One, two, test, one, two, check, check, one, two, test, test.
Good morning.
We'll begin today's session, subject matter of the Chicago Police Department.
We're going to begin with public comment.
Are there any additional people for public comment before we get started?
You got one more?
See the sergeant-at-arms and fill out a pink form.
All right, we have seven.
He'll make eight, so everyone will get the four or three minutes today.
We're going to start with Zoe Lee.
Followed by Ishan Dara.
Ishan Dara follows Ms. Lee.
You may proceed, ma'am.
All right.
In 1994, the federal government passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act,
known as the 94 Crime Bill, championed by Joe Biden and signed by Bill Clinton.
That bill devastated black communities.
It expanded mass incarceration, leading to the imprisonment of black men, funded more prisons
and gave state incentives to keep people locked up longer, increased police presence in our
neighborhoods, not for protection but for surveillance, destroyed families, creating a generational cycle
of incarceration and poverty, ignored the real causes of crime like unemployment, redlining and lack of education,
and instead criminalized poverty and survival.
That was called public safety.
But what it really was was public punishment.
Now, fast forward to today.
The very same government, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, allowed 22 million illegals enter in the last federal administration.
Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, the New Americans Plan, DACA, Democratic leadership is now rolling out the red carpet
for millions of illegal immigrants, new voter base.
They are given free housing, food, and health care, while black families are being evicted and struggling to pay rent,
receiving work permits and legal protections, while our young men still face felony barriers
and that keep them from employment, getting billions, that was in federal and state funding,
while our neighborhoods remain underfunded and over police, living comfortably in hotels and shelters
while our veterans and elders sleep on the street.
So I ask, where was the compassion and urgency when our families were destroyed by the crime bill?
Where was this money when black communities begged for investment, education, and opportunity?
We were told to do better, to obey the law, to wait our turn.
But when it's someone else, the rules change.
And what's worse, no one is speaking up about the hypocrisy.
The same leaders who authored and enforced the 94 crime bill now pretend to be our allies.
Black politicians and activists who know the truth stay silent and scared of being labeled anti-immigrant or Republican.
And the mainstream media ignores the suffering of black Americans because acknowledging it would expose decades of betrayal.
This is not about hate.
This is about honesty.
It's about fairness.
Because if this country can find billions to house non-citizens, it can find billions to rebuild the same communities it destroyed.
Public safety starts with protecting your own citizens.
It means investing in us, not replacing us.
And until America tells the truth about what it did to black America, there will never be a real public safety.
Thank you.
And that's true.
And no one's going to continue to do this.
It's the 94 crime bill that hurt us.
But we're here dealing with just illegal immigration and what's dealing with their families being torn apart.
Our families have been being teared apart and we're not getting anything for it.
Thank you for your comment.
Next, we'll have Ishan Dara, followed by Gabrielle Miller.
It's Ishan Daya.
Also, I just want to note that CPD is not here for their own budget hearing.
So I'm curious as to how this is going to start and how we're going to engage with them on listening to their budget.
I do want to agree that the 94 crime bill was really harmful.
It was really harmful to our communities.
And it prioritized criminalization rather than actually supporting our communities in the moments that they need it.
It prioritized poverty over actually giving our people the resources that are needed to lift them out of poverty.
So I want to say I want to give a plus 100 to that.
And the fact that we have billions of dollars.
I agree.
We have billions of dollars that we are willing to give CPD.
We have billions of dollars that we are willing to give large corporations.
Donald Trump's TCJA in 2017 that was reaffirmed in 2024, 2025, this past summer, is going to give over.
trillion dollars to the wealthiest 1% of this company of this country. So I just want to say
I affirm those things that you're saying. We ask police officers to be the answer to public safety
for everything. And we do that because we give them 40% of our budget. It's not fair to our people
who deserve real support in crisis. And we know police officers do not and cannot give the support
that's needed. In fact, when we put police officers in mental health calls, it results in harm, which
results in police misconduct settlements. Those victims deserve their settlements and the city
deserves to have a response program that actually works, not CIT trained officers that have no
decreased use of force compared to other officers. Across the country, we see non-police crisis response
scaling for mental and social needs crises. We've seen a boom in Albuquerque, in Denver,
and even our neighbors in Evanston. Each of these folks are able to deliver savings to their public
safety apparatuses because they are redirecting their funds from the police department to non-police
crisis response, which has a higher ROI, lower cost per response, and better long-term outcomes
due to delivering better care for their people. Why can't we do the same? And why is CPD not allowing
our care teams to self-dispatch and give help to our folks in behavioral crisis? Before 1967,
this country didn't have anything called EMTs. It was black medical professionals in Pittsburgh,
the Freedom House paramedics, that said we cannot continue to have police officers responding to
medical emergencies. What is a gun going to do to help someone in a medical crisis?
Too many people were dying, so they created the idea of a paramedic, the right person responding
to the right skills at the right time. It was logical, it saved lives, and that caught wind and
we had a policy of EMTs in every city. We're at a point where we're sending police officers to someone
with a mental health challenge. That means that they are 10 times more likely to experience use of
force. That means that they're 10 times more likely to result in police misconduct. They're 32% more
likely to be murdered. It's time for us to do the logical thing, to do the thing that will save more
debt of police misconduct. If you're calling for scaling non-police crisis response, you are calling
for a community safety surcharge that taxes the largest 3% of communities, of corporations in the
city, and we're going to do so by also continuing to redirect funds. Thank you for your comment.
Next, we'll have Gabriel Miller, followed by Peter Contos. Good morning. My name is Gabriel Miller.
I'm a member of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Oppression.
Carper is also proud to be a member of the PHS Coalition, a coalition fighting alongside the
People's Unity Platform for progressive revenue funding for the things that our communities really
need. And like all other aspects of the budget, what we're talking about here is two sides of an
equation where, you know, city council can stand on the side of Trump with cuts and funding for law
enforcement that doesn't actually keep our community safe and cuts to real services that we need, or we
can stand on the side of the people and we can fund the things that we know work in our communities,
the peace book and the youth jobs, the non-police crisis response, and all of the Chicago Department of
Public Health needs, as well as the Department of the Environment, and more. So city council has to
make a choice with this budget. And we're seeing what it looks like when, you know, at the federal
level, this idea of investment in law enforcement, of ICE, of National Guards in our communities.
Has that kept people safe? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. And so to think that cutting vacancies
wouldn't be a good idea, to think that putting a cap on overtime wouldn't be a good idea is
incorrect. So I want to say thank you to the mayor for putting forward a budget that takes steps
towards real community safety. So what we're talking about is funding the youth jobs through
the peace book and making sure that those are available all year round, because we've seen what
happens when we do this. Under the Johnson administration, we've seen violence go down
to historic lows, and that's because of things that we know work. So to see that there's youth applying
for these jobs that can't get in, while there's also vacant police officer positions in the budget
that are still getting funded, is a complete contradiction. So we're excited to see that the
proposed budget starts to address that by cutting police vacancies. And I want to express that there's
support for even more of that. There's support for cutting even more vacancies, and there's support
for funding even more youth jobs. Lastly, I want to talk about the fact that this CPD budget
needs to be accountable to the people. There needs to be an increase in our democratic right
to set this budget, and that's what the CPOP referendum ordinance does, the Referendum for
Community Power Over Policing. This is an ordinance that is going to create a directly elected body
that gives Chicagoans the power to determine who polices our communities and how our communities
are policed. So I'm excited to stand here and ask, you know, although it's an empty chamber,
to ask city council to fund the things that we really need. And I'm excited that in the future,
we're going to be fighting for a budget where we have a direct say in these things that go on in our
communities. Because what we've seen consistently is a lack of accountability. And the best example
of that would be the overtime slush fund that has been a problem in this city for years.
So I want to give one more shout for the cap on overtime coming in this budget as well.
Thank you for your comments. Next, we'll have Peter Contos, followed by Martin Levine.
Good morning. Thank you all for being here today. I would just like for it to be said for the record
that CPD is not here on time for their own budget hearing, as is much of city council. We have a lot
of issues here in the city of Chicago. We are all incredibly overworked. But being on time matters.
All of us have jobs. All of us have stuff to do. I wish I could be here all day and sit through this
entire hearing. And we would just love for, you know, our city council and especially our police
department, whose budget is to be discussed today, to be here punctually. My name is Peter Contos. I'm
with the Cannabis Equity Illinois Coalition. We are a nonprofit founded in 2019 to make sure we held
the state accountable for the harms done by the war on drugs, mass incarceration and systemic
disinvestment. We stand here wholeheartedly in solidarity and support with the public health and
safety campaign. Our communities know what they need. They need housing. They need food. They need
good jobs. They need child care. They do not need more policing. In the last five years, we've actually
seen a decrease in the number of uniformed officers on our streets. And we just had the safest summer
in Chicago since the 60s. We know the solutions. We know how to fund them. We have a proposal,
the community safety surcharge that would tax the top 3% of corporations in Chicago. We're talking
about Google. We're talking about Salesforce. We're talking about McDonald's, companies that are
making not just tens of millions of dollars in profit every year, but are going to make more than
$10 million just in the tax breaks that got approved this summer from the Trump administration.
And so the suggestion that we are going to drive businesses out of Chicago because of the community
safety surcharge is totally false. Again, we are talking about a drop in the bucket of a much bigger
bucket here. We're talking about a small percentage of just the tax breaks. And so we're standing here
wholeheartedly in support. Please support the community safety surcharge. That is how we are
going to fund the things that keep us safe. Our youth programming, our youth services that have
been decimated over the last decade, our mental health services that have been decimated and are
finally starting to come back. We need more investment for these services. And just to take it to the
overtime conversation, Chicago police, their overtime budget is more than two and a half times the city
dollars of the Chicago Department of Public Health. That is completely unacceptable. When we talk
about the things that actually keep us safe, maternal and child health, STI prevention,
mental health services, those things are going to be decimated when the federal cuts come in.
And Chicago has a responsibility to our entire city to make sure that those programs are funded
at the highest possible level. We cannot continue to fund empty police officer roles when we turn away
more than 1,200 young people who want to be peacekeepers. Young people want to be the change in their
community, but they're denied that opportunity because the city refuses to fund their programming.
I'm pushing us to do the fiscally and socially responsible thing and redirect public safety
funds to scale non-police crisis response across the city, reopen and open more public mental health
centers and invest directly in youth violence prevention on our streets by expanding the peace
book. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next, we will have Martin Levine, followed by Jenny Schaefer.
Good morning. I wish there were actually people here to hear that good morning. This is frankly
embarrassing. My name is Marty Levine. I'm a resident of the 48th Ward. I'm a proud member of JCUA. I'm also
a proud member of CARPER. It's been a whole number of years on the effort to try and make our policing
humane, fair, honest, and effective. But I'm going to put away some of the things I was planning to say,
which are wonky and about the budget and the detail, because I want to talk about yesterday.
Yesterday was a day we saw, I saw how a community really wants to take care of itself.
I saw hundreds of my fellow residents of Edgewater on the streets with their orange whistles,
protecting young men and women who wanted to go to school from a military force that's invaded our city,
claiming they represent law and order. And then last night, I heard the voice of the same.
People who are speaking to you today, speaking in New York and Virginia, speaking in New Jersey, speaking in California about a desire for something different than the way you govern.
And this budget is not the future.
This police budget is doing things the way we've always done them.
And it is time to change.
That's what we are all asking for.
Continuing to fund overtime rather than mental health professionals.
That's not what people want.
That's not what people should be getting.
And if this budget hearing is about anything, it's not about numbers.
It's about people.
My friend who started this morning, I agree with you.
This budget should be a budget that invests in all of our communities.
And this is a cruel hoax that pitted our new immigrants against residents fighting for scraps when there are billions of dollars who are being available to be spent on something more than policing.
It is should be investing in rent.
It should be investing in housing and in jobs for youth and for men and women.
I didn't come here with this this morning, but I thought about this on the train down, that it is time for you all as a city council to show up and do things the way this community needs them to be done and not the way they've always been done.
I've got 25 seconds.
I'll use them.
Yes, we should cap the overtime.
Yes, we should unfund unfilled positions.
I did this when I led Jewish community centers to put money into child care.
And you should be brave enough as a city council to be doing the same for the people of this community.
Thank you.
Thank you for your comments.
Next, we will have Jenny Schaefer, followed by Anna Rubin.
Hi, my name is Jenny Schaefer.
I'm a district council member in the 19th Police District.
I want to echo what Marty said about the lack of alders being present right now is not right.
We hold monthly meetings, and we would never not sit and listen quietly to every single public comment being made.
The things that our lawmakers are supposed to do is listen to community, and it's really disappointing that there's not many people here representing us.
But what I came here to speak about today was first the workforce allocation study and the city's slow progress in completing it.
City council passed an ordinance in February of 2024 requiring the study to be done within a year.
Yet almost two years later, it still isn't finished, and nearly every promised deadline has been missed.
This delay matters.
This study should have been completed and informing next year's budget decisions about how we deploy our workforce and resources.
I urge you to ensure it is completed without further delay
and that transparency with the community is prioritized.
The Attorney General's Office raised similar concerns during the last consent decree hearing.
This is about accountability and good governance, and it is deeply frustrating to me that we don't have this report ready to inform the 2026 budget.
As we think about workforce allocation, we also must consider alternative response models as part of how we use police resources wisely.
Earlier this year, my colleagues from the 19th and 8th District Councils presented to the Public Safety Committee a proposal to divert low-level parking violations away from CPD
and assign them to rapid response parking enforcement aides.
This would prioritize those responses while freeing up officers to focus on the work that truly requires them to be at.
I urge you to support that ordinance.
At the same time, we need to fully fund other proven forms of alternative response, including expanding care teams to operate citywide 24-7 so every resident has access to mental health crisis response when they need it.
And we must continue investing in community violence intervention, youth jobs, housing, and other non-police strategies that we know are essential to creating safe and thriving communities.
If you are in favor of funding these measures, then we must commit to real revenue ideas that Chicago has the authority to enact like the community safety surcharge.
Thank you.
Oh, okay.
Anna Rubin, followed by Gerald Polano.
Okay, cool.
Good morning.
My name is Anna Rubin.
I am the chair of the 20th Police District Council.
I am also the political director of JCUA.
I am here today to express concern and get answers about this year's proposed CPD budget, which will maybe be difficult with so few CPD members and older people in the room.
I hope the older people who are in the room today will ask direct and pointed questions of CPD leadership and not back down when they are provided with vague and indirect talking points.
Some of the questions I have come here today with are why are there 1,200 budgeted positions for counterterrorism and only 500 for detectives when our clearance rates across the city are so poor?
Why is CPD cutting 21 positions from the Office of Constitutional Policing?
This is the main office within CPD where positions are being cut.
Why is that?
Why does the budgeted amount for settlements stay flat at $80 million every year, even though consistently the city is paying out $160 million or more in settlements?
Why doesn't the budget reflect the actual amount the city pays out annually in settlements?
And for the older people in the room, when will we get an audit of the CPD budget?
How will you use the upcoming workforce allocation study to actually hold CPD accountable to their gross overspending and mismanagement of funds?
And finally, we need to pass the community safety surcharge to fully fund care and ensure access to mental health crisis response across the city 24-7.
This is not a program that can or should rely on cobbled-together funding each year or the hope that we can pull vacancy funding from other parts of the budget.
It must have a consistent progressive revenue stream.
If that is not going to be the community safety surcharge, what is the consistent revenue stream?
What is the consistent progressive revenue stream that you are proposing?
I haven't heard a legitimate proposal.
Thank you.
Thank you for your comments.
And our final speaker is Gerald Polano.
Good morning, everyone.
My name is Gerald Polanco.
I am staff counsel at Impact for Equity, which is a law and policy organization.
I'm here with the Public Health and Safety Coalition to speak on the budget and some of our concerns around public safety and public health.
Over the past 24 months, we have seen an expansion of real public safety interventions across the city.
Over the last two summers, we've had over 1,000 young people apply for just 200 violence prevention and intervention jobs through the Peace Book pilot.
That means that there were 2,000 young people that wanted these jobs but couldn't be offered because there wasn't enough budget.
As a result, the mounted police unit alone would allow us to more than six times our youth peacekeeper program.
This program, when scaled, has been seen to reduce gun violence in the neighborhoods that they're in by approximately 40 percent.
That's because we know that when young people are given jobs and when young people are directly engaged in building public safety within their communities, it is an incredible tool for public safety.
We know that non-police crisis response teams across the country have been able to decrease low-level crime by 34 percent, like in Denver, or have reduced use of force by 56 percent, like in Albuquerque,
or have been able to materially reduce the cost of public safety through the reallocation of funds.
Each of these tools drive direct results in public safety.
We are grateful that this budget puts care in the corporate budget, and we need to continue to fund the things that we need, not the things that we don't.
Why aren't we scaling Peace Book?
Why don't we have care 24-7 across the city?
We have the money.
We have the vacancies in the police department that won't be filled.
We have mounted units that there is full alignment of disbanding.
We can't afford to continue to give CPD a bloated budget.
We need to do the logical thing and continue to redirect overtime and vacancies and tax the largest corporations that benefit from these services to fund the things we know work.
Non-police crisis response, public mental health centers, youth violence prevention jobs, programming, and funding for our ambulances.
And with the time I have left, I kind of want to add a little bit further color to this.
In my research and conversations with various people, an expanded crisis response like we have in CARE here in Chicago, but expanded throughout, has been wildly popular in the jurisdictions in which it's been implemented.
Not only by the people in the community who often actually prefer the crisis responders, but the police themselves who see them as a companion, as a helper, because they do not have the capacity and the resources to actually deal with all of the things that the community needs.
We need to fund this, and we need to reduce CPD's budget.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Committee will stand at ease while the department is assembled.
Good morning. We have before us the police department represented by Superintendent Snelling.
We will have a opening brief overview from City Council Office of Financial Analysis by Director Oda Gray,
followed by opening statement from Superintendent Snelling, as well as the introduction of members here in the dais, as well as those that are in the well.
So Director Oda Gray, you may proceed. Chairman Irvin, Vice Chairman Lee, other persons and guests.
Good morning. My name is Janice Oda Gray, Chief Administrative Officer for the City Council Office of Financial Analysis.
Brief overview today will be on Chicago Police Department.
CPD is the largest department in terms of appropriations and headcount.
The proposed FY26 budget for the Chicago Police Department totals $2.1 billion, representing an increase of $37.94 million from FY25.
CPD is 92.52%, supported by the corporate fund.
Spending breakdown, non-personnel services, $196.35 million, personnel services, $1.9 billion.
Total full-time equivalents, $13,792, a decrease of $14,000 from FY25.
Looking at appropriations, personnel services remains the largest appropriation category,
followed by the $0.900 financial purposes as specified, which includes the $82.5 million budgeted for settlements.
The purposes as specified account, also known as Account 9000, saw the largest decrease, down $118 million.
This account represents a reserve balances, which includes federal and state grant funds, local public and private funds,
and the COVID-19 grant funds, and the COVID-19 grant fund.
Funding sources, CPD's primary funding source is a corporate fund, with additional local support from both airport funds,
a community safety fund, and the Chicago Police CTA detail fund, as well as a controlled substance fund.
Federal grant funding has declined compared to the prior year.
Historical appropriations, CPD's share of the overall city budget, decreased during the pandemic years
when temporary federal relief funds significantly expanded other departments.
As those one-time funds have expired, CPD's share of total appropriations has begun to trend upward.
FTE, CPD's staffing levels have gradually declined since the most recent.
high of 14,958 budgeted positions back in 2019.
The FY26 proposal continues this trend with a reduction of 14 FTEs.
And lastly, the final slide is overtime.
The overtime budget doubled in FY26 from $100 million to $200 million.
Looking at the chart, you can see the budgeted amounts,
and you can see the line for the actual amounts.
And the most recent amount is a 190.1.
This 190.1 million brings the $200 million budgeted amount more in line.
This concludes my report for the Chicago Police Department.
Thank you, Director O'Degray. Superintendent Starlin?
Good morning, and thank you, Chairman Irving,
and to all of the city council members for having us here today to hear more about the budget.
I'm joined by Deputy Director Ryan Fitzsimons, who is sitting to my right,
and General Counsel Scott Spears.
Sitting in the box is Chief of Patrol John Hine,
Chief of Detectives Antonetter City,
Chief of Counterterrorism Dwayne DeVries,
Chief of the Office of Community Policing, Angel Navalis,
Chief of the Bureau of Internal Affairs, Tim Moore,
Executive Director of Constitutional Policing and Reform,
Allison Clark Henson,
Director of Community Policing, Glenn Brooks,
Deputy Director of the Strategic Initiative Division,
Noe Flores,
Deputy Director of the Office of Equity and Engagement,
Mike Milstein,
Managing Deputy Director of the Public Safety IT,
Dan Casey,
Director of Human Resources,
Joy Brown,
and Deputy Chief of the Training and Support Group,
Magdalia Bonas.
We understand the great responsibility we have when it comes to ensuring the budget allocated to the Chicago Police Department
is being used effectively and is aligned with the needs of public safety in the city of Chicago.
As always, we will work within the resources available to us.
Just as we have seen throughout these past few years,
our officers are doing everything in their power to protect our city.
This year, so far, we have seen 152 fewer murders than last year at the same time.
728 fewer shootings, which has resulted in 880 less people who were victims of shootings last year.
We have also decreased our robbery, our armed robbery count, by 2,727 for a decrease of 36%.
We've also continued to strengthen homicide investigations in pursuit of justice for victims and their families.
So far this year, at 70.83%, we have the highest clearest rate in at least a decade.
This is due to the diligent work of our detectives.
Thank you.
This is due to the diligent work of our detectives and homicide teams,
as well as a stronger investment in technology and in-service training for homicide detectives.
Although I'm sure the detectives really appreciate that.
Community assistance has also played a major role in moving these investigations along.
