Next top cop faces many challenges
A new superintendent must confront community’s distrust of police and win the confidence of officers.
With Superintendent Eddie Johnson set to step aside by year’s end, the Chicago Police Department needs a strong, visionary leader to push much-needed police reforms while not losing sight of the need to continue to bring down violence, say national and local experts contacted by the Tribune.
While Johnson, a 31-year veteran of the department, helped take some early, important steps, his successor will need to confront headon the many challenges that remain — including the community’s deep distrust of police and the realization that police can’t arrest their way out of the still spiraling violence.
At the same time, the new superintendent must win the confidence of often cynical officers who find themselves the object of much scorn despite putting their lives on the line.
Much work remains for a department now under a court mandate to engage in widespread reforms that reflect a new modern era of policing in which reductions in violence can — and must — happen with a strong community partnership.
“We need to have a police superintendent (who) is not afraid to go against the grain. We have to have someone who has backbone enough to stand up for justice and equity,” said Chicago community organizer Mecole Jordan. “Standing up for justice means being inclusive and understanding of various perspectives and not just one side. In the past, we have had several superintendents who were only about law and order and what was better for the Police Department.”
Whoever takes over will face a dramatically altered political landscape with the landslide April election of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who campaigned on a platform of police reform. In her first budget, the mayor recently proposed the creation of a city Office of Violence Prevention, a recognition of the need for prevention work on a community level. Lightfoot pledged $9 million to support broad-based programming, far less than the $50 million proposed by advocates, but a start.
The appointment of the next superintendent comes at a critical moment if the city wants to implement a policing strategy — like Los Angeles and New York — that combines reducing violence, making fewer arrests and strengthening its relationship with the community.
“The Chicago police have never gone through the modern policing revolution. This is the best moment the city has had as far as I am concerned to ever deal critically with these public safety and legitimacy issues,” said David Kennedy, a professor at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice who has worked in the past with Chicago police on anti-violence efforts. “And if this period doesn’t produce progress, that is an enormous lost opportunity and (is) tragic for the city. This makes that choice extraordinarily important.”
Craig Futterman, a University of Chicago law professor who has long studied police brutality, said Chicago needs a superintendent committed “to dismantling the ‘code of silence’ and the machinery of denial.”
“It begins with leadership and holding officers accountable,” he said.
A complicated, costly process
Johnson, who announced Thursday he’d retire at the end of the year after about 3 ½ years at the helm, led the Police Department through a historic crisis following the 2015 release of the disturbing 2014 video of a white officer shooting black teen Laquan McDonald 16 times. In response, a landmark U.S. Department of Justice probe found the Police Department engaged in widespread civil rights abuses of African Americans and Hispanics.
That laid the groundwork for a consent decree that calls for a major overhaul of the Police Department, including hundreds of changes to policy and practice. The court order of some 230 pages, approved in February by U.S. District Judge Robert Dow Jr., fundamentally alters how the department treats those it’s sworn to serve and protect. The decree, for instance, repeatedly urges officers to respect “the sanctity of human life,” and uses the words “dignity” and “respect” in describing how cops should interact with citizens.
It promises to be a complicated, costly process with deadlines that must be met under the watchful eye of the federal judge and court monitor.
The Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, which declined comment for this article, has opposed the changes.
Those who have been through the painful, slow process of reform in other cities say this is a weighty task that requires a superintendent with a steely, fearless personality.
Connie Rice, a Los Angeles civil rights attorney who partnered with then-police Chief William Bratton on reform efforts there, called Bratton a “force of personality” who was able to persuade rank-and-file officers that public safety meant far more than just making arrests. He earned a reputation as well for backing officers even as he nudged them in this new direction.
“It takes a police leader who has the street cred with cops,” Rice said.
Jordan, who led an alliance of neighborhood and community groups that helped draft a proposed ordinance creating a community policing commission in Chicago, said the next superintendent also needs to assure the community by acknowledging those “who have been hurt and wounded by police in the city.”
“They need to be able to demonstrate a track record of engagement on multiple levels, understanding what … racism looks like and how it plays out,” she said. “That is more important to me than where you come up and your color.”
‘Can’t simply arrest our way out’
When homicides and shootings spiked in 2016 to levels not seen since the 1990s, several Chicago organizations that specialize in violence reduction efforts began working in tandem to develop what they view as a comprehensive, community-based response, relying on more than $70 million in funding from private philanthropic groups. Now, three years later, the groups have formed a ground game that includes an array of street outreach, counseling services, job training and placement as well as training for workers who mediate conflicts on the street.
Those organizations consider police to be key partners in the fight to prevent violence.
Their leaders said they’d prefer a superintendent who supports sustained investment in their work and recognizes the skills they bring to making Chicago neighborhoods safer.
Ric Estrada, president and CEO of Metropolitan Family Services, which coordinates the work of nine community organizations on the South and West sides, hopes a new superintendent would be open to collaboration such as letting gang outreach workers speak to officers undergoing training at the Police Academy, an idea that was floated under Johnson but did not gain traction.
“(Johnson) was becoming more open and more comfortable with the idea of having outreach workers … out in the field to help with the reduction of violence,” Estrada said. “We would want someone that not only mirrors that but even takes it to the next level to work in even more partnership with us.”
Eddie Bocanegra, a senior director for READI Chicago, which provides job training and placement as well as counseling for men at high risk for gun violence, agreed, saying he wants a superintendent who “respects” the efforts at violence reductions by these organizations.
“We can’t simply arrest our way out of the problem,” Bocanegra said. “I’m hoping this person brings that perspective.”
In the early 1990s, Chicago launched a community policing strategy that aimed at uniting police and residents around reducing violence. But interest waned over the years, and attempts to shore it up failed, the Justice Department report found. But more recent police-community partnerships launched in New York and Los Angeles have been credited as successes by policing experts.
While working as a Los Angeles police commander in one the city’s most dangerous areas, Phil Tingirides helped implement a strategy that relied on partnering with a variety of community groups, including gang outreach organizations. The strategy has been credited with contributing to an enviable drop in violence in LA, according to Tingirides, who said offenders “lost their power” after police joined forces with the community.
“The support and the understanding and the ability to do it has to come from the very top,” he said. “I firmly believe you can allow police to get away from just making arrests and partner with everybody who has a true public interest in public safety.”
But he added: “All of these things take a long time to do.”