Chicago sends 150 more cops to streets

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel today announced the redeployment of 150 more police officers to beat patrol positions as part of his campaign pledge to add more cops to the streets.

"These officers are going to be the backbone of our police department, working on the beat," Emanuel told several reporters and roughly 50 parkgoers huddled at the Illinois Centennial Monument in Logan Square. "Now remember, we have to have a comprehensive strategy: More police on the street and getting kids, guns and drugs off our street."

Emanuel noted the announcement today of the additional officers -- from administrative and clerical capacities -- comes less than a month after the mayor told reporters at a South Side police station that 400 officers would be redeployed to beat cop duties while another 100 work in various parts of the city to respond to flare-ups in crime.

Those 500 officers were redeployed primarily from two specialized units: the Mobile Strike Force and Targeted Response Unit. Those redeployed to beat duties were given 90-day assignments to the most dangerous districts on the South and West Sides: the Grand Crossing, South Chicago, Calumet, Gresham, Englewood, Chicago Lawn, Harrison and Austin police districts.

Emanuel today said that the 150 officers will be assigned to beat patrols across the city. The districts receiving those officers are the Wentworth, Deering, Ogden, Monroe, Wood, Shakespeare, Albany Park, Near North, Belmont, Lincoln, Prairie, Morgan Park, Town Hall, Rogers Park and Grand Central districts.

THIS FROM SECOND CITY COP
Today, they come up with another 150 bodies for the street. Where did these 150 bodies come from? We haven't heard of anyone else being disbanded. The Shortshanks detail remains intact. Callback seems fully staffed with POW's and light-duty, long-term medical people. You'd think we'd hear about 150 people being removed from spots - in fact, we would get a dozen e-mails about it and more than a few dozen comments, but we haven't heard anything.

Could this comment be the reason?

• Our district received 5 po's to help the numbers. the only thing they forgot to say about it, we received 5 ppo's who will be po's in 2 weeks.

Aha. That would make sense. He really is pulling numbers out of thin air. The Probationary Police Officers are about to "graduate" to full-duty status, so now we can count them as "Officers" instead of PPO's. It's fucking brilliant! Well done Rahm. Now if you can just find another 350 people squirreled away somewhere and "reassign" them to street duty, you can make a little check mark next to that campaign promise and cut a commercial for your Senate run in 4 years.

And this is just pathetic:

• Shakespeare District Commander Linda Flores is in charge of police activities in the Logan Square neighborhood. Of those dozen or so new cops she’ll be getting, she said “There’s a lot of different things that I have in mind…my mind is rolling with what I’m going to do with them.”
  She wouldn’t talk in detail about her plans for the additional officers. She smiled and said, “The bad guys will never know.”

First of all, your mind is rolling commander because there's so much extra space in there for actual ideas that don't involve yelling at subordinates and locking yourself in the office rereading the General Orders to make sure you didn't screw up another decision. Second, the bad guys will never know because they won't even notice the seven "extra" people you're getting on midnights because they're already there.

The circus continues