Whether it be through tips or video evidence provided by residents,
this assistance is rooted in the trust we have built within the communities we serve.
This year, we also continue to focus on strengthening all shooting investigations
through the launch of our non-fatal shooting teams in each detective area.
We're seeing steady progress as we work to bring accountability in these cases
and a measure of closure for victims.
Robbery investigations and transit crime investigations were also enhanced
through the opening of a new public transportation section, Strategic Decision Support Center,
which leverages technology and CTA's extensive camera network to monitor activity across the transit system in real time,
helping officers in the field respond more efficiently and effectively.
Robbery task force detectives are also embedded into this room,
facilitating streamlined robbery investigations that involve public transportation.
Our support for the victims of crime doesn't end at these investigations.
Those who have been victimized by violence need our support,
which is why we expanded our victim services unit this year
by hiring additional victim specialists who provide trauma-informed support for survivors,
including domestic violence survivors.
We also opened a new victim services office in Roseland to make it easier for those in need of support to seek services.
Our Office of Community Policing has also expanded its footprint.
We now have a community organizer working within each of our 22 police districts
for the first time in more than two decades.
These community engagement and support initiatives are important to our reform
and consent decree compliance efforts, which we are continuing to make progress.
In the latest assessment released last month by the independent monitoring team for the consent decree,
CPD has some level of compliance in 94% of all original monitorable consent decree paragraphs.
Operational compliance rose to 23% and secondary compliance rose to 66%.
Bless you.
Our reform efforts also focus on training.
Next year, our CPD supervisors will begin receiving leadership training from the University of Chicago Crime Lab.
This training is being funded by the Civic Committee through a grant from the Su Ling Jin Foundation.
Next year, we will also work to modernize our data systems through a new records management system.
This system will streamline the process of completing reports and extracting data.
This new system will help get officers back onto the streets faster while also cutting down on potential overtime that is required to complete documentation following up on a crime.
CPD will also continue to monitor its use of overtime as well as ensure overtime is appropriately tracked to specific event codes for increased accountability and transparency.
What will not change as we head into 2026 is our continued promise to protect every community across our city.
CPD, thank you, and I look forward to taking questions.
CPD, thank you, Superintendent.
Thank you, Superintendent.
We'll start with Alderman Harris, followed by Alderman Riley.
Thank you.
Good morning, Superintendent.
Good morning.
I got to say that I thank everybody in the box because at times I think I could be super demanding about issues and what I need for my community, and I want to thank everybody who sits in the box that helps to make my community a better place.
And so I have to acknowledge that I have four wonderful commanders, and Melvin Branch, who I love, and Keith Millman, who has most of the A4, Mike Tate, who has been instrumental in doing some really wonderful things in the Cottage Grove corridor with me, and Carla Johnson, who she got the easy part of my life.
She don't have no issues, and I have like zero issues over there in that part of the universe.
But I'm grateful for the relationships that these commanders have built over time with me, and they continue to work on me and on my outstanding issues.
So it wouldn't be right if I just didn't acknowledge all of their great work.
But having said that, so I'm loving that we are down all across the board in our numbers.
What districts have the greatest or the sharpest decline in crime?
I'll push that over to the chief of patrol.
Good morning.
My name is John Heinemann, chief of patrol.
So it goes across the categories of shooting victims.
The greatest declines, the 10th district right now currently is leading with the robberies and the violence right now that is down the most.
Districts.
Where's the 10th district?
I know where three, four, five, and six are.
Westside.
That's Westside.
Okay.
Westside.
Coming on.
I mean, Matt, too.
Great.
And so far, year-to-date, the carjackings compared to 2024, the districts with the largest decreases are the 18th district, 24th district, 12th district, 25th district, and 14th district.
Year-to-date for robberies, the districts with the largest decreases are the 10th district, again, the 25th district, 16th district, 17th district, and 9th district.
Shooting victims compared to 24, all districts are down.
So that's an incredible stat to say that all districts are down except for two districts.
Our 18th district, unfortunately, suffered a mass shooting of 18 victims and kind of pushed their numbers over.
And the 16th district, which is kind of rare, showing an increase of five victims over last year.
But shootings compared to 2024.
Or all of our districts are down except for the first district.
So across the board, it varies across mitigating factors, but we're showing a huge decline compared to the last 15 years and decreases in all of our major violent crime categories.
Thank you.
So on the chart, it kind of shows that overtime is kind of up, but can you speak to what's driving the reason why our overtime is up?
So, as you've seen, you know, across the city of Chicago, we have a lot of protests, planned, unplanned.
You know, some have permits, some non-permitted.
And during those times here in the city, we want to make sure that we secure the safety of everyone in the city.
We want to make sure that people can move to and from to get to work, even though there's protests going on.
That requires manpower.
And it requires our bike teams, our officers who are trained to deal with these types of gatherings, to make sure that we're protecting people's constitutional rights to protest peacefully.
And we make sure that we have the manpower.
Sometimes it runs a little long.
Sometimes we have to be careful about pulling resources from districts where we know that we have people in areas where we have high crime, violent crime.
And we don't want to pull those people right away because we can see an uptick in violent crimes in neighborhoods where we have promised people that we're going to take care of them.
So at times we have to utilize overtime for these reasons.
Throughout the summer, there are multiple events time and time again.
And we actually have in a ramp assignments has a breakdown of what we spend on overtime during these events.
Thank you.
I just wanted to make it clear that we're not giving away overtime for the sake of giving away overtime.
But it's events and special events that sometimes dictate and demand all across the city for the police department to be present and even at events that pop up sometimes in the second and third quarter that you had no idea to plan for in terms of trying to accommodate for the time that you'll have with preparing for those special events.
So with that, Sue, I'm cool because I can say if I'm going to pick up the phone, I'm going to get a return phone call, I'm going to get an answer, and I'm going to get a solution.
So today I'm grateful for the Chicago Police Department for everything that they do.
And the only thing I want to say is that I want everybody to get back home the same way they left home safe and to be able to get back with their family.
So thank you so much and thank everybody for everything you do.
Thank you, all of them.
Appreciate it.
Thank you, Alderman Harris.
Alderman Dow, you had a point?
Yes, just point of information.
You said you had a breakdown of your overtime.
Can you provide that, or is that something you have to do through the chair?
It's a lot of information if you want it through the chair or if there's anything specific that you want to talk about.
I'm interested.
Well, I'll wait my turn then.
I'll ask my turns.
Okay.
We'll get it to you either way.
Are you asking for your turn now, or?
I'm almost ready.
You're almost ready.
Alderman Riley followed by Alderman Dow.
Thank you, Chairman, and good morning, Superintendent.
Good morning.
I just want to congratulate you and the rest of your team for the significant improvement in a number of our crime statistics.
I know that comes with a lot of hard work and creative thinking and spreading your resources as best you can.
I wanted to ask you a couple of just basic budget questions, but the first, and I think probably most important for people here front of mind,
is does your fiscal year 2026 budget reflect any reductions in sworn and or civilian workforce?
Ryan, would you like to talk a little bit about what we traded?
Yes, absolutely.
Ryan Fitzsimons, Deputy Director, Office of the Superintendent.
Right off the bat, this budget does not reflect any reductions in sworn staffing whatsoever.
You will see in the budget a reduction of 14 headcounts, but essentially what we did with that is we traded certain positions for other sorts of positions.
The big one was we moved 20 training officers to 10 assistant directors, and then there was a few other swaps that we did.
But the salary amount remained the same, so basically it was just reallocating that salary to make sure we were allocating it to the needs that we had.
And you won't be eliminating any funded vacant positions for sworn officers, is that correct?
No sworn officers will be eliminated.
Including vacancies?
Including vacancies.
Very good.
And, you know, CPD's turnover percentage is much higher this year than in previous years.
What does this mean for CPD hiring?
Ryan Fitzsimons, Deputy Director, Office of the Superintendent.
So on page 356 of the mayor's budget recommendations for year 2026, the turnover figure is $90,731,393.
Essentially what this means is we're going to have to make sure that our hiring is staggered so that we can realize those savings.
We will be pausing some of our recruit classes over the summer, which we did this year, to allow us to better allocate resources out in the field and also tamp down those overtime expenses.
So just so I understand this correctly, we're talking about having fewer classes to bring in new recruits because we have to satisfy our overtime budget?
So let me jump in on that one.
So last year, throughout the summer, obviously there was going to be an interruption in the hiring process.
So my idea, if this was going to happen, the best time for that to happen is during the summer.
We have less recruits in the academy during the summer.
That's when we have most of our events.
We have sworn officers working in the academy.
Those people we can use now to go out for some of these events.
It reduces overtime.
Now here, we agreed upon the number of officers that we knew we were going to be able to hire this year.
And that was presented.
We had that discussion with the office budget management to talk about being able to hire those that we know we're going to be able to hire.
We agreed to that.
But we also did not want to see any sworn positions removed from the budget.
So we talked about that, and that was agreed upon also.
So it's not necessarily that we are seeing a pause in hiring to satisfy overtime needs.
It's just the way that we're staggering them into the academy.
I believe it's about 60 a month.
And that's what we believe that we can hire throughout this year.
And it's going to help us keep up with attrition and unity of command and span of control, which is also tied to the consent decree.
And I understand the delicate balancing act you're trying to do here.
You have a complex budget and you have a lot of workforce to manage.
And I think for most of us here, we just want to make sure you're able to backfill those folks you're losing to attrition.
And is that retirement rate increasing?
Are you seeing an increase in retirements?
And are we going to be able to keep pace with that?
I'm one of the folks here who's been advocating for us not allowing the force to drop too dramatically so that certain districts are spread too thin.
We can go to Joy Brown from Human Resources to talk a little bit about that.
Good morning, Director of HR Joy Brown.
So this year, our anticipated retirement for the rank of P.O. is about 423.
This is up slightly from last year, but we are keeping up with attrition in terms of our hiring for the year.
Okay.
I'd like to shift over to one of my favorite subjects.
I know you're familiar with it, Superintendent, and that is transit crime.
And you mentioned in your narrative that you're leveraging our strategic centers and the camera system we have, the redundant camera system we have throughout the CTA service lines.
We read in the paper not too long ago, actually just a few days ago, I think, that, again, it's not a terribly scary crime, but smoking on the trains, right?
And I know that your officers have a lot better things to do than police smoking, but kind of along the lines of the broken windows approach, if there is rampant smoking on trains, there's a whole lot other things going on, much worse than smoking.
And knowing that you have challenges, properly staffing the police districts, et cetera, how are we handling criminal incidents on the CTA?
I've been a pretty harsh critic of the private security that's been employed there.
They mostly admonish people and wag their finger, and that's about all they can do.
But with this pervasive smoking issue we have, you know, they're not just smoking cigarettes, they're smoking weed, they're smoking crack.
There are drug sales on these, especially on the trains, the red line and blue line.
We're seeing, you know, violent assaults, et cetera.
Aside from the camera system, has there been any more thought put into, on a semi-regular basis, deploying officers to actually...
walk through train cars, not to have a presence on platforms or above platforms, but actually
sending them into the trains. Maybe that's an operation for probationary officers. I'm not sure.
But we have other big cities around the country with transit systems that
do make this a priority to cut down on the crime incidents that occur on the transit lines.
A lot of the folks that want to perpetrate these crimes in Chicago know that we don't have a real
healthy presence on our trains because you all are busy above ground or on the ground dealing with
the day-to-day crime stats that we're trying to manage. So we do have Chicago police officers who
are dedicated to working transit crimes. I'm actually having conversations with Nora Learson over at CTA
and she's very concerned about us working together because the partnership will be helpful.
As those conversations continue, obviously we'll be working toward a plan. Now, when we're comparing
our transit system to others, there's funding and budgeting dedicated directly toward that. This
is something that we're trying to work out now. When it comes to the crime and our officers on the
train, I'm going to turn this over to the Bureau of Counterterrorism Chief Dwayne DeVries to talk a
little bit about what we're actually doing on the trains when it comes to the smoking and when it
comes to the violent crime. So Chief Dwayne DeVries from the Bureau of Counterterrorism. Let me give you
a few numbers real quick to answer your smoking. So year to date, there have been 4,008 ANOF citations
written for smoking on CTA. So that's over 4,000 technically arrests. In total, there's been 15,353 ANOFs written
on the CTA by CTA officers. There's been 53 firearms recovered. There's been 2,270 arrests made.
There's been 367 of those are felony arrests. 142 of those are robbery arrests. And then total transit,
which includes your bus arrest, is 1,564 for the buses. As the superintendent mentioned,
with the expansion of the new SDSC room, which is out of the first district with the camera system,
amazing. They did a news story on it when it opened on June 19th. Since then, robberies on the CTA have
been down 26 percent for an overall reduction this year to date, 10 percent. Also, due to the 26 percent
reduction since June, robberies are down 10 percent year to date. When the room opened, those crimes are up
51 percent. Since it opened, crime is down 7 percent now on the CTA. Criminal damage on the CTA was up
3 percent when the room opened, but has been down 20 percent since. And this year, there have been
164 robbery arrests related to mass transit investigations. Now, with these detectives being
embedded in the SDSC room with our transit officers, we're able to observe these crimes and then do the
investigation immediately. Whereas before there was a follow-up, it'd be put in the system.
Detectives would get assigned, and then those detectives would have to go out and interview
witnesses, look for offenders, et cetera. Now they have the video. They're responding immediately.
And I have numerous success stories in here of multiple offenders. So a lot of the problem on CTA
is you've got groups of 40 individuals jumping on at the same time, going through the turnstiles,
getting on. They ride these trains up and down, preying on individuals. Those groups have been
reduced drastically with cooperation of the detective division, patrol, and CTA with Kevin Ryan.
We identified those individuals. They are on the camera system. When they're on the ride, the lines,
we do get officers on there. And then the follow-up on those investigations, now these individuals are
being arrested for patterns of robberies and patterns of crimes. So they're being held and detained,
and they're not on the train. So you're going to see a lot more reductions as we start taking these
individuals out of the system. A big problem is that the fare evasion, they get on without paying.
And so they're getting through, like you said, the security of the CTA, et cetera.
They're, you know, very good partner, but they can only do so much. And we understand that.
They had the canines up there, and I think you saw the incident where the canine, you know,
was getting kicked by individuals. And that security officer was getting attacked,
and a lot of people just stood around and did nothing for him. So, you know,
those are the challenges of when you have groups of individuals that get on these trains.
But the work that's being done by the officers, the commander, Commander Asagera, they're doing
amazing work. They have, they put in affinity officers, which ride the trains, answer questions
from the civilians when the trains arrive, when they get off, what the delays are, giving them
information on how to follow up on lost phones, et cetera. And then third thing is a lot of these
robberies are not necessarily robberies. They're reported as robberies. But when someone leaves their
phone on a seat or is taken without force, that's not a robbery. So a lot of our robberies are being
classified wrong. So when those get in the system, and now with the new SDC room with the detectives
right there, we can fix that. So that's part of the reason you're going to see the reduction in robberies
as well. Chairman, do I, am I done? Can I ask another question or two? You said you wanted to sign up
for round two? If you'd like. That's fine. We're going to be here, so I'll be here.
There's no problems. Can I ask one follow-up on the CTA issue? Sure. I was going to actually
follow up on that as well, but go ahead. And it's related to the turnstile jumping,
fare evasion. I guess my follow-up question to that would be, that's been a chronic problem for
a very long time. And as much as these ambassadors are a nice thing to have, answering people's
questions and giving them instruction on how to report various issues they've had on a train or
bus, they're clearly not deterring the fare evasion. And I don't think that should be a CPD
problem. I think that should be a CTA problem to manage. But it seems the best way to manage that
is to have folks like you with authority and uniform and armed to have a presence at those
particular stations where we see this happen most frequently. That, I think, would be a way to
tamp this down and actually be aggressive in arresting and prosecuting folks for fare evasion. So the word
gets out that this is not the easy way to ride the train anymore. So I'll tee that up with CTA in
separate conversations with them. But because it does involve the need for some uniformed officers,
I wanted to get your reaction to that idea. Is that worth pursuing? Because like you said,
a lot of the folks who are evading fares are also the same people committing crimes, not only on the
system, but also in retail areas like downtown Chicago.
So I can jump in on that one. Absolutely. I mean, you know, anything that we can do for
prevention, you know, as Chief DeVries mentioned that, you know, you'll get people who jump the
turnstile and then they just ride the train and then they're preying upon people. If we can prevent
that from the very start, then we don't have people who have the ability to prey on people like
that. So everything should start with prevention. And obviously, that's one of the things that we're
talking to CTA about. We've also sat with the state's attorney, who's been a great partner in
this and making sure that when we catch violent offenders on CTA, that they're held and that
they're prosecuted for it. Very good. Well, thank you, chairman, for your indulgence. And thank you,
superintendent, for the great work that you and your entire team in the box does. Really,
thank you on behalf of Chicago taxpayers. Thank you. Thank you.
Follow up on the question regarding CTA. Isn't there a is there still special employment
with CTA where police officers are participating in some role with CTA? If it is, how much have we
allocated for that? Or how much has CTA allocated? I'm assuming they pay us pay the office. I don't
know how they handle that. But is that still in effect? And how is that going?
Chief DeVries talking to you. You can talk about them.
Chief Dwayne DeVries, again, from the Bureau of Counterterrorism. Yes, that's still in effect.
The program is over all three watches. I can get the numbers through the chair of what how many
people each month were assigned that initiative, because I don't want to put them out in public.
But it's a great number. And it's, it's all an overtime initiative. So the officers work it on
their day off. It's, but they do work it in CPD uniform. So why do you want to talk about the
funding? Yep. Ryan Fitzsimons, Deputy Director, Officer of the Superintendent. You look on page 362
of the mayor's budget recommendation for year 2026, you'll see that there's $30 million allocated for
that for 2026 that CTA provides the CPD. And we are always speaking with them about how to optimize
that allocation. And those are not off. Those are officers who are working on their RDOs and are
not part of the transit unit. But they could be a part of the transit unit if it's their day off,
but it's officers working their day off who signed up for it. Okay. Yeah. All right. So
there are additional officers, yes. Additional officers that are able to work special employment
in transit. And it has that number or number of individuals working transit been stable? Has it
increased or decreased over the last three to five years? Chief Dwayne DeBreeze, it has increased over
this last year due to CTA giving them.
a higher budget for the overtime. So it has increased.
Okay. Thank you. Next, we're going to go to Chairman Dow, followed by Alderman Quinn.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to, and good morning, Superintendent and his team,
I wanted to follow up on that because on the $30 million that we spend on the CTA program,
how many patrol hours do we get for that? I know you just talked about the increase in
the personnel, but maybe through the chair, if I can get an understanding of how their time is
utilized. Are you asking how the money translates to hours? Hours, yes.
We'll get that to you through the chair. Great. Thank you. First, Commander, I want to,
I mean, Superintendent, excuse me. You're fine. I wanted to commend you and your team on the
reduction in crime and also the significant improvement in the clearance rate. I also want
to thank you for the quarterly area meetings that we have with our commanders. For me, it's the first
district, the second district, and the ninth district. Those meetings have been extremely helpful in terms
of understanding what's going on in the ward and in the surrounding area. So I want to thank you for
that and hope that that continues. Last year, I recall that you had over 900 police officers not
actively engaged in the department on medical leave or duty disability, for lack of a better word. Has that
number increased? You know what the number is for this year?
Were you, speaking of duty disability or officers who are out for medical reasons?
Officers that are out for medical reasons. So the number has decreased from that number. It has gone down.
We're being as tough as we can on that to make sure that the medical section is working to get people back
to work and to make sure that there's no abuse of the system. We're working closely with Eric Patterson,
who just got over to OPSA, and we're looking forward to continuing that movement in the future.
Is that a number you can share publicly? The number last year was shared publicly, so.
What do we have? Joy? Director Brown, would you like to?
Joy Brown, Director of HR. As of today, there are about 790 on medical.
790?
Correct.
Okay, that's a significant decrease.
Is that just, is that IOD and medical or just?
It's medical, that's medical absence.
Medical, what is, how does IOD play into that?
226.
Two?
226.
226. Was that number included in last year's calculation?
No.
It was not? Okay, very well.
I don't think so. I don't want to swear to it. They would know.
All right, thank you. I see this year, Superintendent, that in the management ordinance, the city council is being given the authority to authorize overtime over your budgeted amount.
How do you feel about that?
So that, that's my, my understanding, ma'am. And listen, we, we're keeping much better records of overtime and the use of overtime.
We've used it judiciously. We've made sure that there's been a reduction in hours that have worked.
And I can have Ryan Fitzsimons talk a little bit about those reduction in hours.
We've also seen increase in salaries, which we have to account for when it comes to our overtime.
And if you look at our overtime usage, it's down millions and millions of dollars year over year from 2023.
So I'll just have him talk a little bit about that.
Thank you.
Ryan Fitzsimons, Deputy Director, Office of the Superintendent.
So in 2025, year to date, from January 1 to September 30th, we've expended a little over 2 million hours versus 2024, where we were at about 2.3 million hours versus 2023.
We're at 2.7 million hours.
And the way that we've been able to drive this down is through creating overtime dashboards where our command staff is able to review exactly what's being expended and then working hand in hand with our chiefs, who then reiterate the importance of overtime and useful and efficient expenditures at ComStat.
So by continuously evaluating what we're expending and getting a good look at the results, we're able to drive this down year over year.
So, ma'am, the important part of that is that if it comes to that and we start to exceed the budget, the budget and amount for overtime, it won't be us presenting in an ad hoc fashion.
We will make sure that we have all of the documentation and anything necessary to provide to city council to explain where we are with overtime and what the needs are.
So we're breaking everything down.
We're making sure that we're documenting everything and making sure that we're getting the best out of the money that we're spending on overtime.
And so you anticipate that that would be perhaps a one-time appearance before, I guess, Chairman Talia Farrell's committee or you won't be coming back to us every month on that?
