clinton, La Salle, Grand and Chicago.
Emanuel’s 2018 budget raised ride-hailing fees by 15 cents a ride this year and another nickel in 2019 to bankroll CTA capital improvements, including the new cameras.
Some aldermen want Chicago to follow New York City’s lead by freezing new ridehailing licenses and establishing a minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers.
Emanuel, whose brother is an Uber investor, argued that he’s already found the right balance.
“Ride-share is a competitor, and we have to deal with that . . . . It’s good for the city of Chicago that people have choices,” the mayor said. “Ride-share is affecting public transportation. But if we can make it safe, secure and reliable, we’re gonna win our share of the future business.”
Late Monday, mayoral press secretary Matt McGrath left no doubt that Emanuel would strongly oppose any effort to impose ride-hailing caps.
“It’s interesting we’re discussing caps in the future without recognizing the caps that existed in the past. For decades, the taxi industry had a monopoly in this city, but good luck getting a taxi to pick you up or drop you off on the South or West sides,” McGrath wrote in an email.
“That’s another kind of cap, an industryimposed cap that existed forever.”