This past week Rahm launched an ambitious plan to revitalize the city. However in order to make that work, he must first prevent Chicago from becoming Gotham. The post below talks about how the lack of enough police officers is causing a false reduction in the number of crimes being reported. I personally think that Rahm and McCarthy know this. But while money’s so tight, they just have to make due until sunnier days come along.
Nevertheless, they have to maintain the appearance of doing something to stay on top of criminal element.
So along comes this story about McCarthy moving some top folks around at CPD:
With Chicago suffering a 35 percent spike in murders this year, police Supt. Garry McCarthy announced a reshuffling of his command staff Friday, replacing commanders in five of the city’s 23 districts.
McCarthy also promoted three supervisors to deputy chief positions. He said the changes were made to “strengthen the department’s ongoing efforts to reduce violence” and create a “more efficient departmental structure.” …
A police spokeswoman said no district commanders were demoted to make way for the changes in those five districts. They replaced commanders who were promoted to other positions or retired, she said. …
As of Thursday, there have been 114 murders this year in Chicago — up 35 percent compared with the same period last year.But department records also show that, through March 18, overall crime has dropped 10 percent throughout the city compared with the same period in 2011.
via Chicago Sun-Times.
This is not a shake-up. A shake-up is where people are shown the door for poor performance. People are held accountable. …
Rahm and McCarthy know that it’s not really these folks fault. Everyone knows that the real problem is that there’s not enough officers to go around. This is just a PR stunt — feeding something, anything to the masses — to create the illusion that Rahm and McCarthy are taking this seriously.