Oh, no, ma'am.
You know, I hope to stay within the budget, and that's what we're going to do.
We're going to work to make sure that we stay within the budget.
If anything comes up that drives us over, we'll be ready to talk about that.
But right now, I'm confident that we're going to work within the confines of that budget.
All right.
You were going to – the overtime costs, I was interested in the breakdown on the special events portion of it.
Can you speak to that?
Yes.
Ryan, we'll talk a little bit about that.
Yes, Ryan Fitzsimons, deputy director.
So we've been really leaning into using our overtime tracking codes to make sure that we are tracking our expenses appropriately.
So for festivals, we have 48 overtime tracking codes worth a little over $8 million.
For races, 5Ks, that sort of thing, we have 29 overtime tracking codes worth around $2.9 million.
And for parades, we have 46 of those worth about $5.7 million.
$5.7 million?
For parades, yes, ma'am.
All right.
For parades and special events, do you count the regular hours that are expended toward these events where, for example, teams are diverted from districts to cover an event even though they're on straight time and not on overtime?
I'm sorry, can you repeat that question?
So my question is, if you take, for example, you take 1161 and send them downtown, even though they're on their regular straight time, do you guys account for that team leaving the district going downtown, even though it's on straight time and not over time?
No, so it doesn't count as overtime.
I know it doesn't count as overtime, but do you categorize the time where officers are leaving the district being diverted to another function outside of their regular assignment?
Yes.
When we have to pull teams to go down, the chief of patrol tracks that all the time.
Do you all include that in the financial analysis of the special event, or how do you guys account for that?
I get the overtime calculation, but how do we account for just a straight time of what we're doing?
Because that theoretically is a diversion of resources from district law enforcement to some other function.
I get what you're saying, the number of manpower hours that's actually going to it, not just overtime.
Correct, which makes sense.
I'm sure we can track that with no problem.
Yeah, Ryan Fitzsimons, Deputy Director, Office of the Superintendent.
Basically, what we've done this year for the straight time is we've digitized the form, the 211 forms, which allow us to track that straight time.
So we're rolling it out right now within arenas, so we can better track straight time there.
And then we're looking to scale after that pilot is concluded.
Okay, I get it.
Okay, thank you.
All right, the chief of patrol wanted to chime in on something.
Hold on, I think, John, I'm chief of patrol.
Well, I think a great aspect that we monitor, we'll attach it to those events if we have to send a team, say, down from 11,
but the district commander, he or she would have to backfill those cars, we would attach it to that event going downtown.
So that's one way we would track overtime if the commanders had to backfill the cars to make sure that calls for service
and, you know, the residents adequate service.
Chairman.
Thank you.
I'm glad you stopped my clock, Chairman.
Oh, no, we always do.
Stop the clock if I jump in or do you like that.
Superintendent, wanted to know of the money that you've identified here for festival races and parades.
Are you getting any of that money back from those organizers?
Well, with CPD, what we do, we do a great job of tracking all of this.
Obviously, there has to be some agreement somewhere that we're reimbursed for that.
That's not what CPD itself pursues.
And I'll allow Ryan Fitzsimons to talk a little bit about the process.
Hi, Ryan Fitzsimons, Deputy Director, Office of the Superintendent.
So essentially what we do is we track the time, we allocate the resources, make sure that happens.
Then once we've tracked that, we give it to the Office of Public Safety Administration.
They then make sure that those documents are good.
And then they pass them over to the Department of Finance, who then does the collection on behalf of the city.
All right, I'll follow up with the Department of Finance on that.
I've heard some good things about – I was in Springfield last week, and I was talking to someone there who had visited the 1st District Strategic Decision Support Center.
That talked about some new technology.
Is that something that you can talk about that helps to improve your crime-fighting ability?
Yes, ma'am.
That's what we were just talking about with CTA, the new SDSC room that we opened up in the 1st District that now has detectives embedded in that room.
So we're connected to CTA's cameras.
They've got some great cameras across.
That's what I'm talking about.
Not so much the personnel, but the technology.
I heard some good things about the technology that you're utilizing in the center.
Well, the technology is great.
And, you know, often we talk about manpower and, you know, the needs of manpower.
We know that when we're short, we've got to work a lot smarter.
And the technology has been tremendous for us in solving a lot of these crimes.
You know, from our Strategic Support Center, our ACT rooms, and our CIGIC Center.
A lot of these new technological discoveries when it comes to fighting crime has been very effective for us.
Okay.
I wanted to talk offline then.
Who should I speak to about that?
I will talk to you because it was something specific that I heard.
Okay.
Can you talk about any new initiatives you have with the Cook County State's Attorney?
Any new initiatives?
Well, there are quite a few.
One of the things is we meet often just to talk about some of the issues.
There's a lot of training going on between the state's attorney's office and CPD.
A lot of training around the Fourth Amendment, gun recoveries, how we process weapons,
how we work to make sure that we're building stronger cases.
That's been truly effective in our detective division, building cases, getting the information
to the state's attorneys that's necessary to get charges approved, and when it comes to
the most violent crimes, to make sure that people are being detained.
So the conversations, the work, the collaboration has been great with the state's attorney's office.
Would you give any credit to them for the increase in the clearance rate?
Is that any increase in the clearance rate, or is that strictly CPD?
Well, listen, I would always say that it's a partnership.
So the detectives do the footwork.
They do a great job of building cases, and then working with the state's attorney's office
and having that partnership has been helpful to making sure that people get charged in clearing
these cases.
So it's a partnership, yes.
Command, I mean, Chairman, I have one more question, if you'll allow me.
I've been without a district commander in the 1st District since Commander Harris left.
I think he left in June.
We are now in November.
When am I going to get a new commander in the 1st District?
So we've submitted names for those, for not only that position, but several others that
are open right now.
Obviously, they go through a vetting process, and then they go through a vetting process
with the mayor's office.
So right now, we're waiting for that process to play itself out, and you should have a district
commander named shortly.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for asking that question, because I was going to ask it as well.
So next up, we've got Alderman Quinn, followed by Alderman O'Shea.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, Superintendent.
Good morning, sir.
Superintendent, how many blue shirt officers do you have right now?
Ryan, do you want to?
As Ryan Fitzsimons, Deputy Director, as of, let's see, as of this Monday,
we have a grand total of 8,223 vacancies filled for 9,161 police officers.
It was stated earlier about 423 retirements.
Is that for calendar year 2025?
Yes.
Mr. Brown?
Okay.
I understand that.
Can you speak?
Those are anticipated.
For 2026, can you speak to how many officers are eligible to retire?
I don't have that stat with me, but I could provide that through the chair.
Okay.
And it was stated earlier about, Superintendent, about 720 officers per year being hired.
Is that accurate?
You mentioned like 60 per month?
No, that number would be a little less because you have to account for the three months that
we won't hire through the summer.
A little over 500.
How many, if there's a way we could sort of ballpark, how many officers are in the queue
to be hired?
Director Brown?
Director of HR Joy Brown.
So, to date, we've hired 405 for this year.
We anticipate an additional 80 to round out the year.
I think that the question is, what do you have based on your hiring process and list?
How many eligible people are in the queue prior to coming into the academy?
What does that number look like?
That's what it is.
The number there, I mean, so we have folks in all different stages in terms of the background
process, but we do get monthly referrals from the online tests that happen.
And then, as you all know, we administer the tests four times a year in person.
So, the next administration for the test will be in December.
And what is that?
I think we're looking for a number.
Can you hold my time?
No, you're good.
You're good.
They got you.
Okay.
Do you follow what we're asking?
No, I got what you're asking.
So, I don't have, like, a number as in how many are in the shoot right now, but we're
always hiring based on, because you can always take the test online, and you can always take
the test in person as well.
So, I don't have a ballpark number, but I can provide that through the chair as well.
Oh, please do.
Thank you.
Yeah, that would be very helpful, because I want to understand what the total number of
the pool is.
I have some concerns about pausing, hiring for three months, because you can't take
someone off the street and make them a police officer overnight.
It's, what, an 18-month process?
Is that accurate, too?
No, the process in the academy is about six months.
Six months.
And once they're on the street, they go through a training period with an FTO.
How long is that?
For an additional four months.
And once they've gone through that process, they can work without an FTO.
And what we do, what we normally do, and what I like to see with the new officers coming
out, is to put them on foot patrol for a while, get them acclimated with talking to people,
dealing with people, having conversations so that they start to develop that community
policing skill.
It's been extremely helpful for them.
One of the things that we've done is we've put them in the downtown area.
We've put them on bikes.
We've put them in neighborhoods just to walk and talk, stop into some businesses, talk to
people so that they're highly visible.
That's been very helpful, especially in the downtown area where we had officers sitting
in cars with lights flashing.
And it wasn't really serving the purpose that we expected, the expected outcomes for our
officers.
So that's been effective.
The reason that I agreed to those particular months is when our officers are coming out
of the academy, the best time for us to put them in those positions is during the spring
and summer.
So if we know that we have a steady flow of officers coming out in the spring, the summer,
where we see the uptick in activity and even violent crime, we have more officers coming
out to the street.
Soop, can you talk a little bit about recruitment and how...
How is that going?
I'll push this over to Deputy Chief Bowness.
She runs the academy.
Good morning, Deputy Chief Bowness, Deputy Chief for the academy.
Recruitment retention right now, the group is out in the communities.
What they're doing is building the partnerships with other community-based organizations,
like the faith-based, community-driven events, anything with the infinity base.
They also have the military branches that they're going out to installation bases.
We also have the education portion of this where we're going to local colleges,
and we're actually trying to maintain a more homegrown base of recruitment.
And that seems to be going fine.
Well, listen, we can always do better with our recruitment.
Since it's been taken over by the good Deputy Chief there, it's improved,
and obviously we can still make improvements.
Recruitment has been tough.
It's getting better over the years.
But anyone here, and I've said it before, we're willing to work with anyone here.
If you know anyone who wants to be a police officer, we'll put on clinics, whatever we need to do.
However, what has been important to me is not lowering the standards to get more police officers.
That's very important, yeah.
That's something that I refuse to do because, as I've said before, when you lower the standards,
you get people applying with lower standards.
So we need to make sure that we're recruiting the brightest and the best.
Soup, in the mayor's budget remarks, he talks about utilizing new technologies that allow us to actually solve crimes.
Can you speak to those new technologies, and if you could give us maybe a status on ShotSpotter?
Well, here, I'll talk a little bit about some of the things that we've done,
and I will pass this over to our Chief of Detectives, Antoinette,
our city to talk a little bit about our CIGIC Center, which has been great working with the ATF.
It's helped us with our clearance rates when it comes to fatal and non-fatal shootings.
You know, our SDSC rooms, our ATC rooms, and how that has helped us solve crimes.
So, Chief of City.
Good morning, everyone.
Antoinette, our city Chief of Detectives.
Yes, I do want to start by talking about the Crime Gun Intelligence Center,
which not only has excellent technology, but it has the right people embedded and working together in one location.
So, essentially, our CIGIC is a centralized law enforcement hub where we have special agents from the ATF,
task force officers, detectives, analysts, prosecutors, all sitting together and analyzing intelligence
that we're getting back from our entries into the NIBIN system.
That's the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network.
So, what happens is any time we are recovering firearms or ballistic evidence,
we are testing that in our firearms lab.
We are entering it into a system.
And then once we enter it into the system, what we're able to use through our partnership with ATF
is a system called NESS, which helps us understand if anything that we've collected and entered
links multiple shooting incidents together.
So, that technology, that platform is in our partnership with the ATF.
And being able to tie those investigations together, we're able to focus on the most prolific offenders
that are out there committing these shootings and these murders.
And then we're able to sit around the table with those prosecutors to determine what we need to do
to build strong cases with prosecutorial merit, to see these offenders held accountable for their actions.
I think the other thing I want to mention that...
I've only got a two.
Oh, yes.
Thank you.
And, Super, any further status on ShotSpotter?
So, here's what I'll tell you, because I didn't want to ignore that question about the gunshot technology.
Dan Casey, I know that they're working on something right now and testing some things out.
So, Dan?
Dan Casey, Managing Deputy for Public Safety IT.
That is an active RFP right now, Alderman, so we can't speak too much publicly about it.
But I will say that CPD through SWAT, BombSquad, did rigorous testing of the respondents,
and we will have a very good product once that contract is finalized.
Okay.
Just go ahead, Alderman.
That way we don't have to keep going, everybody, on this.
With that said, with the dollars that were specifically put there, because it can only be used for that technology,
how much of those dollars are still there?
For?
For the technology.
It's not about just the gun detection system, but it was the money specifically.
It's got to be used for police technology.
How much money is in there?
Right.
Ryan Fitzsons, Deputy Director, Office of the Superintendent.
Gunshot detection technology is not budgeted within CPD.
It's going to be within the Office of Public Safety Administration, who manages all our technology.
So there is zero dollars budgeted for that within the Chicago Police Department.
But, Chairman, if you can help me, please, because I know we got a set amount of tax, some tax dollars,
just can't remember off the top of my head, that we collect just for that.
So would that be an OEMC then?
I'm not.
I don't follow what revenue stream you're speaking of.
And, again, OPSA will be before us.
There is, yeah, because there's tax dollars that's specifically from the phone.
That's right, from the cell phone.
Oh, the E9, those are E911 dollars.
Again, in between OPSA and OEMC, they can answer that question directly.
Thank you.
Back to me, Mr. Chair.
Yeah, you on.
Last year, Sup, we talked about a deployment analysis.
Any status on where that is at?
So our workforce allocation study is in the works right now.
Okay.
We're expecting that, I believe, it's the first quarter of 2026 to be completed.
Okay.
They're doing a very deep dive.
They've spoken to a lot of people, especially in patrol.
So we should be able to report out on that shortly.
But we're also creating a dashboard so that you or anyone else can go in and see what the
progress is.
I think that will be helpful.
And I would be remiss not to mention how dangerously low we're staffed in the 8th District.
We're down to 249 officers.
So with that, I have not given up on the fight for a new police district.
You may recall the governor signed the bill to transfer the land over.
We secured $6 million and sent that over to the armory so we could wait a little bit and
potentially wait out this administration for the new police district.
Um, my community is not going to give up.
Um, I understand full well that, that your hands are tied.
Um, but, uh, it doesn't, it's not a surprise to me that potential mayoral candidates are
reaching out saying, I'm in for the new police district.
And so I look forward to that deployment analysis because I think it's going to tell a story.
I mean, the last time the boundary was changed is 1968.
So when we talk about being fair in the city of Chicago, um, what is happening in the 8th
district is not an equitable thing.
And so I know, you know that, sir.
Um, and I know that your hands are tied, but the record needs to reflect that what's happening
in the 8th district is dangerous.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you.
Thank you, uh, Alderman Quinn.
Next, we're going to go to, uh, Alderman O'Shea, uh, followed, um, by Alderman Silverstein.
Thanks, Chairman.
I just like to start out by saying, um, superintendent, if everybody,
everybody that came before us was as well-prepared and had people to answer questions the way
your staff has, this would be a much smoother process.
I just want to appreciate clearly the amount of work you and your team put into, uh, coming
before us today.
Thank you.
Um, I wanted to start out, uh, talking about, um, we've seen some reports about barriers in
hiring at the Chicago Police Department, specifically consent decree, uh, positions.
Um, I know we're significantly less vacancies than we had, but can you kind of take us through
where we're at with that whole process and what those barriers are?
So, uh, it's, it's important, um, uh, to make sure that we have those positions in the consent
decree and we make those hires.
Obviously, there's a process and, uh, we can go through a little bit and just talk about where,
where we are with the process and, uh, how many we've hired.
So, right.
Hi, yes.
Ryan Fitzsimons, Deputy Director.
So, so far, year to date, we have 84, um, hires and more on the way, which, uh, Joy Brown would
have the specifics on how much we have in the hopper.
We have, uh, 57 candidates in the pre-employment, uh, process still to, for this year.
And we have an additional 26, uh, titles that are in the interview stages.
So as we fill out this year, hopefully those 57 can come on board and then we're continuing to hire.
through the interview process into next year as well.
I'll call that progress.
Thank you.
Ernst & Young will be before us on Monday, but in their report, for those of us that have read it,
they projected that the implementation of an early warning system would cost the city
or could save the city around $1.5 million a year.
Could we talk a little bit about what that could be and how helpful that could be?
Well, I'd have to do a deeper dive into their figure amount,
but the early warning system is actually important overall for the department
and could lead to greater savings.
When we look at officers, we know officers deal with trauma on a regular basis.
They see things.
We have to recognize when our officers are dealing with things that we need to get out in front of.
Early warning systems will give us the opportunity to get those officers help if necessary,
find officers who are here unfaithfully, and take action against it.
Right now, we are working on that system, and I'll let Executive Director Allison Clark-Henson from OPCPR talk a little bit about that.
Good morning.
Yes.
So as the superintendent said, the system that is being currently built,
after bringing benchmark analytics on, which we currently are working with to develop the application,
we're currently working on finalizing a policy that's going to guide the system,
and we're developing in-person training on the system.
The progress so far for the application has been promising.
We do believe that the policy and training will be taking place through next year into the, like, third and fourth quarter,
with us being able to launch it the beginning of 2027.
If we can move those dates up, we certainly intend to do so.
But just to reiterate the superintendent, this particular system will identify and support officers who may be experiencing performance
or wellness issues early on to help prevent worsening outcomes.
The system will use a computerized database to track key indicators, such as use of force and complaints,
that will trigger the appropriate interventions that then we can take immediate action on.
Thank you.
I want to talk a little bit about technology.
My colleague mentioned ShotSpotter.
We had an incident in my community back on September 2nd.
There was a CVS pharmacy that was a young lady working the register, armed robbery, gun to her head.
There was a piece of technology in the cash in the pharmacy, and great work by the 22nd District SCSC room.
Maybe some of this we don't want to talk about openly, but I believe the technology is 3SI.
It's one of many pieces of technology you are utilizing in this particular case.
These two jokers gunned to this poor girl's head.
Within 17 minutes, they were both in custody three miles from the store because of the technology we used
and the great work by our SDSC room, the great work by our carjacking task force, and the communication, and OEMC, the dispatcher.
You probably don't have all the exact details on that, but could we talk a little bit about how important some of this technology is
that we continue to purchase and invest in, being that, as we all know, we're never going to get back to the numbers of manpower that we had five years ago.
Could we talk a little bit about that, sir?
Well, this is why it's important to work smarter.
I mean, you're 100% right.
Technology is the key.
You know, we've seen through technology our use of helicopters, things of that nature, where we've been able to solve a crime immediately and take people into custody.
Those are the things that help us build stronger cases.
You know, we normally have to wait on interviews of victims and making sure that that information is aligned.
I'm gathering information, gathering evidence to present to a state's attorney for charges to be approved, but before we even get to that stage,
gathering enough evidence to identify someone to take them into custody and to get them charged.
So the technology has been tremendous for us in what we've been doing with our clearance rates, the arrests that we've made,
and then bringing down violent crime overall, our armed robberies, getting crews off the street,
because we'll get a group of people, and they'll go on a robbery spree throughout the night,
and they'll be responsible for multiple and multiple robberies, and these are your repeat offenders.
We have to make sure that when we grab those people, we build the strongest possible case that we can to get them charged and to get them held.
This keeps everyone else safe, and it reduces the number of robbery victims, the number of shooters,
and the trauma to people in our community who have been victimized by these crimes.
Well, that's evident that work by the numbers.
Let me talk a little bit about field training officers, FTOs.
How are we doing on that?
It's so important, these young officers coming out of the academy, that they have someone mentoring them,
looking out for them, getting them prepared about how to interact with the public.
Well, the field training officers, they're so important because it's the officers' first connection to the field from the academy.
And that transition, the person who's in charge of that is actually the most instrumental part of that new officer's career
because now everything that you learn in the academy, which was stress inoculation at that point,
now you're actually providing services for people.
So it's not scenario-based now.
It's real.
And I'll let Chief Hine talk a little bit about that.
Chief Patrol John Hine, thank you, Alderman, for that question about the FTOs.
And to piggyback on the superintendent a little, I think it's probably the most important role,
when the officer, he or she comes out of the academy,
it's going to be the experience in that car and the proper training and to set the right ground rules and guidance.
Currently, we keep our one-to-one ratio for the consent decree,
and we've kept that ratio since, I think, August of 2019.
So it's very important that the FTO program keeps that.
But incentives, I know that it's up to those FTOs if they want to work first watch at their discretion,
but usually they work second or third watch.
And certain incentives, too, that there's preferential training opportunities for them,
a little bit of incentive of extra pay for what they do and how important it is.
But I know the FTO program through the training academy, through a support group,
and through patrol is a highly valued position, and it's protected.
Thank you.
In closing, 22nd District serves and protects my community.
Several months ago, my commander, Brian Kanaim, was promoted, and great choice there.
I'm just hoping, as my colleague mentioned, that we get someone in place to make sure that my neighborhood continues to stay safe.
Superintendent, you were very deliberate when you came on board to assemble a team of leadership.
And every step of the way, every incident, every time you're before the public or before us,
you are always very complimentary about your team.
And that's what strong leaders do.
I've said this before.
I'll say it again.
We're very lucky in this city to have you running this police department.
What you have done to bring back morale, what you've done to select leaders,
to show these, particularly these younger officers, how a world-class police department should run.
I just want to thank you.
And thank you to everybody out there who's on the street looking out for all of us.
God bless all of you.
Thank you, Alderman.
Thanks, Chair.
Thank you, Alderman O'Shea.
Alderman Silverstein, followed by Alderman Lopez.
Thank you, Chairman.
Good morning, Superintendent.
Good morning, ma'am.
So as you and probably everyone here knows that my mission has been to fight back against all the hate in the world.
And so I have a couple of questions about that.
So city data shows that hate crimes in Chicago are actually increasing with the exception of two categories,
the anti-Jewish hate crimes and the crimes against gay men.
