Friday, November 4, 2011

A Cop Talks About Redistricting

We received this from someone who wants to remain anonymous. We don't know how true it is. We trust this person has contacted the appropriate alderman about his/her concerns.

"I am a police supervisor who has been studying the department's proposal to consolidate police districts, specifically 19 and 23 come the first of the year. When that happens us Uptown residents will barely see a police car. Now, the 2 districts have a total of 18 beats. When consolidated, the new district will have only 15 beats, a loss of 3-6 officers per watch.

Uptown, now comprised of 3 police beats from 23, will become a single beat in the new district. This means a loss of 3 (on days) and 6 (afternoons and midnights) officers per day. And let's not even talk about the tactical teams who will now be working an area 3 times in geographic size.

All alderman should know, and the public too, that the mantra from the police brass that "buildings" don't police is a smoke and mirror job. The further a beat car is from its police station, the more downtime that car must have. Larger geographic districts increase response time. Imagine someone shot in Uptown. The beat car is down on an arrest and the nearest other beat car to respond is at Western and Irving. This WILL happen.

And please don't believe that ALL the police in 19 will be assigned to 23. If that happened, 23 would have the largest manpower contingent in the city - 400 some cops. That's more than in Englewood and Harrison, districts that lead the city in murders and violent crime. That will not happen. Trust me, if the consolidations go through, you will see a lot less cops on the streets.

Finally, our neighborhoods (Uptown, Buena Park, etc) built a brand new police station with a state of the art lock-up (jail) that has been CLOSED by the department. All prisoners from 23 go to Belmont & Western for processing. How senseless. And it is an increase in downtime for the officers who have to transport prisoners across a larger geographic area.

This will also occur on the near west side when 13 closes and the near south side when 21 closes. Closing a police station is a big mistake and all citizens should be complaining about it. And so should the aldermen. But they are not.

- A cop who Lives in Uptown too."

11 comments:

  1. This consolidation is the most idiotic thing in the world. Uptown needs MORE coverage, more cops and more use of that new building.

    This is just f**kery, plain and simple. It makes me almost long for the days of Jody "Napoleon" Weis.

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  2. This is all true, and already happening. All the transports to 019 are being done with the wagon and beat cars, taking them off the street. The city closes a brand new lock up, only putting 1 officer per watch, 3 total, back on the street. Plus now desk personal are being taken off the desk to watch prisoners untill transportation can be found, making citizens walking into station for reports, wait over 1/2 hour in some cases. This whole thing should make local citizens irate, yet no public outcry has been heard.

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  3. In 1960, O. W. Wilson was asked by then Mayor Richard J. Daley to head a committee to search for a new Chicago Police Superintendent. In the end, Daley asked Wilson, himself, to take on the job of modernizing and professionalizing the Department.

    Wilson moved the Superintendent's office from City Hall to Police Headquarters and closed police districts and redrew their boundaries without regard to politics. The Department went from over 45 districts down to 20. Since then, the number has crept back up to the 25 districts that exist today. There are about 2000 to 2500 fewer officers, however.

    The problem with policing is that you must ALWAYS be prepared for the worst case scenario. It is all well and good to be able to maintain a (hopefully) sufficient level of police protection and enforcement for the routine daily needs, but when you allow manpower to decrease BEYOND a worst case scenario level, citizens lives are in danger as well as the lives of the officers.

    May, 2012 will bring the G8 and NATO summits to Chicago. Our police department CANNOT handle that situation, and suburban departments, so far, are balking at coming into the city because the mayor is refusing to indemnify their officers for the time they would be assigned here. The assumption is that Washington will intervene and provide what is necessary to maintain order. The problem is that in order to handle G8 and NATO, the districts will be stripped of officers to send downtown, leaving the rest of the city VERY poorly protected.

    I agree with the submitted post. Consolidating 19 and 23 is a disaster waiting to happen. Problem is once it happens, it's too late!

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  4. This is disheartening, particularly in light of the city's negligence protection in the past in this ward. Any comments from Alderman Cappleman's office about this? Please chime in!

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  5. My understanding was that consolidating districts would take officers from desk jobs and put them on the streets, thereby increasing the number of officers on the streets.

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  6. Consolidating 019 and 023 will leave less officers on the street!!!! Not only is 023 station not big enough to handle all the officers, sounds like a large percent, hearing up to 40 percent, will be sent to south districts. Now if a car makes an arrest on belmont and western, they need to take subject to 023 for proccessing, then back to 019 for lockup, makes no sense. But let Rahm keep telling public it's better.

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  7. @ Kewpie62 "My understanding was that consolidating districts would take officers from desk jobs and put them on the streets, thereby increasing the number of officers on the streets."

    _______________________________________

    This is EXACTLY what the administration's spin doctors want your "understanding" to be, but they won't be on YOUR streets!

    As stated in the original post by the CPD supervisor, that is ALL "smoke and mirrors". It's sleight of hand. They will wave the left hand around talking about putting more officers on the street, but, while you're watching THAT hand, their OTHER hand will be behind their back, issuing transfer orders and moving out those inside officers AND MORE that were already on the street, out of 023 and into the sunset somewhere.

    Fact of the matter is, there are already fewer officers in the north side districts than there were just a few years ago. Jody Weis, ex-CPD superintendent, pilfered hundreds of officers from District Law Enforcement and established several city-wide police units. The Mobile Strike Force (MSF), Targeted Response Unit (TRU) and Gang Enforcement Unit (GEU) siphoned those officers from districts and concentrated them in the ghetto districts. As part of Mayor Emanuel's lie of putting 1000 more officers on the street, new superintendent Garry McCarthy disbanded MSF and TRU and downsized GEU and assigned them to the areas where they were ALREADY patrolling. Almost none were sent back to the north side districts where many had come from.

    By the way, has anyone noticed an increase in gang violence and shootings in Uptown over the last couple of years? You can bet that it's not a coincidence.

    You can also bet that as Rahm tries to cut the spending, and allows the size of the police department to shrink, it WILL NOT be the ghetto districts that will notice a decrease in police patrols and an increase in crime... I'm just sayin.

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  8. Additionally, who specifically should we be calling to complain? Aldermans's office? 023 Headquarters on Addison? Mayor's office? Please post a number and contact person/department and with any hope enough of us voice our concerns.

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  9. All the residents have to look at is this to know what's coming the start of next year when they plan this mess. Montrose to Lawrence, Clark to the lakefront is now # beats. 2311, 2312, 2313. After the merge it will become 1 beat. What happens with the gang activity on Magnolia, and on Sunnyside/Hazel area??? Can't handle all that plus helping the citizens that really need the help. 023 is running 3 to 4 beat cars down on midnights because of no manpower. But don't worry Rahm, you have 24hr security at your house!!

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  10. Only 1 beat for all of Uptown? That's pure insanity!

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  11. We in the 13th District have been organizing to try and save the 13th District since September 2011 and we are still fighting. We have a protest organized for Monday, Nov. 14 at 1:00 p.m. at City Hall, which people of the 19th are welcome to join. I had one person call me about organizing to stop the closing of the 19th and consolidation with the 23rd, but that was it. If there are people who want to fight this, I urge you to join us. Our Aldermen also sang the tune of your Aldermen in supporting the consolidation, until 1000s of us called them and said we oppose the closing and consolidation. You can visit our website at Save13.org for more information and to contact us. At this point we need to work with more people to stop this insanity. I am worried about G8 and NATO as well because we don't even have enough officers to cover that let alone the rest of the City. In the meantime, call your Aldermen and call the Mayor. We list all the contact info for the Mayor and Superintendent. We only list our Aldermen for now. Save13.org

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