Could you tell us what the police are doing to keep these communities and all the vulnerable communities safe?
Well, and thank you for that question, Alderman.
And I know that this has been very near and dear to you, and it's very serious to us as a department to make sure that we keep every community safe,
especially from hate crimes.
So what I'll do, and I'll do it again.
do is I'll turn this over to Director Mike Milstein to talk a little bit about it, and
then I'll turn it over to Chief Hein to talk about our responses to police.
So, Director Milstein.
Good morning.
Mike Milstein, Deputy Director of the Office of Equity and Engagement.
We are working proactively with communities.
We work closely with the Chicago Commission on Human Relations.
When we do have incidents of hate occurring, we're doing our best to do our reach to communities.
We've had many meetings with Jewish leaders across the city, both on the north side, in Hyde Park.
Wherever we're seeing incidents, we're doing our best to do our reach to those communities,
similar with anti-LGBTQ plus incidents as well, doing what we can to inform folks about what
resources are available, best ways to report hate crimes.
We do believe that there's underreporting going on, so we want to make sure that we're
doing our due diligence to provide awareness on how to report hate crimes.
We're bringing in partners.
The Detective Division is doing a great job to also bring in folks from other agencies
to investigate these crimes.
So, really doing our best to just connect with folks, talk to them, and see what we can
do to partner with them on these investigations and to increase awareness about the incidents
of hate.
Chief Hein?
I'll talk a little bit on the enforcement side of our patrol and the communication that
we obviously have with you, our faith-based community, but the special attention and the
deployments that we'll make to our religious institutions immediately upon any alert or
awareness or incident that might take place.
At the discretion of patrol, a lot of times we'll send our priority response teams to
those neighborhoods or those religious institutions to provide an extra sense of security and also
for proactive police enforcement.
Is that over time?
No, that is not over time.
That's the officers in their time.
If we need to adjust their hours, the officers are very accommodating about trusting their
hours.
If we have reason to believe it would be necessary to adjust their hours for the PRT teams, let
alone the tactical teams, district patrol, our CAPS office, and our, you know, dedicated
patrol individuals to religious institutions for that.
We also work closely with the JUF communication with them.
So as that intel rolls in as an enforcement side of it, we are very proactive about deploying
and getting a hold of those special attentions.
At that time, Chief Rosetti would have a little bit more for the hate crime side.
Antonia Rosetti, Chief of Detectives.
As you can tell from the responses here today, our department's response to hate crimes is a
coordinated effort across all these bureaus, patrol, counterterrorism, our crime victim services,
and of course our detectives.
The job of our detectives is to conduct these investigations in a comprehensive, fair, unbiased,
and respectful manner.
The steps that we take to investigate any report of a hate crime starts with canvassing
for and interviewing witnesses, collecting, preserving, and analyzing evidence that's both
physical and digital, and then coordinating with other partners.
So that could be federal partners.
Sometimes we see incidents happening in the proximity of university campuses or on railways.
Whoever is the entity that's involved, we are pulling them into it whenever feasible to leverage
every resource we have available.
Once we have collected and gathered that evidence, our next step is to present that evidence to
our partners at the Cook County State's Attorney's Office.
They're going to look at the incident.
They're going to look at the evidence that we have, and they're going to determine whether
or not that evidence demonstrates that the motivation for the criminal act was, in fact,
based on bias.
What's important for us out of the Bureau of Detectives, specifically when we're talking
about investigations, is making sure that our detectives receive training on how to investigate
hate crimes specifically.
Last November, we were able to complete training of all of our detectives and supervisors, everyone
in the Bureau of Detectives, with an eight-hour training creating safer communities, which brought
in outside partners to look at the history of hate crimes, federal hate crime statutes.
We did select case examinations.
We're constantly looking at what we could do in this Bureau to make sure our detectives
are prepared to handle these investigations.
I'm going to turn it over to Chief DeBreeze.
Chief DeBreeze from the Bureau of Counterterrorism.
With our Bureau, we have the intelligence section, and I know you've dealt with them personally.
We have officers assigned to the intelligence section that are liaisons to the synagogues.
They have connections in all of them, and unfortunately, with a lot of hate crimes, the victims are afraid
to come forward, or they're scared of retaliation if they do come forward.
So they reach out to our officers a lot, and that officer puts them in touch with the detective
division.
We're able to get the statement, and once again, across bureaus, we're cooperating and working
these investigations.
And then we also have the protective intelligence detail, which you yourself have spoken with.
Unfortunately, some of the hate that's been spewed your way, and they handle that towards
politicians, dignitaries, high-ranking officials, et cetera, and conduct those investigations
in cooperation with the detective division.
So the civil rights unit that you have, does that have its own detectives?
Or are these just all of your detectives are trained in hate crimes?
Because each hate crime, depending on whoever is affected, is different.
You know, a hate crime against a Jewish person is different from a hate crime against somebody
from the LGBTQ community.
So are the detectives trained on how to handle this, and are they specifically in the civil
rights unit?
I do want to turn it over to Deputy Director Milstein, because he oversees our civil rights
section.
But when a crime occurs that is motivated by hate, that is going to be investigated.
The crime itself is investigated by a detective assigned to one of the areas.
That's why we sought last year to make sure that every detective received this training.
You may have crimes that cross from violent to property, so you're not always going to
necessarily have the same detective, but the incident itself might be motivated by hate,
and that's why it's so important that they all are able to conduct these investigations
with that mindset.
The civil rights section is a distinct function that we work alongside, and I'm going to let
Deputy Director Milstein speak a little bit more about that team.
Thank you.
Yeah, Deputy Director Mike Milstein, Office of Equity and Engagement.
So as Chief Versady mentioned, our unit includes the hate crimes team.
We do have one detective, two officers, and a non-sworn, a non-police victim specialist
who are focused on hate crimes.
When a hate crime does occur, it does get assigned to a detective.
We are notified from the detective division of a hate crime being reported.
And as the Chief mentioned, our team will work closely with the detective assigned to
that case to support them on the investigation of the hate element of that report.
You used to have, or it looks like the position was eliminated, but maybe you just placed it
somewhere else, a hate crime victim advocate, does it look like?
Mike Milstein, Deputy Director, Office of Equity and Engagement.
We just shifted that position to a victim specialist.
So we still have a hate crime victim specialist.
It's just not that same title.
Okay, thank you.
So I know we were talking about your overtime, and I want to just talk about some of the,
you said a lot of that was allocated towards the protests that we had.
Some of those protests were very large.
How many officers are needed?
I mean, we've had protests that closed down the streets and the expressways.
How many officers do you need to pay overtime to cover those?
Well, ma'am, that would depend on the protests, what we expect, the intel around those protests,
how many people we expect, what we're anticipating.
We normally get out in front of that and have conversations with the leadership and the organizers
of protests just to level set expectations prior to going out there.
But we try to do every single thing that we can to keep overtime to a minimum.
And then it also depends on how long it runs.
You know, getting out in front of these things are important to make sure that they don't go bad.
I'll let the Chief of Patrol talk a little bit about that.
Chief of Patrol, John Hynde, it's a great question.
And it's one of – during our morning meetings when Bureau Counterterrorism Chief DeVries or across the Bureau Chief of State
informs of any possible protests that might be occurring during the week or weekend, we start to look at the numbers,
what kind of numbers and what kind of event this might be.
For officer safety, I can give you that it's based upon when we make the determination of officer deployment,
are the officers going to be safe?
Are we going to protect our men and women?
And also, are we going to protect those individuals expressing their First Amendment rights?
There's a lot of considerations that go into it.
But as far as deployment goes or anything, it's mainly based upon that, the safety of the individuals who are participating,
but also the men and women to keep our officers safe who are conducting that.
A great example the other day, I think we had the No Kings March that reached over, my low estimate, 120,000 people.
Our officers did an incredible job, and I think one of the greatest takeaways from that is that nobody was injured,
nobody participating, no officers were injured, and there was not one complaint received against our officers in the handling of that event.
How many of those protests are permitted?
I'm sorry, ma'am?
How many of those protests were permitted?
We can get you that number.
We don't have that right now, but I think what you're getting at is that there's a large number of unpermitted protests.
Was it over zero?
Oh, yeah.
Absolutely. It was a pretty large number. But here's one of the things that that's important to note, that even though a protest may be unpermitted, there are several ways that we as a police department deal with those unpermitted protests, because when you have a large number of people, if you just simply try to shut it down, it's probably going to turn into a fight.
These are things that we're very professional about how we go about these things. And when these things pop up, we usually have a relationship. One of the things that I'll say is our chief of patrol, Director Glenn Brooks, we have a pretty good connection with organizers out there.
And we meet with them, we tell them what the expectations are. But we're also very firm about holding them accountable for what we've agreed to, so that these things don't go off the rails.
As a police department, we want to be constitutional. But as I've said before, we're going to hold you accountable if you start to commit crimes or if you start to go outside of the boundaries of what we've agreed to.
So we've we've we've been able to deal with these protests on on a level where we haven't seen the violence or we haven't seen the you know, the craziness that you normally see around large protests.
And they've ended peacefully. The chief patrol mentioned the last No Kings March. That's not the only one.
With that was the second one. And we we're seeing thousands and thousands of people.
And it ends without any arrests, any violence. Obviously, you have your little things that occur within those crowds, but we work pretty well with them, hold them accountable.
And we make sure that that it ends without end today.
And just I'm just going to wrap up.
First of all, the five point seven million in in the parades that you said for overtime, does that include all of these protests?
No. So protests, I have four point nine million, four point nine.
I just wanted to end by saying thank you.
Thank you to my wonderful commanders in twenty four, seventeen and twenty.
I also want to thank you for our Palsat team, which is our place of worship safety advisory team.
They're incredible. We use them on a regular basis.
So thank you for that. I'm going to say thank you for the entire Jewish community, not just my ward,
but the entire Jewish community, because I know we are always targets and we are always on high alert.
And you have been there for them. You have been there for me personally when I have needed my own security.
You always answer my phone calls.
You have an amazing staff.
And I just really and truly want to thank you for everything.
Thank you, Alderman.
Thank you, Alderman.
Alderman Lopez, followed by.
Oh, he left.
Followed by Central Lopez.
Thank you, Chairman. And good morning, members of the committee.
Good morning, Superintendent, to you and your department here today.
I just want to quickly follow up on a point that my colleague from the 50th Ward was discussing with regards to the unpermanent events,
knowing that it costs us about five million dollars.
And hearing the testimony you just gave that the chief of patrol, as well as Director Brooks,
have relationships with individuals who do these unpermanent events.
What progress are we making to ensure that these events are actually becoming permanent and legal in keeping with the municipal code,
particularly Section 10-8-334, which deals with public assembly as required by law?
Well, a lot of it depends on the size of these protests.
In a lot of cases where you see the larger protests, they more than likely have applied for a permit.
Now, with that permit, whatever the boundaries are within that permit, we hold them accountable.
So, if I may, Superintendent, we have seen where we've had unpermanent events in the Magnificent Mile and other locations on a weekly basis,
where those events every weekend, like clockwork on Saturdays in particular, go off protesting various international affairs.
Never is there a permit.
Always are there resources being spent.
So, I have to question that if, you know, once could be forgiven, twice is coincidental, three times it's a choice.
And we're making a choice to allow them to continue without either issuing fines or holding them accountable or doing some sort of cost recovery,
which then individuals who are complaining about your overtime accuses of having it as a slush fund,
when it's the same people that are making those accusations are oftentimes the same people that you're having to spend resources to protect while they are doing unpermitted events.
So, I would ask specific to those events, not the ones that we're...
So, what you're talking about, Alderman, is a deeper dive that goes beyond the police department?
Right now, when we look at what we have to deal with, we look at the laws on the books, we can do that.
And we have, in cases, done that.
Now, I'll let our general counsel talk a little bit about that.
But it's important to understand that when our officers are in the field and they're on the ground,
and this protest is happening at this time, the most important thing for us is to make sure that we control it,
we maintain peace, we maintain safety, and that we make sure that it doesn't get out of hand or control.
So, what you're talking about is more of an administrative part of it,
and I'll let general counsel talk a little bit about what we've done.
Good morning.
And I just want to say, I understand that.
Yeah.
Because I can't expect 50 or 100 officers to try and tell 1,000 people to go home without somebody getting injured.
I understand that completely.
Right.
But I also know that, you know, when we're...
Unfortunately, it appears that we're cherry-picking situations,
which I'm sure you can attest to as to why we're not enforcing the law,
nipping it in the bud from the beginning,
we set ourselves up for bad precedent, which we can no longer contain later.
So, go ahead.
Good morning, Alderman.
Scott Spears, general counsel to the superintendent.
There is, as you noted, the permit process that's overseen by the CDOT commissioner.
We're part of that process.
We evaluate, and this is when people go through and do the permit process.
Nice.
We know.
And we're able to issue that permit, as the superintendent said.
We hold people accountable for what they say they're going to do.
Under the First Amendment, we can't necessarily tell someone or an organization
they can't exercise their First Amendment rights on the public way.
Our best option to make sure that they're able to exercise their First Amendment rights
is to try to accommodate them as best we can.
And what this department has done in the last few years is really taken the steps to reach out to those organizers,
try to negotiate as best we can what the route is going to be, what the plan is.
We get in front of that.
Our incident commanders do an outstanding job of that.
But, you know, we can't just say because you don't have a permit,
you're unable to exercise your First Amendment rights today.
But there are limits to First Amendment rights, correct?
There are appropriate time, place, and manner restrictions.
That's correct.
But there are limits, and there are laws that we've put in place that actually deal with that.
But I'm not going to spend all my time on that.
But thank you.
I wanted to discuss briefly quality of life enforcement,
as well as some of the issues that we've seen in neighborhoods
and the stats that aren't necessarily trending in the right direction,
like according to the Council of Criminal Justice,
non-residential burglary, shoplifting, and drug offenses.
We know that when we call 911, actually our businesses,
particularly on the southwest side, have been told that basically,
unless they see someone with a gun or someone's been shot,
CPD's not coming anymore.
Is that a directive that is in keeping with your general orders?
Is this a miscommunication with OEMC, who will be here tomorrow?
Where is this coming from, where unless there's weapons and bodies that we're not getting the result we need?
And I say this, and you know exactly what my thoughts are with law enforcement and how I support it,
but is this something that's correct, incorrect, or a misinterpretation of where we find ourselves today?
Well, Alderman, I have not heard that.
When it comes to CPD, we get called to a job we're going.
Obviously, there are jobs that we have to prioritize when it comes to human life and when people are in danger.
Obviously, that's going to be at the top of the list when it comes to human life and property.
We go to those jobs where we know human beings are in danger first,
but under no circumstances will we ever say that we're not going to respond to a job where there's been a crime committed
because there's no gun involved.
I'm not aware of that.
I don't know where that came from, and that's never been anything that we relayed to our officers.
So I pulled a 911 interaction with a business that had somebody...
commit $3,000 in shoplifting. And we heard very well that no one was going to be dispatched from
CPD because a fender was gone and no weapon was seen. So I just want to bring this to your
attention, because as you say, we protect life and property. There's something that's breaking
down in between that transmission. And I'm worried that as we see these statistics going
in the right direction, that they're going in the right direction only because we're not
completing the circuit with regards to the calls, OEMC, to you and your department to
act on those calls. So we'll deal with OEMC when they get here. But at the same time, I want to
make sure that you're aware of this as well. Hold up a second, Alderman. This goes back to
another point of the evaluation. This is something that superintendent, not you, not the guy before
you, maybe the guy before the guy, McCarthy, talked about the department not being dispatched
to certain calls. There was a study, there was some conversation around that. Have you all made
any changes? Are you planning to make any changes to calls that you do or do not respond to? And the
example that was always used was the call that the department gets about the mother and son
arguing over the remote, right? You, somebody calls for that, you respond to that. And is that really
the best use of police resources in the confines of everything else that you all have to deal with?
Well, I can tell you once we get there and we find out that it's not a police issue,
we could conclude that. However, the problem is, if we don't respond because we assume that that's
what it's going to be, someone could lose their life. We have to go to these calls, especially when
it's domestic related. That particular example, a mother and a child arguing, that could lead to
some level of violence. Sometimes we get there and we resolve the situation. Could it have been
resolved by someone else? We don't really know. But right then and there, we were available while
we went to the job, we settled it. So it's really hard to say because we can't predict what that
outcome is going to be if we don't go. And the problem is, if we don't go and that outcome turns
out to be deadly or someone is seriously harmed, then that's a black eye for the department reputation.
No, I want to be careful about that. I understand that I the question comes to
non I want to call not non fatal, but non confrontational types of calls that have the
potential to be handled by somebody else or something that really is not a police matter.
I know that there was conversation around that. I don't know if that's something that ever proceeded
with, uh, between the department and OEMC or something that you all will evaluate as part of
this allocation, uh, study, but there seems to be some level of disconnect between, um, and this was
again, going back to superintendent McCarthy versus the calls that we, as the city of Chicago answer
versus some of the national norms of other, you know, big city departments of the calls that they,
they answer, ergo freeing up time to focus on a meteor issues for police officers.
So if you're talking about some, uh, non-emergency calls where we know there's not necessarily the
need for law enforcement to handle it, I would always be open for something like that. Um, uh,
you know, we, uh, there's talk right now about, uh, parking enforcement, um, things of that nature.
Um, so when it comes to something like that, that makes a lot more sense. But again, when it comes
to, you know, going to people's homes, we actually have to be careful with that. But yes, I would be
open, uh, to, uh, uh, having our officers freed up to handle those more violent calls than to handle
something that the police don't necessarily need to handle. Okay. I think you had something.
Alderman Napolitano. Uh, thank you, Sharon. Uh, just a point of clarification on that and
superintendent, I'm sure with your experience, you can answer this really quickly. Besides a call
what a person, a person with a gun or shots fired statistically nationwide or almost worldwide,
what is the most dangerous call that an officer responds to a domestic? Thank you. Thank you,
chairman. I knew that that was a bad example.
Alderman Lopez. Thank you, chairman. And I think it's something that definitely we'll need to
discuss further with our chairman from public safety, because I think that that is very concerning
to me. It's like we do cyclical where one minute you're responding to everything, then it's nothing
and we're back to everything. Um, and I think loss in that is consistency. And in many neighborhoods
that are already struggling, uh, for the last five years, small businesses in particular to get that
kind of, uh, tone from the city of Chicago that it's, it's not a big deal or it's just property
or it's a, it's a non-emergency, um, really does a disservice to community. So I look forward to
working with you, with you on that. Um, I want to switch gears to two other things, if I can, um,
animal crimes and issues. Is the, do we have an animal crime unit within CPD?
That's a great question. And I'm going to turn that over to the chief of patrol.
And I only have a minute and 40 seconds, unless you want me to talk for another 10 minutes.
You know, I know how dear animals are to you in the past and everything, but absolutely this year
under the superintendent's direction, it was important. We brought back, uh, superintendent's
administration brought back the animal crimes unit. It consists of across the bureaus we have from BCT,
uh, chief of detectives, Bureau patrol, everybody assigned to that to invest, investigate multiple
crimes against animals, um, that evolving animals, uh, responding to animal abandonment,
animal hoarding investigations, enforcement of animal protection laws, cruelty cases, uh,
education and outreach, animal fights. If you could share through the chair, all of those stats per
ward so we could see, or by district. Absolutely. We could see what that looks like.
Um, additionally, I know last year, I believe superintendent, we were talking about the
possibility that animal care was actually trying to shift the burden of collecting and returning
animals, uh, with, through the police department. Um, have we seen any, any increase in animals being
delivered to the various districts? Are police officers still going out or has that situation
resolved itself? Um, that, um, do you have any, uh, statistics on that?
I know that, uh, animal care and control changed their hours, Alderman. Um, but we still, the
police department still has a 24 hour drop off to the public. I know it stops, I believe at 1900
hours or 7 PM. But, uh, as far as that knows, so the animal crimes unit is working to kind of cross
with our animal care and control unit. Um, if you'd like to know about animal bites or those statistics
statistics or anything across the board, I'd be glad to share that with you.
If you could include that as well. And then I just have one last question, chairman to a bit of
room. Thank you. Um, with regards to you visas, we know that we have a lot of individuals who are
not citizens, who are victims of violent crime here in the city of Chicago. We know that we've seen
various reports about, um, the U visa process, even going back to the previous mayoral administration,
where on her way out, the former mayor even issued an executive order saying that we had to do
better. Can you touch on how many U visa applications we've seen, how many have been
approved, how many have been denied, and what is the wait time for an individual who has been the
victim of a crime? Um, I should say a legitimate crime, um, to get an application approved through
the department. Okay. I'm going to turn that over to general counsel, Scott Spears. Good morning,
you can alderman Scott Spears, general counsel. Um, the U visa process, as you know, it's federal
immigration program. If you're the victim of a qualifying crime, um, you can submit your U visa
application and are eligible to stay in the United States for up to four years based on that. Uh,
the department's role is that I-918 supplement B. Uh, it's a report that oftentimes the applicant
fills out, we go through, we verify that they're the victim of a qualifying crime. So under our
directive and under state law, uh, that form must be completed within 90 business days of the date of
receipt or 21 business days, uh, if expedited processing is requested. So someone is already
in the removal process, it's become more urgent. They need to get that done more quickly. Um, and it can
be as little as five business days if the applicant would become ineligible for certain benefits,
uh, because the applicant or the children, uh, child has reached 21 years of age. So going
specifically to the numbers in 2024, we received 2,720 requests for certification of the 918B
supplement. And then, uh, 90.6% of those were issued as approved, uh, through October 31st of this year,
we've received 3,674. So almost a thousand more so far this year with a 91.8%
uh, approval rating. Yeah. Thank you. All right, superintendent. Thank you so much. Appreciate all your.
The committee will stand at ease for about five minutes.
We'll take a quick break.
Hold it down for a second.
Stick back.
Stand up.
You're going to come.
You're going to come.
Bring your mic down a little bit.
You're talking a little bit.
You're going to get back.
I have it.
Okay, we're back.
Many on budget and government operations as we continue with the police department.
Next up is Alderman Cito Lopez, followed by Alderman Moore.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chairman.
Thank you, Superintendent, for being here.
It was a critical time in the city, and I appreciate your efforts to keep us safe.
I believe in terms of my line of questioning, I want to start with some specifics on the budget,
and then overtime vacancies and a few other topics.
But in terms of specifically on the mounted unit, the mounted police unit in particular,
can you explain what is the rationale for that unit and what is the cost for the mounted police unit?
So I'll turn this over to Ryan Fitzsimons to talk about the cost and the unit itself.
Ryan Fitzsimons, Deputy Director, Office of the Superintendent.
So if you look on page 343 of the mayor's budget recommendations for year 2026,
the cost there is $2,814,934.
And then this unit works to do crowd control.
They help us with our ceremonies, and they kind of disrupt a little bit of that image of your standard police officer.
We have a lot of people who come up from the community, and they're very interested in meeting the horse.
And as far as crowd control, they're also very effective at that.
So my question around, and I appreciate, Superintendent, about your statement about the responsibility for us
to do everything we can to be fiscally responsible in a time like this when people are going hungry,
our city itself is occupied by the federal government creating chaos in our city.
So today, more than ever, I do think that we've got to look at recommendations.
I think that, and I'm glad the council is calling to discuss this more in detail,
but the Ernest & Young report shows that by us shifting some of those resources,
we can increase the coverage for mental health crisis response by 50%.
So I do think, like, in a time like this, we've got to look at the actual effectiveness of this unit.
I mean, we've got some aldermen talking about having extra police stations
and even waiting out to the next administration.
In a time like where we have almost 14,000 officers
and units that seem to be more of a performance than actually talking about safety.
So I do think that this is something the council should look into.
Let me move into the vacancies.
What is the attrition being in the department year to date?
I'm sorry, what was that?
The attrition, the attrition in the department.
Okay, first of all, let me, just to your question,
because I just want to get a little further clarification on that,
because you tied it to mental health.
I didn't necessarily see that connection with Ernest & Young.
I know that there was a cost that they came up with.
What percentage of that cost or what amount of that cost is actual salary
that cannot be eliminated because those are employees?
Yes.
So the mounted unit, that $2.8 million, that's all salary.
There's another approximately $600,000, which is the non-personnel side of that unit.
But I'll also turn it over to Chief DeVries to talk a little bit more about what that unit is doing.
Chief DeVries from the Bureau of Counterterrorism,
the actual budget line for the mounted unit would be $628,000.
The officers is $2,747,000.
That would have to be paid no matter what.
So if you get rid of the mounted unit, you're still going to be paying that amount of money.
The $628,000 is what the budget amount that runs the mounted unit.
The mounted unit is 75% patrol, 25% ceremonial.
As of 29 September, they've done 509 events.
That's not including routine high visibility, which they do downtown many times,
especially when we have large events happening like the marathon, different types of protests, et cetera.
They support and do ceremonial details like memorials, funerals, community events, caps, parades, school events,
athletic events, block parties, and demonstrations.
The mounted unit gets inundated on all the different caps events.
All the different districts contact the mounted unit constantly to see if they can be used at different events,
which involve the schools, kids, block parties, like I was saying.
So they don't have enough time to do all those events.
So we have to prioritize those events.
And then going with the mounted unit, every horse that the mounted unit has is named after a fallen officer.
And all those horses are donated to the police department.
We do not purchase any of them.
Yes, and I think that in the report, what we're seeing is that by every cause that we're shifting to ceremonial units
or other resources that could be deployed right now, we have people that are going hungry.
So we're people who need mental health services.
We have a level of terrorism in our city that really demands us to look at every line of this budget.
So that is the connection with the mental health connection.
And I do think that is important that we look at those ceremonial instances versus what is actually important for public safety.
In terms of the vacancies, you're going back to the vacancies.
What is the attrition being in the department yet to date?
That's the next question.
I'll turn it over to Director Brown.
Good afternoon, Director Brown from OPSA.
At the PO level, Alderman?
Yes.
300 to date.
Mm-hmm.
How many?
300.
300.
And then how many officer roles are being redirected to being civilian positions this year?
I'm sorry, I didn't...
How many officers or officers' roles have been redirected to be civilian positions this year, if any?
I'm not sure what you mean by redirected to civilian.
How many officers have gone to civilian versus the official duties?
And this will be a civilian.
I know there's been a push for...
So, I can take that question.
So, basically, we're not turning sworn positions into civilian positions.
What we're doing is we're hiring civilians who could take over the role where we have sworn police officers and administrative positions.
So, as we continue to hire, we're assessing all of these areas where we don't necessarily need a sworn officer doing this work, and they could be replaced by civilians.
But what we're not doing is swapping out sworn positions for civilians.
So, there's a number of non-sworn positions that were in the budget that are still in the budget, and we're working toward hiring those people.
Now, as we hire, we'll make those transitions.
But as we have hired, we've done that.
So, we've put a lot of civilians in positions right now, but we still have a way to go.
Do we have a number, or if you're through the chair, you know, how many of those positions have been filled by civilians?
We can get you that number through the chair.
Through the chair.
Absolutely.
In terms of, like, vacancies, you know, and also maybe civilian vacancies versus the vacancies in the...
department. Can you provide those numbers in terms of like vacancies, civilian vacancies versus
vacancies in the department? Yep. As Ryan Fitzpatrick's deputy director, as of this Monday,
we had 286 vacancies on the civilian side with 757 positions filled. And on the sworn side,
we had 904 vacancies with 11,742 filled. In terms of like filling those vacancies,
and what is the cost of those vacancies? For the sworn vacancies, the total value
is a little bit north of 74 million. And for the civilian vacancies, it's a little bit under 21
million. So we're talking about more or less about almost $100 million in vacancies counting sworn
officers versus the civilian officers, correct? So it's probably closer to 90 million. But if you
were to look at, I believe it is page 356 of the mayor's office budget recommendation,
that a figure for turnover is also 90 million. So that savings doesn't really exist because we have
to capture that through the turnover figure. Can you elaborate on that on the turnover? Can
you elaborate how that doesn't provide any savings? Can you elaborate on that? Yep. So if we have 70
million in vacancy dollars, and then we have 20 million in civilian vacancy dollars, the turnover
figure is the amount of money that we are going to save by having those vacancies there.
Are any of those vacancies or any of that funding that does not get fulfilled because of not being
able to fulfill those vacancies, is any of that become overtime funding?
I don't think it's as clean as that. So usually at the end of the year, the budget office has to
assess where different lines are at within the personnel series. And then they need to make sure
that the funding is allocated to the actuals. What has been the experience in previous years
in terms of that? Has that become overtime funding in previous years?
So for me, I'm not sure how OBM actually goes about allocating that dollars. That would have to go
through them. Yeah, we can get that information through the chair as well.
What has been, and I just, I'll leave that with overtime. In terms of like, what is, what is,
what do we do in terms of stopping the overtime for accruing or going over overtime? I know that
that's been mentioned before, but what is being done concretely? And also there's been some
recommendations for the office and the inspector general. Do you get reports when officers approach
a certain level of overtime? And if so, what are the measures of any have taken to prevent
this kind of going over time regularly?
So there's a lot of work that we've put into overtime and reducing it. And we've seen a year
over year reduction in overtime in tens of millions of dollars. So I'm going to let Ryan talk a little
bit about some of the lockstep measures that we've put in place to make sure that we're controlling
overtime the right way. There's no way I'm ever going to sit up here and tell you that it's never
going to be necessary to use overtime. We're a police department, things happen, you know,
protests. And you know, the city that we live in right now. So we have to make sure that we're
using it, but we're using it in the most careful manner, the most responsible manner. And in order
to do that, we have to have measures in place. And I'll let Ryan Fitzsimmons talk a little bit about
what we're doing.
Yep. Hi, Ryan Fitzsimons, deputy director. So we've seen sustained decreases in our overtime. So if you
look from September, or sorry, January 1 to September 30th, we had spent about $213 million
in 2023. In 2024, we cut that back to $175 million. And this year, we're sitting a little bit below
$150 million. And the way that we've done that is when we put together our 2024 budget, we really built
out our data analytics team, which allowed us to put in more dashboards so we could better track
our expenditures. And then we worked with our command staff to train them and incorporate that
into their processes as well. We then repeatedly revisit this through our ComStat process. And
then next year, we look to build on this even more by continuing to stress the use of overtime
tracking codes to budget our resources effectively.
Thank you. This opportunity for round two, I do appreciate the opportunity to talk about overtime,
the time when people are going hungry, and we got agents here that are creating chaos and lying,
including lying to the public about what they're doing in our city.
So you want to round two?
Yes, please sign me up for round two. Thank you.
Okay. All right. Go ahead, Alderman. Curtis?
I just want to ask a question. Can a superintendent, can a...
Hold on.
Hold on. I'm just... I'm just... Go ahead, go ahead, but that's not what the point of information
is for, but go ahead.
All right. Can a once-worn retiree apply for a civilian position?
Yes.
That's it. That's all I want to know. Thank you.
As we look for the best of the best.
Yeah. You got one sitting back there holding up the flag still.
I see him back there.
You see him? Okay. Very well. I think we had Alderman Moore followed by Alderman LaSpotta.
Thank you, Chairman. I'm going to definitely start out with the niceties.
I do appreciate each and every one of you and continue to support you all.
And in that saying that, I'm definitely going to continue to need your support.
Thanks so much to your team as we, you know, only continue doing road calls, but all these...
So these operations sweeps under Glenn and his team have been effective, and we've been able to get some things done.
Now, I do want to say, I know everything can be done, but I'm a big supporter.
I'm constantly saying, I need help on 76 and Halstead with this prostitution.
It's just, you know, I'm trying to be nice here, and I want to continue to be nice and supportive.
But I'm getting my neck wrung out right now, and I need everything to eliminate it, because we've done it before.
I know we can do it again.
So whatever it takes to do that, and it's now even trickling down to 73rd on the 7th District side.
But I got two calls the other day around 73rd and Green, and our businesses are being impacted.
So, again, I'm willing to get a badge and get the paddy wagon myself.
Oh, somebody told me not to say that no more.
Get the wagon myself.
It was one of my Irish friends told me not to say that.
I forgot.
And so I'm trying to be, they say, politically correct.
And so I get it myself, and I do what I need to do.
But this is so serious.
It's not a joke.
It's real serious.
Now, to some additional questions.
When we're talking about the victim specialist positions, are those civilian positions?
Have Mike Milstein talk a little bit about that, Director Milstein.
Mike Milstein, Deputy Director, Office of Equity and Engagement.
Yes, they are all non-sworn, non-police, civilian positions.
Okay.
And so when we talk about domestic, these domestic calls, and you can provide it to the chair, but you may have it.
Are those up or down?
I thought I had read somewhere that probably was just probably in my area, one of my meetings.
But I tried to attend enough meetings.
I thought domestics were up.
Are they up or down this year?
Chief Patrol, would you have that information right now?
John, I am Chief of Patrol.
Duly noted on the 76 in Halstead.
Thank you.
We'll address that for you.
As far as calls for service for domestic disturbances, year-to-date, we've had 72,808 calls.
Last year, we had 75,636.
So down a little bit over 2,828.
So you're saying last year in total or last year, year-to-date?
Year-to-date.
Yes, sir.
Okay.
Okay.
So it's a few thousand.
A few thousand.
Through the chair.
We'll get it to you through the chair.
Right.
And the reason why I'm asking, Commander, and it is going back to the issue, I spent money
for a camera at 76 that's feeding right in.
And I appreciate what Alderman O'Shea said because I know it has worked and it does work, but I don't
want to sit up here and say that when we're not using the tools that we need to utilize
everywhere.
Eyes are out there on it.
People drive by, Commander, I'm just being honest, because I got to fight for my constituents.
And so if the eyes are both there and both driving by and the SDSC room, I'm doing everything
that I can.
So I think, and I appreciate you saying duly noted, but that's what I was asking about.
I wanted to talk about that SDSC.
Because it's the eyes are watching, but we have to be active and we have to activate.
If you could provide through the chair, because we were talking about it earlier, I think it was under Chairman Dow, because I need to see both percentages and numbers.
Because if I say I'm down shootings 100 percent, but it was only one shooting last year, 100 percent sound good.
So if you could provide through the chair the shootings and numbers by ward, what we're down, that would be helpful to me.
And someone already spoke on the shot spotter situation, and we talked about that, so I don't need to go back to that.
Now, this is a serious question.
It may sound a little funny, but it's very serious, Superintendent.
You're from Inglewood, right?
That's correct.
I'm from Inglewood.
We got different person, you know, taught different ways.
And I also grew up in Robert Taylor.
I listened to you well on this situation with ICE and talked about, you know, respecting and doing certain things.
But if we're not involved in, say, a protest or anything like that, but whether it's ICE or Border Patrol, whoever it is, come to our community and, you know, we're standing there and they come bum rushing and they push David Moore, who's from Robert Taylor in Inglewood.
What do I do at that time when I'm not protesting?
You know what I'm saying?
And if that happens to a citizen, what do you do at that time?
The key here, sir, and everybody needs to understand this is to document as much as you can.
Look, you know, when it comes to local law enforcement and when it comes to federal law enforcement, again, rules of engagement are different.
When they are in the course of performing their duties, this is when local law enforcement, because it prohibits us from getting involved in it in that way.
What we what we try to explain to everyone is this.
Keep your distance.
If you want to record, you can record.
The key here is not to physically engage, not to fight, because we don't we as local law enforcement, we don't know what you're going to be charged with if they take you into custody.
We don't know their rules of engagement or their training around use of force.
So when they're using force, it's actually going to be different from ours.
There are things that we that we respond to as a police department where we've been trained and we have policies.
And there are three things that we look at as a police department.
We look at laws.
We look at policy and we look at training.
Those three things.
That's what govern us.
This is how we govern ourselves.
And this is how we determine if force is excessive, is excessively used by the Chicago Police Department.
We cannot apply those same standards to a federal agency because we don't know what their policies are, their rules of engagement or their training.
So what we try to do is do the best that we can when we show up to these events or these incidents that are happening to do everything we can to keep the peace, to make sure that when we walk away, everybody is safe there.
So that's why we show up.
And I will I will have general counsel talk just a little bit about the laws around that.
So federal law enforcement is the super I'm sorry, Scott Spears, general counsel, federal law enforcement is is different from what we do at the CPD.
We are we're subject to our consent decree.
We've adopted policies training consistent with that consent decree approved by the monitor in conjunction with the Office of Attorney General.
Well, we have our own specific rules.
What we're seeing, though, with federal law enforcement is that they operate very differently from us.
We cannot interfere with the enforcement of federal law.
It's likely if something happens to you, as the superintendent said, documented and then whatever instance of COPA or internal affairs that the federal agency has is the direction that any complaint should be taken.
OK, and I'm listening and I'm hearing and I get it.
And so I just I just wanted to be clear, because sometimes these could be some tumultuous situations and in certain communities and and probably in a lot of communities.
And the joking part, but sort of the truth part, that guy over there, Tim Moore and I went to college together and he actually taught a class on whoop ass.
And it's like we were in college and and it's like I my thing is I'm standing there talking to Derek.
They come in, they want Derek, but they knocked me out the way to get to Derek.
I'm not trying to protest.
I'm not trying to do anything. And you just jumped out with a mask.
Can I do? Can I call my police, if nothing else, and contain it myself?
Because I may have to use a document.
What am I document? I'm trying to get a name.
I can't see no face. Sometimes names are on there.
So I'm trying to understand because I'm being serious.
It's I know we want to practice turn another cheek, but reaction is another story.
And this is real. That's what I'm saying. This is not a joke.
This is real. Well, Alderman, I listen, I get your frustration and I understand exactly what you're saying.
And it's the frustration that a lot of people across the city have shared, because for the most part,
I think people here are used to local law enforcement and they're used to seeing the way that we show up.
But people have to understand that you're not dealing with local law enforcement when you're dealing with federal agents.
We what we're sitting here doing right now, and I believe what we've expressed and what this leadership team has expressed is a partnership with our community members,
making sure because we're here forever. I've said it before.
This is our city. And we have to make sure that we're doing every single thing we can to keep our city safe.
We got a lot of work to do. Right. And I do. I understand the frustration and understand the frustration of everyone who has the exact same concern that you have.
But what we ask as a police department, can you call us? Sure, you can call us and we will get there.
We will do every single thing that we can to mediate this situation to bring it down.
This is why during my press conference, I said that we will show up and we will take over that situation so that it doesn't escalate to a higher level.
And people get hurt, injured further, because when we go out, we have the training to deal with large crowds.
And when a large crowd starts to gather, we want to make sure that we go back over and and we restore the peace.
We can do that if there's anybody who's hurt, injured. We're going to make sure that they get help.
We're going to make sure that we call the paramedics, whatever we need to do to calm the situation down.
But as local law enforcement, we're caught in between these situations.
And so what what we're not going to do is violate the law, interfering with work that's being done with federal agents.
But what we will do is make sure that we calm our city down as much as we can.
We've we've our officers have gotten on the scene and taken the brunt of a lot of that frustration.
And did it because we knew that it was the best thing to do so that this doesn't escalate to something higher.
Absolutely. And I hope people can really understand the work that local law enforcement has done to keep people safe in this city.
And to keep down those levels of violence as much as we possibly can.
But I understand people want us to go in and get involved.
But as a law enforcement agent interfering with the work being done by law enforcement agents from the federal government, we cannot do that.
That is that is not something that we can do.
As a matter of fact, it would it would be illegal for us to do so.
So we're going to make sure that we show up.
We're going to make sure that we keep the peace.
But what we ask people to do is to just back off, back up.
I know those frustrations.
You get involved and you want to go up.
You want to do something physically.
But that could lead to further violence.
That could lead to you being taken into custody.
That could lead to charges being brought against someone.
So we would ask that people try to keep calm, try to stay back.
These agents are going to perform their duties no matter what.
So getting involved in a way where now you're engaging them physically could lead to a higher level of force being used by them and even charges brought against you.
OK, well, that's my time.
And I know I said I thank you for me.
But I just want to say just from what I'm hearing, not only from my constituents, but throughout the leadership and how things go starts at the top.
They are so confident in your leadership and what you're doing.
They wouldn't have it, you know, any other way and having you there.
But it's showing also with your command staff.
And and and I appreciate all three of my commanders in six, seven and eight.
being, you know, being responsive and, you know, picking up their calls, my phone whenever I do
call. So I want to thank you and your entire team so much. Thank you, Alderman. And we're
going to do a deeper dive into Chief Moore about that. Yeah, because he didn't teach me that
retreat part. He just, you know, all right. I apologize for anything I did to you down at
Western in 1985. I apologize for that. Y'all keep that stuff in Englewood, whatever y'all got going
on out there. We're going to go to Alderman LaSpada, followed by Alderman Nugent.
Thank you so much, Chair, Superintendent Snelling. Thank you so much for being with us. I acknowledge
all the work that's been named, and I'll specifically call out our teams at the 14th
and 12th District. They're not only partners in safety, they're collaborators for us in the health
of our communities. And it really is a treasure getting to work with both of the teams that we
have right now. I wanted to start by following up on Alderman Moore's comments related to ICE,
specifically related to an incident on October 24th with a Lakeview resident named Leo Feller.
In that case, ICE committed several criminal acts in terms of trespassing on his property, criminal damage
to his property. He says that when he went to file a criminal report, first, his report wasn't accepted.
Second time, when it was accepted with a lower set of charges, he was told, and again, this is what we have
from the media that they were told the case wouldn't move forward because his supervisor's superiors had
instructed him to drop it, was what he was told by a sergeant. I'm curious if this is in line with our
general orders. Does ICE, does their qualified immunity, which it seems like this is, apply to criminal
activity on people's property as well. What are the limits of criminal actions that can be taken by ICE?
First of all, Ben, thank you for that question, Alderman. I know that that came to our office.
The one thing I will say is that not everything that you read in the media is accurate.
There's a reporting process in the way that we do things. This is not about qualified immunity. And then
when we talk about law enforcement agents going on to people's property and deeming it criminal, we would have to
take a deeper dive into that. I'd actually like to turn this over to our Chief of Detectives, Antoinette
or City, who did a little research on this. Antoinette or City, Chief of Detectives, thank you for your
question. I think it is important for everyone here to understand that we take everything that people come to us with
seriously, and we're always doing our best to try to communicate what we know about a situation.
As you heard the superintendent speak to earlier, when federal agents are in the performance of their
duty, that action is not going to be deemed criminal. The important thing we heard from the superintendent
today is to document what happened, to make a formal complaint about it. And at the same time,
documentation does look at times like coming to the department. You might need that not only for your
complaint, but also for damage to property insurance, things of that nature. We're always going to
document that. But in terms of us conducting a criminal investigation into the acts of a federal
agent in the performance of their duty, that's not an investigation that we're going to move forward.
That's going to be a complaint to the agency that was responsible for the actions, and it's going to
look like us ensuring a report for the documentation of that incident. As the superintendent said,
when things are communicated out and then they go from one ear to another to another and they end up in
the newspaper, it sounds as if not moving forward with it looks like an intention to hide something or
not do something. What I just explained to you is the fact of the situation. They were in the performance
of their duty. We're going to document that incident. We're going to direct people to the appropriate
direction to make a complaint, and we're going to make sure they have the documentation they need
so that they can move forward with whatever they need based on the damage or whatever they
encountered. I want to make sure that I understood your words accurately. So if ICE agents enter private
property without a warrant, if I did it, it would be trespassing. If they damage your property, those are not
criminal acts.
Antoinette or City Chief of Detectives. What I'd like to do is draw a parallel to concerns that you
may have with the way investigations even here in the city would be concerned. There's a concern with
how a search warrant is executed. That gets investigated by the administrative body who has
oversight for misconduct. We do not take our officers into custody. We do not charge them criminally.
We let that investigation into the action play out. And so when you're talking about the behavior
being criminal, just as you're going to see with our own agency, there's a process for evaluating what
those actions were and if they were criminal. And that process lies with the agency that has
that law enforcement officer under it.
I'm at five minutes. I trust my colleagues to pick up this topic as well. Thank you.
I wanted to follow up on a conversation that we were having last year around traffic stops. I know
that there's dialogue right now between the Attorney General's office, between your team
around whether traffic stops as a topic go into the consent decree. I know also that there had been
discrepancy in the past around how traffic stops were being reported, the various like cards you need
to fill out and whatnot. I was curious if you could, to the extent that you can speak to it,
speak to the progress that we're making around traffic stops going into or not going into the consent decree
and how we're addressing those previous reporting disparities.
So there are a couple of things. And I'll turn this over eventually to our executive director over OCPR.
And then I'll let Noi Flores, another one of our directors,
talk a little bit about the numbers and the reporting system.
First of all, I talked earlier about an RMS system, a records management system.
Acquiring that is going to be extremely helpful for us in streamlining our reporting process.
When it comes to traffic stops, yes, all of those people you mentioned, also including CCPSA,
we're talking about traffic stops and how we can work things out. We want proper reporting,
but we also want to make sure that the reporting that's out there is legit and there's a clear
understanding of traffic stops and how they're conducted. With that, I'll let the executive
director talk a little bit.
Good afternoon. Alison Clark-Hunson, executive director of Office of Constitutional Policing and Reform.
Yes, you're correct. The conversations do continue with Department of Law,
with CCPSA, with the Office of the Attorney General, and the independent monitoring team
regarding the path forward for traffic stops, whether it is to be included or there is another
path, but those conversations are still underway. So unfortunately, I don't have a definitive
answer that I can provide to you at this time as to what path will ultimately be taken.
Okay. Noi, you want to talk a little bit about the process?
Hey, Flores, deputy director for SID at CPD. So much like we talked earlier when we had the city
council meeting, the traffic stop application or the stop application, let's say not traffic stop,
but still in the works. That's one of the methods we're trying to implement that'll help us kind of
not alleviate, but kind of streamline some of the reporting we're seeing when we're conducting
traffic stops. And kind of like what we went over then, some traffic stops are not subject to that
TSSS record, but there is indication that maybe the documentation is taking place somewhere else.
That's why we're trying to build that one-stop shop to kind of put everything in one place to
alleviate some of that in the officers. And that's work that's ongoing.
Okay. Appreciate that, sir. I did want to ask briefly, you've mentioned
various categories of compliance. So I believe you said word about 92 and 94% compliance
with the varying degrees of compliance across the fullness of the consent decree. That was great to
hear. You mentioned something called operational compliance, and I think 23%, an additional,
a different category of compliance that you mentioned. Can you talk about those different
categories of compliance or maybe somebody from the Office of Constitutional Policing?
So I'll start out, and then I'll turn that over to Executive Director Allison Clark Henson.
You know, when I started, operational compliance is when we've met all three levels of compliance.
So that's your overall compliance. We have your preliminary and secondary. I'll allow her to
explain that to you. But when we started, when I was selected for superintendent, we were at 5%
operational compliance. So over these past two years, we've pushed that number up to 23%. I mean,
that's a huge move, and I'll let Executive Director talk a little bit about it.
Again, Allison Clark Henson, Executive Director, Office of Constitutional Policing and Reform.
So for every paragraph of the consent decree, there's the implementation section of our consent decree
establishes the requirement.
to achieve three levels of compliance. Those are preliminary, secondary, and operational.
So these levels of compliance are sequential. You cannot skip a level. So for example,
for preliminary compliance, this is typically the requirement of a policy being developed
with best practices and input from the community. That does have to then go through an approval,
a review, a comment, an approval process from both the IMT and the Office of the Attorney General.
So what I mean by that is that that particular policy could not be published until that approval
process is complete. For secondary compliance, that typically involves the development of
training. Again, in that circumstance, it requires the review, the comment, and the approval of both
the Office of the Attorney General and the independent monitoring team before it can be delivered.
And that level of compliance also requires 95 percent of the individuals who to receive the
training. So your operational compliance is when that policy and training is being determined and
seen in the day-to-day operations of the department, of the department members in the field.
Once operational compliance is achieved, I just want to mention that there is also a requirement that
first there's a sustainment period for one to two years, depending on which, where that paragraph
falls in the section of the consent decree.
Executive Director, can you talk a little bit about where we are in comparison to other consent decrees
with other large major cities?
Sure. So, for example, first, I mentioned that CPD is actually making faster reform progress in other
peer departments despite us being the most demanding decree in the country. We are, in fact, the largest and
most comprehensive. So in the six-year time frame for Chicago, we've achieved, when I include
investigatory stops, which I might mention, added an increase of 6 percent to our original
assessable paragraphs. So once that was added, we are still at 93 percent at the six-year mark.
When you look at the three other largest consent decree peer agencies, they averaged about 83 percent
at the same time frame. So again, just to put it in perspective, we currently, starting in IMR 13,
will have 617 accessible paragraphs. Los Angeles Police Department had 157 total
accessible paragraphs, and it took them 11 years to be released from their consent decree.
I appreciate the clarity on that and the hard work that's going into this. I really do.
Thank you. Thank you, Superintendent. Chair, thank you. I will request a round two. Thank you, sir.
Why? Chairman Hopkins.
Yeah, thank you, Chairman Irvin. Superintendent, good afternoon. Let me begin my comments with an expression of support
for you and your leadership. I believe you're doing an outstanding job. And of course, it's a tribute to the
entire team, the men and women that you have here today that are with you in the box. I can't imagine
any other group doing a better job than you and your team of leaders. So you have my full support.
And on behalf of the citizens of Chicago, we thank you for upholding the oath to serve and protect them
in a most admirable way. Thank you, Alton.
Now, I do want to go back to the topic of the resource allocation study, because obviously there's
quite a few of us in this room that are putting a great deal of emphasis on that. We anticipate its
completion. Be good to have it today, obviously, because we have some key decisions to make,
but we don't have that luxury. But I do want to focus on its potential impact on the overtime budget
in particular, because I know that it's going to definitely shed some light on that when it's done.
And also the phenomena of radio assignment pending calls and each of the different individual police
districts that have experience with that, some worse than others, as you know. Are there any
preliminary comments you could share with us today as that resource allocation study is complete that
would shed some light on that? And will the radio assignment pending calls and the documentation of
it? Will that be a feature in the study? Will we know more about it after that study is provided to
us? Well, everything is taken into consideration and they're doing an extremely deep dive in every
aspect of what and that's why it takes a little longer to get this done. I know everybody wanted to
see this done already, but it's nuanced. And when you look at the size of the Chicago Police Department,
the number of calls for service, the city itself, there's a deep dive into all of that.
Obviously, the manpower, there have been a lot of interviews. They're going to continue to work
toward this. And eventually, we're going to have a dashboard up that's going to have some of the
findings up there. So those are the things that we're working on right now. And I'll just go back
to the executive director, let her just talk a little bit about what we're doing, those things that we can
share. Alison Clark-Henstead, executive director, Office of Constitutional Policing and Reform.
Yes, sir. So this is the most expansive study that has ever been done with the Chicago Police
Department. It is looking at every single bureau, every unit, every position. So it has been extensive
background work for them to begin phase three, which is the current phase that we're entering,
and it is a true analysis. But to your point, calls for service and the ability to respond to those
calls is absolutely a component of what the data metrics that they'll be looking at. And obviously,
that is also in relation to unity of command and span of control. So there's a number of metrics that
are being included in calls for service, and the ability to respond is certainly one of them.
How do we currently document situations where we get into a lengthy backlog during a busy time period,
you know, Saturday night, 1 a.m., whatever, there's a lot going on. And a lot of those low-priority
calls, you know, wind up with hours and hours on them, and then the watch changes and they simply
don't get a response. How do we document that currently?
Well, that's something that we have a connection with OEMC, and all of those reports can be obtained
there. I know, just and I haven't done it lately, but previously, when Director Jose Torado was there,
we did a deeper dive into it. And I expect that we're going to be doing that pretty soon.
Okay. And also, going back to the point that Chairman Irvin made about domestic calls and
how we respond to them, you know, it was mentioned that, you know, there's a preference to possibly
shed some of those duties for the more minor calls that don't necessarily involve criminal activity.
We have a situation in the 18th District that I'm familiar with. There's an individual who calls
every day, sometimes multiple times a day. Obviously, you know, there's some other things
driving her need to call 911. It isn't because of criminal activity and isn't because of a legitimate
need for service. But as you said, Superintendent, you know, you're obligated to respond. And you can't
dismiss it knowing that it's someone who just calls every day just, you know, to have some
interaction with the police. Are we aware of any other jurisdictions anywhere around the country
that have come up with a system of dealing with that, of possibly identifying, you know,
a chronic caller and being able to respond to that call in a way that doesn't put a demand on police
resources? When we know what the outcome is going to be, you're just going to show up, it's going to
be 19 Paul coded out and, you know, you wait for the next call to happen and the pattern repeats
itself. Is there anything we can do to help us, you know, not be on that constant gerbil wheel?
Well, right now, I can't speak specifically for what other agencies are doing about it. But one of the
things that I do know is that when we have someone who's a chronic caller like that, not only do we know,
but OEMC knows. So when they dispatch, they'll let us know. So when we go to those calls,
because we, it's going to depend on the person and what they're calling for. We will still show up,
but we will show up with an awareness that this person calls all the time. What we don't want to
do is be dismissive, especially if we know that this is a person who may be suffering from a mental
health crisis. Um, and then we don't go and then something terrible happens. Um, but at the same
time, if we can get someone to go there, we know that this person is, uh, not violent. They're dealing
with a mental health issue. Uh, calls like that can be taken by those who are tasked with dealing with
nonviolent people who are suffering from a mental health crisis. Yeah. I can tell you in this
particular case without getting into the specifics for confidentiality reasons, but every patrol officer
in the 18th district knows this individual on a first name basis. So the knowledge is definitely
there. I'm just looking for a way to make, uh, make it easier on everybody, um, and, and possibly
absolve us, uh, you know, of the need to keep constantly responding.
No, we appreciate that. And we'll do a deeper dive into that. Uh, my committee occasionally has,
uh, subject matter hearings, uh, on ideas and, uh, new developments in technology. You know,
we've, uh, we've looked at, uh, GPS darts, uh, that can be a fix to fleeing vehicles. Uh, we had other
agencies come in and, uh, and show us how they're using those. We've had, uh, other agencies talk about
their use of drone technology and aerial surveillance. Um, you know, we've looked at different
ways to connect, uh, the networks within the SDSC rooms and the license plate character readers in a
predictive model, uh, that.
can actually red flag certain patterns that might be happening that could potentially lead to crime.
All of these are new and exciting developments in the field of law enforcement.
What is our formal evaluation process for taking some of these ideas?
I'm willing to keep giving these ideas a forum to present themselves,
but I just want to know that there's something potentially on the back end where we can actually test some of these things
and see if they're appropriate for use in our agency and also have the budgetary discussion because none of them are free.
You know, they all have a price tag associated with them,
and we have to be judicious about where we're willing to spend our limited dollars for new technology and new tools.
But there's just so much out there.
You know, I'd like to know that we're actually open-minded to some of these new things
and that we're willing to at least test them on a limited basis.
Well, we are looking into a few things.
I'm going to turn this over to Managing Director Casey to talk a little bit about the process,
and then I'll have Chief DeVries from the Bureau of Counterterrorism talk a little bit about what we've done.
Managing Deputy Dan Casey, Public Safety IT, Office of Public Safety Administration.
Alderman, there's certain ways to do these depending on the size, scope of the project.
We do have RFPs, as you know, that are in process, some that are finalizing at this point,
and some that will be published soon for things like drones and updates to the camera system.
We're going to be publishing a new RFP for that to get a new contract there.
That goes through Department of Procurement Services, Department of Law.
That is a somewhat lengthy process, but it ensures competition and, you know, a fair process for everyone involved.
When there are certain things that are available on a contract that's already existing, we use what's called the ISDG.
It's the Information Systems Development Group.
That was established through Paragraph 580, I believe, of the Consent Decree, or 608, of the Consent Decree,
which created the Information Systems Development Group.
We meet with representatives from the bureaus, and the chiefs and their representatives are come themselves,
and we discuss these new technologies and which ones we can pilot.
But if there is a path to pilot, if it's available on an existing contract, we can do that.
But as you mentioned, these are costly, so take some deliberations and make sure that we're meeting the needs of the police department.
Chief DeVries.
Chief DeVries from the Bureau of Power of Terrorism.
We use a lot of these trial companies.
They give us free demos, a lot of the licensing and different things we can do on our computer platforms, you know,
with long-term investigations.
The helicopters themselves, part of the cost for those helicopters wasn't just the purchase of the helicopters.
It was the technology that we put on them.
The systems that we put in those are so high-definition that I've been up there on them.
You can actually read the name tag of an officer from being up in the sky.
Those cameras can lock on a vehicle, can lock on an offender, an individual, and they lock on it.
So the operator doesn't have to, you know, control the camera itself and try to keep an eye on that person.
So that's with the vehicle pursuits and the robberies, et cetera, it's paid huge dividends because those vehicles are locked.
The helicopter can fly at a high distance, and it keeps track of that car.
It actually is like following it automatically based on the camera.
Along with that, the drones that the superintendent mentioned, they do amazing work.
You know, the drone is building up and building up.
It has its own unit now.
It's responsive 24-7.
When it's – I was talking with an alderman during the break, some of the things that they've done is before a search warrant is executed,
they're up and they're over that area.
We've had many times where offenders get alerted to the police coming.
They run out of the house.
They hide whatever is in the house, meaning guns and drugs, and the drone has picked that footage up.
So when the officers get there, they're safe.
They're able to secure the house.
They can go right over and get the – wherever the offender put the, you know, contraband and hit it.
And back in the day, we would never found that.
You know, the search warrant would be executed, and we have a negative search warrant.
So the technology, as you speak of, is amazing.
We also use our partners, like Cook County Sheriff's.
Our CTA is using what is called zero eyes right now on all the trains.
That's a gun technology, detection technology.
We have that access in our camera system as well just on the CTA right now.
Native Peer also uses that, and we're partnered with them.
So we get their trial.
We also get to see how it works before we have to purchase it or do we decide we want to go with that product so we can see the good and the bad when it comes to some of those things.
So just doing that with our partners helps us as well.
Well, thank you.
That's encouraging.
And one role that I believe our committee can continue to play is to present these ideas to the public in terms of generating public support for them.
And that's been my experience.
Every time we've offered a glimpse of something that's a potentially useful tool to law enforcement, there's support for it in the community.
Help us help you, as the saying goes.
People want to know that you have the tools that you need.
They want you to have the latest in technology that can help you do your job better, more effectively, and safer, particularly when it comes to things like vehicle pursuits, you know, which we all see the payouts, you know, for the settlements in these cases.
You know, when innocent people get harmed because of the danger of a high-speed police pursuit, but the other side of that coin is now criminals are well aware of the fact that they're not going to be chased, and that makes them stronger.
That empowers them, and the community doesn't want that to happen either.
So they want to know that we're looking at every available option and all of the new tools that are out there, that we can have access to them and be a modern department.
Then, you know, our side wins and the criminals lose, and that's what people are willing and able to support.
So help us in partnership with you to continue bringing these ideas to the public vetting so people can get behind them and understand that we're leaving no stone unturned as we try to equip you with everything you need to do your jobs effectively.
Thank you, Alderman.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
All right.
Okay.
Thank you.
Next up, we're going to have Timmy Knutson.
Timmy Knutson, he'll be next.
I'm trying to see if we're going to break after that.
Go ahead, Timmy.
Thank you so much, Chair.
And, Superintendent, we're so grateful in the 43rd Ward on just responses even very recently, as recent as this week, that your teams have made, particularly the 18th and 19th District.
Um, uh, and like many said, I just, I hear from rank and file that morale is higher, that, you know, there's a lot of pride in what they're, they're, they're doing.
And I know a lot of that is due to your leadership.
So I'm, I'm very appreciative and speak behalf of my community on that topic.
Thank you, Alderman.
Yep.
Um, so first question is related to, um, uh, the 18th District portion of the 43rd Ward and which goes all the way to downtown.
We don't have a mental health officer that I'm aware of in the 18th District, uh, CAPS anymore.
And I'm sure that the same is, is, um, with other districts.
So I just want to know what's being done in districts like that to prioritize ensuring officers have up-to-date crisis intervention training and what's being done to replace the services provided by a specific mental health officer, um, within the district.
So that, that's a great question and, uh, definitely appreciate that, uh, all of our officers are going through CIT training and we do have officers specific, um, um, uh, to being CIT officers.
What I'll do is turn this over to the executive director and, uh, if, uh, the, the, uh, deputy chief, uh, boldness from the training academy would like to chime in.
She can also.
Thank you.
So Alison Clark-Henson, executive director, office of constitutional policing and reform.
So yes, every officer now receives crisis intervention training that begins at the recruit level.
Recruits receive such training.
Then there's in-service training that is conducted.
In fact, this year there is currently a wellness and CIT eight-hour course that all department members sworn in civilian are receiving.
Um, there's also supervisory training.
In addition, um, supervisors are required to complete the 40-hour certified course for CIT certification.
And there is also the program that is voluntary for eligible members that, um, complete that 40-hour program.
Um, and again, to be prioritized for CIT-related mental or behavioral health calls, um, all CIT certified individuals are required every three years to also complete a two-day refresher, um, in regards to CIT certification to maintain it.
Um, I know, I know you mentioned a mental health officer.
I was trying to understand that individual you were referring to, um, within the CAPS office.
If you could just clarify that.
I'm a little unclear as to.
Sure.
Yeah.
No, my understanding is in 18th, which is not a part, we don't have a care team in the 18th, but there used to be a CAPS officer that was designated to mental health.
Do you know what?
Great point.
Uh, Chief Agent Noel Noval is the Office of Council of Policing.
Uh, as they mentioned earlier, some of the required training and some of the officers that took CIT, all the officers receive it now.
Uh, and what you're speaking of specifically was the affinity officer that is in the 18th district that, uh, would handle those because the affinity officer has a response.
to seek out those vulnerable communities and bring them into the fold.
So I'll look into if there is an affinity officer currently in the 18th district.
Director Brooks, if you have that information, there should be all districts have an affinity
officer currently.
Okay.
Yeah, thank you so much for the follow-up.
We'll wait to hear on that.
And it kind of goes to my next question, too, just because in the 43rd Ward, we actually
see both.
There's a care team on the north side of the ward, and there's not on the south side
of the ward.
So it's kind of a similar theme of a question.
But in those districts that do not have, for example, a care team responding, is there anything
that's done to fill the gaps in those districts that don't have the mental health specialists
on hand day-to-day as other districts do?
Yes, Chicago Police Department.
We show up to those calls right now.
And if we get to that scene and we know someone needs help, we will follow up with making sure
that we're getting the right care for people when we show up in those situations.
Our CIT officers, if they're available, we make sure that we get our CIT officers to those
calls.
Chief of Patrol, is there anything that you'd like to add to that?
No, thank you, Superintendent Alderman.
So on our sheets, too, our daily sheets, it's kind of noted, too, and who CIT trained
and what officers we know might be beneficial to respond to those calls from any individuals
who might be in crisis.
So those watch operations, lieutenants, he or she knows which officers would be to send
to those calls accordingly.
Okay, thank you.
And I do understand.
I know the officers are well-trained in this topic.
I think that, you know, as we think about the just care teams and program going forward,
a piece of the goal of care is to take a big, another large responsibility off of the many
responsibility list that officers have to try to lighten the burden where possible.
And right now, where we're kind of one foot in on care, one foot out, it is very disjointed.
And I think, you know, in our ward, we see the example just because we've got one with
the team and one without.
But I understand that the officers are trained and are filling the gaps.
I have always appreciated your positive remarks on the care program being citywide.
And sometimes with these investments, you only really get the full impact if you make the
complete investment.
So that is something that we're pushing for and I think touches on these issues.
One question I wanted to ask, and you've touched on it a little bit, but just related to clearance
rates, I wanted to ask a little bit more in depth on what the department is doing to improve
non-fatal shooting and other gun-related offense clearance rates.
That's a great, great question.
And I'll let Chief Herced City talk a little bit about what they've done to improve upon
non-fatal shootings because we have made some improvements this year.
And it's with the addition of a new team.
So, Chief Herced City.
Thank you, Chief Antoinette Herced City, Bureau of Detectives.
So to understand what we're doing with the non-fatal shooting teams, I think it's important to
understand what we have been doing the past five years, which has been responding to a number of
recommendations that we received from the Police Executive Research Forum after they came in and
evaluated our detectives and gave us best practices that we could start to implement so that we could
improve our clearance rates.
That started with things as long ago as when we expanded back to five areas from three so that our
detectives could respond quicker to the scenes.
to things that we're very used to at this point, like these area technology centers that are doing
such an incredible job getting the digital evidence that's driving a lot of these investigations.
And a portion of those recommendations centered on focusing on how we could improve non-fatal
shooting clearances because what you're going to see is it could be medical aid.
It could be a bad aim where they didn't strike the person in a place where they would have died.
It, for all purposes, could have been a homicide, and we've been putting all of our investments
into homicides.
The homicide teams right now, as they're structured, do have a distinct and unique schedule.
But more than that, what they have are the resources and the focus strictly on homicides.
So what we have done with these non-fatal shooting teams is we have put the focus on these detectives
to only look at shooting incidents.
We know that the people who are involved in those incidents are the ones who are also involved
in many of our shooting murders.
And so they're no longer handling stabbings.
They're no longer handling aggravated batteries to police officers.
They are strictly looking at shooting incidents and putting all of their focus into that,
collaborating with the Crime Gun Intelligence Center, as I talked about a little earlier.
It is such an important and an incredible resource for our detectives.
And they are starting to make connections where, again, we know that shootings don't necessarily
always just happen in one district or area.
It could span across different districts.
So what we want to do is make sure these shooting teams have all of that information at their
disposal and that they're able to focus and pursue those offenders the same way we're having
our detectives pursue our homicide offenders.
And while you've seen those clearance rates, what we've seen with homicides is what we're looking
to do with our non-fatal shooting clearances.
Earlier, you heard the superintendent say that we're at 70 percent through the end of the
third quarter.
That's a 17 point percent increase from where we were that same time last year.
We're looking to see that same outcome with our non-fatal shootings.
Thank you so much.
That's really, really helpful.
And I would say, is it similar with just other gun-related offenses?
Maybe a clearance rate on a gun offense that didn't involve a non-fatal shooting or a
shooting of any kind?
So what I will say is that when we recover firearms and that evidence goes to our forensics
lab and in the firearms lab, they're going to test those firearms.
What we have seen through, again, the third quarter of this year is 25 percent of the
firearms that we have recovered have a lead associated with them.
So that could be a gun that was recovered from a UUW or some other kind of an incident that
we're processing, not just from taking someone into custody for a shooting.
So we know that firearms are being used in more than one incident.
And when we're testing these firearms, we are seeing leads that are helping us understand
the totality of where these incidents are happening.
Okay, thank you.
And Chair, I'd like a round two if possible.
And I just want to say thank you again to the whole department.
A lot of proof of concept is in the data, and some of the numbers are good right now.
We have a long way to go, but I credit a lot to your leadership.
Thank you, if possible.
That's a good caveat.
Okay.
We're going to have Alderman Conway.
Conway, and I think after that we're going to break, waiting on the nod.
Go ahead, Alderman.
Great.
Yeah, no, a lot of my questions have been asked.
So I certainly want to share my expression of support of your leadership and your entire
department has been echoed by my other colleagues.
Like I said, a lot's been asked.
You know, 1st District, obviously we want to make sure we have a permanent commander when
we can.
Captain Manning is doing a great job, but obviously having somebody permanent helps, whether
it's him or him or otherwise.
He sounds like a good guy.
I sound like a good guy?
Yeah, no, he sounds like a good guy.
I am a good guy.
I'm talking about the captain.
He sounds like a good guy.
Yeah, he is.
He's from the 15th District.
He's got a lot of good stuff coming out of 15th.
He's great to use it.
I heard it was our usage of drones was mentioned.
If okay to be made public, how many drones are we using in the department these days?
We'll get that one through the chair for you.
That's fair.
Also, so I was looking through your budget, and it looks like under the patrol department,
I saw there was a line for police cadets, and it looks like they're making $15.80 an hour,
noting the minimum wage is $16.60 an hour.
I don't know if that's an outdated number or what was going on with that.
I hope it's outdated.
Unless they're tipped workers, I guess, which is a whole different set of questions.
I hope they're not tipped.
Yeah, so Ryan Fitzsimons, Deputy Director, I'm sure that is an outdated number.
We will touch base with budget, though, to ensure that that is addressed.
Great.
Just a quick, how many cadets do we have now?
Deputy Chief Boulders, do you have that number?
Okay, we can get you that number.
That's fair.
Okay, that's fine.
It's something I noticed.
And I know up here, I know there was some discussion with ShotSpot earlier.
It was a little difficult for me to hear that.
But I think it was Managing Director Casey who said there's been some testing that's been done for alternate products.
And I didn't quite.
It is an active RFP, open to anyone that wanted to submit.
We had multiple submittals, and it's in the finalization process of that RFP.
Oh, great.
So there's been multiple firms, as you said, have submitted.
Multiple firms.
I think it was in the news how many there were, because DPS puts it on their website.
And with the Chicago Police Department, they did a great job of testing live fire and other types of incidents that would trigger such.
system or not trigger it. Can you give us some idea of a timeline of final selection or
where are we looking at on the gunshot detection? We're hopeful for early next year, you know,
that we could move forward. But again, it has to go through law and there's two sides to that
negotiation. So depending on the vendor that's selected and what the city asks generally is
contracts through Department of Law for different types of requirements, that negotiation,
it's hard to put a number on that. Sorry. So are we talking?
A 2026, maybe 2027, but we're hopeful 2026. So it depends on how that negotiation goes for the
contract. And there's multiple things involved in those contracts in terms of indemnification,
liability beyond just the technology. Is that a, I know the previous system that we had
covered certain areas of the city? Is this a citywide application or will it be strategically
deployed based on what you all's best guess is where it specifically may need to be?
The operational deployment will be driven by CPD. So we did put in that RFP, you know,
request to what a cost would be to the whole city. So they did provide those numbers through that RFP.
However, at the end of the day, it will be driven by CPD's requirements.
Okay. Thank you.
No, I appreciate you found up on that, Mr. Chairman. Is this, but the contractual part is kind of being
driven by OPSA more than CPD?
Yes. OPSA does that part. But there are many members on an evaluation committee.
The majority of members are CPD members because it's their technology that will serve them.
And when you said early next year, did you mean that's when you'll be, it'll be through the
department, like the department will be done with it? Or is that, are you guessing when the other
parts will be?
Yeah. We're hopeful that with law and everything else, I mean, you still have to sign the contract
and you have to do the implementation and everything else. So since it's still in that RFP process,
it's very hard to talk about that now because we don't know which vendor and those types of
things haven't been made public. So we should have more forthcoming information as it gets
further along through the process and solidified.
And when you said early next year, you meant 2026?
Ideally. That's the goal. But I mean, these are lengthy processes at times. Some of them can take
up to 10, 12, 16 months.
Great. And Mr. Superintendent, I was looking back here at an article from May of 24, and you were
talking about ShotSpotter in front of this committee. You said, quote, it has allowed us
to get to jobs quicker, close quote. Snelling said during a May 1 city council meeting, adding
that it has helped police officers, quote, save lives. Would it be fair to say that nothing has
changed about your opinion of that in the last year and a half?
No, nothing's changed about my opinion when it comes to that. I've said it before, when it comes
to technology, if it's going to help us get to jobs quicker, if it's going to help us save
lives, I'm all for the technology.
That's great. Norting, I'm standing between me and standing between us and lunch. Mr. Chairman,
that's all I have. And again, I want to thank you all, everything you all do to keep
the people of Chicago safe. Thank you.
Thank you. They didn't give me the nut,
but hey, so we're going to keep rolling. We're going to go to Alderman Mosley.
Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Superintendent, for the amazing work
from your office, from the 22nd District, we're working on a commander there,
five and six. I want to ask you about
the hiring times. I don't know if this has been talked about, but
it's longer for sworn officers, or it's longer for civilians
to be hired than sworn officers. Is that the case?
Yes. I'll turn it over to Director Brown.
Director of HR, Joy Brown.
So what we've seen is an average of four to six months to hire a police officer.
And so that's, that average has come down with the use of technology and streamlining our processes.
One of the points I want to circle back to is we've kind of instituted a portal for applicants,
for police officers to process.
And so I think an earlier question was asked about how many folks we had in the pipeline.
I just want to circle back and we have about
1,300 folks in our portal that we've imported since
April of last year. But that being said,
the process time for
officers has come down, as well as our process time for
civilians, because we have been able to increase
our posting rate for
working with DHR and OBM in terms of how many we can post
a month and get those things going.
And in instances where, I guess, an officer could serve in the role or a civilian,
is it swifter for officers to get hired into those roles opposed to a civilian?
So what we've done, so swifter is, I guess, subjective.
But to your point, if an officer plans to retire and come on as a civilian,
we've kind of streamlined the process in terms of being able to come over immediately rather than
a little bit of a waiting time between their sworn
pension, so to speak, and then their civilian start time.
Understood. Thank you. And Superintendent,
can you talk about the department's policy when it comes to criminal
trespassing? Obviously, we've seen squatters and increase
throughout the city. And with the new
legislation that's coming up to start
on January 1st,
what will be the policy of the department?
So there's a difference between just your basic criminal
trespassing and the term squatters.
And I could let the general
counsel talk a little bit about that. But look,
we definitely understand the concerns of squatters,
and we've seen an increase in that across the board.
I know there's just been some new legislation passed on that.
And that's going to be helpful
for law enforcement
to enforce those
particular laws when someone just walks in and takes
over a property. We, you know,
that's unfair to everybody.
We want to make sure that we cover that.
But I'll let general counsel
talk a little bit about what we're doing.
Good afternoon, Alderman Scott Spears, general
counsel. We are aware of the new
legislation. We're working on getting that implemented
through policy. The challenge
that we're going to continue to run into
is if we're presented
with a lease by someone who's
in a property. Our officers
are not equipped or in a place to,
you know, in effect, call balls and
strikes on whether that lease is valid.
That's something that needs still would
need to go before a judge, even
with this new legislation in place.
So the real
determining factors, is this an actual
criminal trespass or is
this someone who's claiming to live
there claims to be under a lease?
The flip side of that is if a landlord
wants to get rid of a tenant
and doesn't want to go through the
full process through court,
are they just saying that he has a squatter now?
Again, these are
these are questions that need to be resolved
by a judge, not by an officer
who responds to the scene.
But in those situations where we know
that it's clear that
we have squatters, we're going to follow
the law. Great. I'm committed to working
with your department to
see how we can make this
a better process and clearer for all of us.
I want to go back to CTA
and when we talk about private security,
what happens or
is there something that we can do similar
to like our partnership with
our university
police that sometimes has
additional authority or they can write
tickets and citations
that maybe we can extend to CTA
to give them more enforcement
capabilities?
Well, that would have to be something
that CTA is dealing with.
I mean, that
that wouldn't come with an agreement
with us.
It would have to be CTA
that would talk to another
police agency
in that aspect.
Look,
all help
is not necessarily good help,
but any help
would be helpful
when it comes to bringing down crime
if everybody's on the same page.
But again,
that would have to be
something worked out
through CTA.
And I'm just thinking
and this may be more so
for the Department of Finance,
but if CTA
has a security entity
that could then
write some citations
or so forth
for individuals
that are
in violation of city codes
is more so
what I was thinking of.
I also want to ask
about substations.
So I know that
our ward
was looking at locations
to
put forth
for substations.
What are some
of the qualifications,
benefits
of a substation
in an area?
Well,
I'll turn that one over
to the Chief of Patrol
to talk a little bit about it.
Chief of Patrol,
John Hyde.
I know that
there's been two areas
or districts
that we looked into
last year
for substations,
one being,
I think,
at 937 Northwood
in the Old 13th District
and then,
I think,
in the 8th District.
I think some
of the concerns
that we ran into
if the building
was ADA accessible
and that,
and if we need
the building
to be public-facing
for the community
to come in
to get,
you know,
the reports
and the services
that they're seeking,
that was one concern.
The other concern,
obviously,
is manpower,
is putting officers
at two different locations
and if we have
the adequate manpower
for substations.
But I know,
I think we supported
the idea of possibly
looking into substations.
I think it's convenient
for the residents
as long as it's
public-facing.
And...
all the requirements are met. Understood. And superintendent, can you talk about strategies?
You know, we want to be efficient with our policing. And some of the things that have
come up a little bit of a nuisance and maybe taking a lesser priority to some other things
that's happening throughout our city is lottery. And, you know, I have an issue at my expressways
where whether it's dance groups that don't take the time to get the permits and so forth to actually
do charitable days for solicitation or just general solicitors and so forth. It's been a really
challenging thing to have enforcement or consistent enforcement around those, any tip strategies or so
forth that we can do in collaboration with maybe CPD, our special service areas, encouraging our
business owners and so forth. You know, I think it's important to understand, especially I know
we've seen the kids dancing out by the expressway and things of that nature. And what we try not to
do as CPD is to allocate too much time to that type of activity, although we know it can be annoying to
people. We're really laser focused on all the violent crime, the property crimes that are going
on in the city. However, I do believe that when it comes to these types of things, that's when we
need everyone involved. This is where we need your officers involved. We need the community involved
to see what can be done. Is there an alternative for these individuals who are out there soliciting?
Is there something that they can do? I know in a lot of these cases, some of these kids may be trying
to raise money. And in some of the cases, there are someone putting them up to it so that they can
benefit from it. The question is, who else gets to step out? All right. Because what we don't want
to do is look at these young kids who actually could be committing crimes and they're not.
They're just, you know, they're out there doing this type of activity. What can we offer them?
What else is there out there besides, you know, the police department that can offer these young
people something and an alternative? Because these aren't your hardened criminals. These are these
are kids who are out there dancing. What what is it that we could do for them? And we need to get
other people involved, not not just the police. Everybody needs to be involved in this. And if we
have all of these resources available, how do we get these kids to those resources? So like I said,
you know, as someone, you know, who grew up in a really impoverished community, when I look at kids
who went out to do things, cut grants, whatever they did to try to make money, they weren't committing
crimes. So in a situation like this, this isn't something that I would dedicate a lot of time on
the police department's part, unless we were looking to provide them with some services that could drive
them in the right direction. I appreciate that. And it goes to my last point, just saying thank you for
your office commitment to sharing data. I think CVI groups have taken advantage of that. And
they've been better for it. And they're part of the solution as well. So thank you for that. Thank
you for the ingenuity of things like Operation Cleans and so forth. Appreciate all that you all do.
God bless. Thank you. And thank you. Thank you, ultimate. At this point, we'll take a break. We will
return at 2 15. So we'll break into 2 15. Committee of Standard Research at 2 15.
I don't know. Clear the chamber. Clear the chamber.
She may have made the mistake.
We will start with Alderman
Villegas.
Villegas, you're on the clock.
Gil, I said you were on the clock.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman.
Superintendent, welcome.
As my other colleagues, I want to echo the great job you guys are doing.
We're seeing a lot of great results, talking to officers, the morale is up.
So just really, really appreciate everything you guys are doing for the citizens of Chicago.
Thank you, Alderman.
I wanted to talk about a couple of things.
So I think under the previous superintendent, there was a move to recruit veterans for the police officer position
where you were actually going to like Parris Island and other depots to look at those people that were being honorably discharged.
And I think the deputy chief.
Recruitment was leading those efforts. And and from what I heard, you guys were having some some success.
Could you are you guys still doing that program?
We're not necessarily that program, but we are still recruiting.
And I'll I'll turn it over to Deputy Chief Boldness. Gotcha.
Deputy Chief McDowell, bonus of the training support group.
We are leading still that campaign for veterans. We have hit 10 military bases this year and we continue to go.
So throughout 2026, we hope to expand it in 2026 and kind of compare it to the program we had a few years ago.
So can you talk a little bit about some of the success that you did have on the preliminary and that pilot program you were running?
The pilot program included flying out to military bases, including marine bases.
We did a few marine bases back about three years ago where we were able to enter the marine bases and do the recruiting on base.
That included the testing, the actual medical testing and any other questionnaires that they need to do at that time.
So we're able to complete, I would say, maybe 70 percent of the actual process at the military base.
Well, that's cool. And then that obviously cut down on the time to actually bring them on board.
Correct. By how much? I'm just curious.
We were able to do the military individuals. Let's say if we had 20, we could we could have got them in eight weeks.
Oh, wow. That's awesome. Well, I hope you can help you expand on that.
I think that's a great program. Those men and women that serve the country deserve this opportunity.
And I think they're ideal candidates for for law enforcement.
So appreciate that. I'm going to I want to talk to you, get some advice as to what the city council should be doing around open air drug markets.
I think there's a couple of them in the city, in the city, in the city and selling cannabis, selling Delta eight.
And those are those are the drug drugs that I'm talking about, because obviously, if you're selling other cocaine, heroin, all those other things, there's laws in place.
But it looks like there's like a little gray area here where the men and women of CPD are doing their job in trying to push them off the corners.
But there's really not much consequences for those folks.
And was just curious to hear from you or your policy person as to what is it that we should be doing as a city to try to hold state or whichever government body is responsible for putting forward legislation so that we can finally begin to address this issue.
Because what we see is, you know, whether you're driving in these open air drug markets, they are acting like there's no laws there.
And and so we want to I want to get in some advice from you as well as from your policy team as to what is it we should be doing.
Well, Alderman, that's an excellent question. Excellent observation.
You know, we've seen a lot more open air when it comes to cannabis since the legalization.
But there has to be some some type of defining line there where people can be held accountable for for that type of activity.
Also, you know, when we look at laws and we look at legislation, I think oftentimes when laws are being made, we people need to actually see what they're making.
laws about yes, if you don't really know what's affecting people in communities, people who are prisoners in their own homes, you know, people who walk out and they see violent crime, open air drug markets and how it affects them and their families and their children.
And, you know, you know, how they commute to and from home, work, school.
I think people would have maybe a different perspective and a more informed perspective on how those laws should be carried out because it would be more effective for the people in the community.
It would be more effective for our officers.
With that, what I'll do is I'll turn it over to the chief of Bureau of Counterterrorism to talk a little bit about what we're doing.
Chief Dwayne DeVries, Bureau of Counterterrorism.
That's an excellent question.
And unfortunately, some of our laws have been changed due to the fact that like our seizure laws, that has really crippled a lot of our investigations.
When we do long-term investigations, we do it in the fact where we can tie in the money, we can tie in the house, we can tie in the vehicle.
And your asset forfeiture seizure laws have all changed over the last couple of years to the fact that it becomes almost impossible to seize any of that.
And a lot of that was put in place because obviously we don't want to take Grandma's car if it's legitimately her car.
And so those few complaints became very loud, and certain people took over that push to ensure that Grandma keeps her car, whereas 90% of the time it's not really Grandma's car.
It's the drug dealer registering it through his Grandma, and he's using the vehicle.
And we were able to seize that in the past by showing the transactions and showing the long-term effects of using that vehicle, and now we can't do that anymore.
So a lot of the buildings we used to seize, we were able to get them out of those neighborhoods because we could take the building they were using.
We can't do that anymore either.
The seizure laws have changed completely.
But on the positive side, the automatic responses that we get to our narcotics office, a lot of the video, I personally get video sent to me.
Some of these open-air drug markets, we're able to put our teams out there and do a lot of buy-bust.
But to your point, they get out, and then they just ship their operation to a different block or a different area or another ward, et cetera.
So we do have a couple long-term teams that do a very good job, but those are long investigations that take over a year.
And then when we hit it, we're able to take 50 to 60 people out, and a lot of those are the key figures.
But those take a long time, so you don't see the results right away.
Yeah, and listen, I understand that it takes time to build these cases.
Have you spoken to the administration about trying to change some of these laws in Springfield that's impacting your ability to actually carry out law and order and the quality of life for the citizens of Chicago that have to navigate through and dodge drug dealers on a daily basis?
Because, again, the cannabis was there, and it was legalized in the state of Illinois, and there were some unintended consequences.
And I think enough time has lapsed to say, hey, you know what?
We get what you were trying to accomplish, but this is what this market has come about, and we need you to tighten the laws up a little bit so that way it's not impacting people's quality of life.
Correct.
Correct.
So if you're talking to the mayor's office about potentially legislation that we can all help you try to get past, because open-air drug markets for cannabis is just a killer.
So, and I'll take that one, Alderman.
You know, we look at the laws that we have on the books, and we try to work through that.
Now, what we normally do is work our way up the chain.
You know, we start with our general counsel.
We also reach out to the Department of Law.
We have discussions around things.
Obviously, in order for those laws to change, you need lawmakers to change them.
You know, I'm under a strong belief that people have good intentions when they make laws.
Of course, yeah.
But I also believe that when making laws, we actually need to be a lot more informed on what's going on.
Yeah, so to that point, have we spoken to the state legislators that impacted this, who made these laws?
Because I'll be more than happy to help you and help advocate for the changes, because these state legislators may not be knowing what's going on there.
Well, on a lower level, we have, but I'll be willing to take you up on that.
Okay.
I'm not afraid of the work.
All right.
Okay.
Thank you for that.
And then my last, not even comment, but more of a continuation of advocacy for that satellite office in the Westtown area.
We've seen the 12th District, which the commander is doing a great job, but he's got a huge territory.
And it's just getting more and more dense as the development of Fulton Market, the West Loop, et cetera, and just a lot of people there.
And so given that the southern end of the district is all the way in Blue Island and in the northern portions of the division, looking to see if there's an opportunity to get that satellite.
And I think, I'm not going to speak for my colleague from the first ward, but I think we'd be willing to help you as it relates to help funding the satellite office.
And we just need to, we need to, we need that to happen.
We passed the referendum where 75% of the residents that are in that area supported that.
And we just need CPD to give us some direction on how to move.
And we're talking about it during the budget time because this is the time to try to get this thing implemented and want to hear from you and your chief of staff as to what the next steps are so that we can fulfill what it is that the voters who voted on this referendum to see the satellite office.
And I think we can further have that discussion.
I think it's important to have that discussion and how we move forward with it, because obviously, like you said, budget times, we need to figure out how all of that's going to work in.
Okay.
Well, I'd like to have that discussion with the first, all of them from the first ward as soon as possible.
So that way we can try to incorporate this into the budget.
And I'm sure we can set that up.
Cool.
Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you, Chairman. And again, thank you, Soup, for everything you're doing and just a tremendous job for the city.
Thank you, Alderman. I appreciate it.
Alderman Scott.
Good afternoon. I just have just some thank yous.
You know, the 24th Ward is always a challenge, but I thank you, Superintendent.
I thank my 4th Deputy Chief, Area 4 Deputy Chief Carham, my amazing District Commander Lotto, Johnny Tate from the 11th District, Morris from the 15th District, my Cap Sergeant Ruiz from the 10th District, Danielle Brown, the 11th District Cap Sergeant,
Maria Santiago and Jamel Brooks and also Director Brooks.
Thank you all. Thank you for always, you know, coming out to my time of need and to my community time of need.
It is very much appreciated. I know your jobs are super hard and, you know, your hands are always tied with a lot of issues that we have.
And, you know, when we want help, we want it immediately, you know, and people call and be like, well, what are you doing?
And, well, we don't know, I don't know the time, I'm sure you don't know the time when a robbery, a murder, a crime, anything is going to take place.
It's just always, you know, behoove me when my residents or people just say, well, why wasn't the police there?
I don't think that we can put a police on every corner, but your efforts are, and we want the answers now, right?
We don't wait for an investigation. We want it now. But I thank you all for your dedication to the city.
You are doing a fantastic job. Your leadership is by far the best.
And, you know, when you speak, it is a calming relief that we know that you got our backs and you got the city back in your hands.
And you are put up against a bunch of challenges and you have to minimize, maximize all of your talent, you know.
And so I thank you and I thank you all in the box because he wouldn't be who he is without your leadership as well.
So I thank you.
Thank you all. I appreciate that.
Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon, Superintendent.
How are you, Honorable?
I'm doing well. It's great to see you all here.
You know, echo all of the thanks.
I do have a couple of questions to go over before I get to the get to all of the acknowledgements here.
I have a few questions related to where the Office of Victim Services sits currently.
So I've heard from victims of crimes, whether they're murder or robberies or domestic violence.
And, you know, I worry sometimes that victims feel lost in the process.
And, you know, I want to be a helpful partner in all of that.
So, you know, I've offered to folks when they've asked for it to sort of be that conduit to help make calls to try to make sure folks are being kept in touch with.
I do want to say that, you know, we know how hard the department works.
And really what's so difficult is when you don't have enough people to keep up with everything that it sometimes inadvertently leaves people feeling like, you know, the police aren't necessarily there.
So I think what I'm looking for in terms of just questions specifically are around – oh, and I lost my list – how many vacancies do we currently have in the Victim Services Unit?
I'll turn that over to Director Milstein.
And if Director Brown needs to chime in, she can also.
Good afternoon, Mike Milstein, Deputy Director, Office of Victim Services.
So, Alderman, to address your first question, I think we've heard similar concerns around, you know, obviously when you've just been a victim of a horrific crime, it's a very challenging, traumatic time for that individual.
And that's part of the reason why we expanded the Victim Services team is so that when we do have incidents of domestic violence, nonfatal shootings, other violent incidents, our victim specialists who are non-sworn civilian members,
they are doing outreach to those victims relatively quickly after an incident occurs, and the intent there is that they're able to have trauma-informed conversations with them so that they can help them navigate that process,
identifying what are they needing to start their recovery journey and how can we facilitate that for them.
So, we're trying to address some of the initial confusion that folks have initially when an incident occurs by being a more proactive outreach to those individuals,
talk them through, you know, the next steps, and really see what we can do to help support them throughout that next process.
In terms of our vacancies, we currently have 26 Victim Specialists vacant.
We are currently in the interviewing process.
We have 90 candidates that my team is currently interviewing, which we hope to have completed by the middle of this month.
And then our hope is that we can make offers to as many folks as possible.
But we have been working pretty hard to fill all the vacancies as quickly as we can.
And how many total positions are allocated currently in the 25 budget for these?
We have 55 Victim Specialists allocated in the budget, two Assistant Directors.
That's one Assistant Director who oversees our more violent incidents team, and then one Assistant Director for gender-based violence and domestic violence.
Those two positions are currently filled.
And then four Program Directors who serve as, like, mid-supervisors.
Those four are also filled.
So once we're fully staffed, in theory, this really seems like it would double the capacity of this group to provide services.
Correct, yes.
Right now we're about half full.
Do you know about how long these positions have been vacant this year?
They've been vacant for most of the year.
We did do a round of interviews back in March.
We did make offers to all of our vacant positions back in March.
But we did lose about 25 folks through the pre-employment process.
And so we had to repost the position and are now doing that second phase of interviews.
What do you think?
So we hear this from lots of different departments, right?
The process takes so long that we lose viable candidates along the way.
What do you think some of those challenges are in this particular case here?
I think on this one, you know, we want to make sure that we hire the best candidates.
This is obviously a very difficult job for any person to do.
And so, you know, we are going to do our due diligence to try to find the best candidates.
Because, you know, because we are filling in a lot of vacancies, it does take a little bit longer to go through, you know, interviewing 90 candidates.
So the process here did take a little bit longer just because of the volume of interviews and timeline that it takes to onboard so many people.
Through the chair, can someone just provide me what the job description looks like?
I'd just like to see.
I'm curious what the qualifications are, the type of folks that we're hiring to do these jobs.
And then how do we know what success looks like here?
Like, well, how do we evaluate ourselves in terms of, you know, these are new roles.
They're civilian roles.
They work with the police, within the police department, as well as, you know, they're referring people to services with advocacy groups and other branches of government, you know, whether that's DCFS or others and having to deal with the court system.
What are we doing to sort of track and understand how they're performing or how good of a job we're doing at actually helping people through the process?
Sure.
Yeah.
So we do have a tracking system in place.
So all of the victims that we attempt outreach to, we do track the number of victims that we do outreach to.
So far to date, we've attempted to contact 13,259 victims.
That'll be a mix of, it's mostly victims of domestic violence, as well as victims of aggravated batteries and aggravated assaults.
We also track the number of those victims that we made contact with.
That number is 5,862.
And then we obviously track also victims that we are unable to make contact with for whatever reason, or folks that we have contacted but have said, you know, they don't need any services.
They're good for now.
We also track referrals that we make out to community-based agencies.
We track the number of times we're going to court with victims.
We do a pretty comprehensive tracking system that would show exactly what we're doing with each individual.
I would say, you know, success is going to look different for everybody, obviously.
I think how I would look at success for what we're doing is trying to at least be a resource for these individuals and do what we can as many times as possible to get folks as much information about what is available for them.
To me, that is the basis for success.
Thanks for that.
I wonder, we've, I think it's very, it's a thing to celebrate that crime overall in the city is down so much, and really it's testament to all of the hard work that the police have been doing.
But we also know that there's, there's some other stories in there, unfortunately, where there's still, you know, increases, in particular around domestic violence and gender-based crimes.
Can someone provide through the chair or hear some stats on DV-related crimes, whether that's violent crimes, harassment, OP violations?
We can get that to me through the chair?
Yes.
Okay.
We can provide that for you all.
Great.
Can someone talk about the decision to move the victim's unit into constitutional policing consent decree?
We'll talk to – I'll send it over to Executive Director Allison Clark.
Allison Clark Consent, Executive Director, Office of Constitutional Policing and Reform.
So what we have done just structurally on a more global level is ensure that the infrastructure for all reform efforts are centralized so they can be fully supported.
One of the really important gains that we did is just the creation of the Office of Equity and Engagement.
That is where our victim services also lies.
There's also another arm there that focuses on other engagement efforts.
And they also are now being utilized and trained to provide instruction in these very sensitive topic areas based on their level of expertise.
So, again, it's really about centralizing all of these reform efforts so that we're supporting one another.
And it's not being fragmented, but rather more wholesomely and holistically being done with thought and purpose.
And then, again, allows for us to find the right means to analyze whether success is being had or not.
And when there's issues that we're not meeting our expectations, we're able to more nimbly pivot and make modifications to programming and resources.
And are there specific paragraphs in the consent decree that apply to gender-based and domestic violence?
Yes, there are.
Can you tell me what those are?
61, 62.
Sorry, 29, 62, and 63.
Yep.
Thank you.
Thanks very much.
I think I'm – I had a really horrific crime happen in the ward very recently.
A constituent of mine got home with his 4-year-old daughter, was getting out of his car, and was held up at gunpoint, pistol-whipped, and then robbed of his belongings.
And then his car was taken, used in a crime later.
I think that residents, as much as crime stats can't be – I'm not trying to dispute the stats at all, but we know, and you all know because you experience this every day, whether or not someone feels safe in their own home or in their neighborhoods is really personal.
We are like broken records in our ward office about having people call the police, and I'll talk to OEMC when they're here.
But it is really frustrating.
In the last week and a half, I've gotten at least two or three complaints from residents about dialing 911 and having to do that multiple times until they can get through to somebody.
And then to get through to somebody – and I know this is not you all sitting here, but you take the brunt of it because it reflects on you.
Because people think that they're getting through to the police when they dial 911, and that's – you know, there's a middle person in the middle of that.
I guess the last thing that I would end with here is what's your advice to residents about the role that they can play in helping to keep neighborhoods safer?
And I think this is something we all have to participate in.
If you see something, say something.
Call 911.
You know, talk to your neighbors.
Pay attention to what's going on.
That's never going to be enough.
But I think it would be helpful to hear, just from your perspective, how we can all come together to help.
I'm going to CAPS meetings and the like.
If you wouldn't mind just sort of, you know, opining on that.
I'd appreciate it.
I mean, that's an excellent question, Alderman.
And just the crime that you spoke of, you know, when those things happen, it's actually, like, extremely disturbing and heartbreaking to see something like that.
This four-year-old who is going to be traumatized the rest of her life because of this.
And, you know, oftentimes we talk a lot about the traumatization of offenders.
And we really need to look at how offenders are traumatizing people in our communities.
And we need to have a focus on that.
The unfortunate part about that is those voices aren't really being heard in that manner.
It's not resonating.
Usually the loudest voices are people who are passionate about what they think or what they believe.
And that becomes the narrative.
And when you see a crime like that happen, if no one has ever been a victim of something like that, they don't know what effect it has on a person.
They don't know what effect it has on their children.
You don't know what effect it has on this man.
And then now this person goes on a crime spree.
The voices of people who have been victims of crime, the voices of people who feel like they're prisoners in their own home,
the open-air drug markets, all of those things, those voices have to resonate also.
I know people have jobs.
They go to work.
And sometimes they may not feel comfortable dedicating that time.
But we have to have people stand up and start talking.
When someone shows up to a hearing, when someone shows up for open comment, it's usually the same people who do it over and over again.
And we're not hearing from the victims, the people who have been victimized, the people who can truly tell you a story about traumatization and how they've been traumatized.
And as police, as an agency in policing, we see that all the time.
We see the victimized children, the brutalized children, the people who have been shot, the people who have been robbed, the people who have been murdered, and their families.
We deal with that on a daily basis.
And although crime is down, and I've said this a million times, we could get down to one homicide and we could celebrate, but you can't spike the football because one person lost their lives.
Tell that to the family of those people that crime is down.
And it doesn't really matter to them that much, right?
Now, overall, we do have to look at the fact that we've got 152 less people murdered this year, right?
That's something to celebrate.
But on the other end, we have to look at the people who have been murdered.
And we continue to do that.
But until the voices are heard of those people who have been traumatized and people telling their stories, I think it goes back to something that Alderman Villegas brought up about making laws and holding people accountable.
We have to hear the stories of people who have been traumatized because without hearing those stories, people who have never had those experiences don't necessarily understand.
And like I said, when people are making laws, they actually believe they're doing what's in the best interest of everyone.
But if you don't have those stories from everyone, then they're not included in what happens when we're making those laws.
So, yes, we want laws to be just.
And as a police agency and a police department, we want to police constitutionally, and that's what we strive for right now.
But at the same time, we want to make sure that we have laws on the books that will allow us and help us to protect those people who are vulnerable in this city, those people who have been traumatized by crime, so that we can follow up and do our investigation and take repeat offenders and violent offenders off the street.
If we're not doing that, then we're not serving the city as well as we should be, and that's as a whole.
That's not just the police department.
That's everyone involved.
Because if we're going to call this our city and we're going to get to the bottom of public safety, every single person has to have some type of input in what we're doing.
No, thank you.
And thank you for saying that.
Final, and you don't have to respond to any of this.
I just want to thank you and your entire team.
You know, I call Glenn all the time.
He picks up.
He returns calls.
You do the same.
And as somebody that represents, you know, a constituency, it makes all the difference.
I want to just give a shout out to 9th District personnel, our Commander Joe Mark, Lieutenant Jason Brown, the CAPS team.
They do really amazing work.
And I was able to see some of the work of the team from four years ago who helped apprehend the gentleman who killed, I shouldn't call him, the person who killed Wum Sing Si, a 71-year-old man in Chinatown just in cold blood.
I was there for the final day of the trial.
And it was nice to see that come to a just end.
I really want to give a shout out to all the police officers who helped and detectives who helped make that happen.
It's a group effort.
But when we have – when we're able to close the book and not everybody gets that opportunity, I just want to put the point on how important it is, like you said, for people to show up, report crimes, follow through with filing reports, and then be there to support when these things go to trial.
So thank you for all that you all do.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Vice Chair.
We'll have Alderman Sposato followed by Alderman Burnett.
Thank you, Chairman.
Good afternoon, Soop.
Good afternoon.
Always a pleasure to see you and your team.
Add me to the group of people that really respect and appreciate everything you've done, you and all your staff.
You guys have just been doing awesome.
I think –
You and Eileen Burke have made an awesome team, and between the both of you, we're making the city a much better, not we, you guys are, not me.
I have nothing to do with it, so just want to thank you for that.
Just, of course, obviously, I only have one district.
Just want to give a shout-out to our 16th district for all the good they do for our community.
We have a new commander, so appreciate that.
Deputy Chief also of Area 5, communicate with him a little bit, so appreciate everything everybody does.
Because most of the stuff I wanted to talk about was touched on.
I really appreciate going late because I don't, questions are asked already, so just some of the things I wanted to talk about.
One of the things I wanted to talk about is I know a lot of people are concerned about our overtime, and we know we have a lot of it,
but if there's no protest, I don't think we have much overtime, so I'm guessing most of our overtime goes towards protest,
so I just want to let everybody know that, mainly my colleagues, that most of our, your overtime, your overtime budget is mostly for protest.
You never know what to expect.
You'd rather have more people there than less people that you need.
I know a lot of people have some concerns about the whole ice thing and everything.
I would advise my colleagues, listen to your awesome press conference when you advise everybody about what to do with the whole ice thing.
I believe you talked for about 45 minutes and gave some good guidance for everybody.
Some people are out of control about it, but, you know, we're in a tough spot, or you're in a tough spot with all of that.
So, that was a great press conference.
And lastly, I have one budget question, and I'd like to see you add a position to your department, and I would like to see,
and no disrespect to your media and communication people, but I'd like to see somebody specifically dedicated to public relations,
some young whiz kid that knows how to go on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok and all of that stuff,
because the guys that are right of me, not all of them, but a lot of them aren't our friends.
So, some of them are, some aren't, but we hear about all the bad stuff, and believe it or not,
there's actually bad firemen and bad aldermen also.
So, I just, you know, we never hear about the basketball with the police, the football with the police,
the shop with a cop, the bowling, the tutoring, the coaches, you know, we never hear about any of that stuff.
And I really, really like to see a focus on that a little bit to consider it, you know,
considering hiring somebody to just get the word out a little bit better about all the good things that the police do.
So, and one last thing, my esteemed colleague from the 19th Ward said, we're lucky to have you.
I don't believe we're lucky. I believe we're blessed. So, I don't believe in luck.
You didn't get here by luck. I think everybody here agrees with the decision.
There was a lot of good choices, but the mayor ended up making a great choice.
So, just want to appreciate you for all you do. I hardly call you anymore.
I call John all the time, so I never need to call you for anything.
So, he's the guy that gets the wrath of all my phone calls.
So, I appreciate you, John. And that's about it. So, thanks for all you do. Appreciate you.
Well, thank you. Thank you, Alderman. We are working on that.
And, you know, for the record, my comms team is magnificent.
I just, you know, want to make sure that they...
Well, you need like a 25-year-old kid that knows all that stuff.
And we're working on that.
Not a 67-year-old guy like me. You need a young kid that knows all that stuff.
Don't talk about Don like that.
Thanks. Thanks.
Don is young for his age.
Alderman, Chair Rodriguez, you're going to be next.
Okay.
Thank you so much.
And thank you to the more handsome younger Alder for ceding a bit of time to me.
I promise I'll try to be brief.
Soup, thank you so much for all the work you do.
I'd echo my colleague, Scott, as far as the 10th District goes.
Damn good people.
Helped us with a walkout, two walkouts, as a matter of fact, last week that were splendid.
The kids actually wanted police engagements and to be safe on their walk.
I was so proud of those young people.
And I was also very proud of those serving those young people that day.
So I just wanted to commend that here in this public space.
But they were walking out because of the issue that Alderman Sposado just mentioned.
You know, we had eight people kidnapped on a Wednesday, five thereafter, I believe.
On a Thursday, I think more than half were U.S. citizens.
It was raucous.
It was very raucous.
But given that environment and given what happened this morning where ICE agents entered what I believe was a primary private school,
maybe it was an early childhood facility, but it certainly was a place where our families go to feel safe.
But that was all shattered this morning by ICE agents who entered that building and took a teacher, a petite female teacher from that site,
went indoors, grabbed her, and they actually opened the door by pushing her face against the door so that door would open.
Pushing?
I don't know if that's the right way of saying it.
I'm probably not doing that justice.
I have an idea of what you mean.
Yeah, yeah.
So, look, I've just seen and heard about impersonations happening across the country.
I'm extremely worried about that happening.
I'm very concerned about those who are actually masked and unidentifiable.
And I just am disgusted by the tactics that are being used, not just on my neighbors, but on my staff, on extended family members.
I was there when two of my staff members' mothers didn't know where they were for six hours, crying in my arms.
And a number of young people who have been taken as well, all of which that I've just spoken of are U.S. citizens, right?
So, I guess, where I want to go in conversations with a number of lawyers, I think we are very concerned about these individuals who are masked and really unidentifiable.
And committing atrocities as far as far as I'm concerned.
So, I'm wondering if there's any protocols.
Has CPD ever mandated or asked a specific officer for their credentials?
Maybe what the reason were for that?
Or if there will be a protocol put together to identify these individuals in the event that they do something illegal?
Because I do believe things at least are borderline, if not crossing that line.
Forgive me.
I do believe they've crossed the line.
So, I'm just curious about CPD's position when it comes to federal agents potentially, not potentially, you know, violating people's constitutional rights.
And how we hold them accountable from a CPD perspective, or at the very least, find out who they are.
So, I can tell you, Alderman, we have the same concern that you have when it comes to impersonating the police.
I mean, we've arrested people who have impersonated CPD officers or any other officers, right?
We take this seriously.
And if someone is impersonating a federal agent, we have a problem with that, too.
So, we do have protocol in place, and I'll let the Chief of Patrol talk a little bit about it.
When we're called to scenes, and we've been called to scenes on multiple occasions, we will get to the scene if we're not sure that these people are working for the federal government, we ask.
And once we ask, they identify themselves.
And they have identified themselves to us, and we were able to confirm that they were actually working for the federal government, and they were actually federal officers.
I don't necessarily want to call the mice because there are different groups of people out there working.
So, we have identified that, and we do have a protocol in place.
But when it comes to determining criminal behavior by federal agents who are working in the capacity of their jobs or what they've been ordered to do,
we, as a law enforcement agent, are prohibited from interfering with that.
And we'll talk about that in one second.
I'll turn over to Scott Spears.
But, Chief Heine, you want to talk a little bit about our protocol?
John Heine, Chief of Patrol.
So, early this year, obviously, with incidents that we believe were coming this way, protocols were kind of changed to the fact we have street deputies that work our afternoon shift and overnight shift also.
So, any response that might be immigration-related, we wanted our street deputies, first and foremost, to respond, along with the wall, he or she, the lieutenant for the district of occurrence,
to determine if, in fact, we do have an immigration issue occurring and to identify what steps are going to be done.
After each one of these incidents have taken place, we have an after-action review that we go over to modify to see if any techniques or standards that we needed to adjust to make sure that the safety is involved for those who are being affected.
And for our officers.
Yeah, so my understanding is there was protocols put together early after the June 4th incident.
Was it June 10th?
I forget the date.
There was further refinement of some of those protocols, if I'm correct.
So it's quite clear to me how we initially engage or decide to engage.
What's less clear to me is when we do engage and are on site, how do we verify that they are actually – they're not impersonators, if you will.
I don't know the correct terms.
You just mentioned they could be from a variety of different agencies, right?
When you said we have received, I heard you say, verbal confirmation that they are federal officers, is that our protocol to determine –
No, that's not necessarily enough.
It depends on the situation.
They have identified themselves to us.
Verbally, right?
No, it's not just verbally.
When we get there, we verify, and we can verify through credentials.
We can also verify by calling federal agencies to determine that someone in this area is working, and we have done that also.
So we know when federal agents – we will know that once they're there that we can call someone and verify that those are actually federal agents working in those locations, right?
We don't just take someone's word for it and walk away.
If we did that, we would never stop anyone who's impersonating the police.
Now, once we've determined that these are federal agents in the performance of their duties, then we step back.
Now, one of the things that's important is this, and this is what I would like for everybody to understand.
This is a very, very challenging and tough place for our officers to be in because we have to make determinations and decisions based on a lot of things.
When our officers show up, they have to be careful, number one, not to violate the Trust Act or the Welcoming City Ordinance.
So they have to be aware of all of those things so that they don't find themselves on the bad end of an investigation and see themselves getting suspended or worse.
That's one part of it.
The other part of it is getting on the scene and making sure that if things, if temperatures are rising, if there's a possibility for violence, that they not only try to maintain some level of peace, but restore it if it's not there.
And oftentimes it can look like we're protecting agents or we're protecting, and a lot of that is emotion built around that.
But what we're actually trying to do is make sure that no one is harmed.
That's the number one function that we are serving when we show up.
So we understand that people want us to step in because there's a lot of emotion around this.
And under no circumstances am I going to sit here and not acknowledge that there's emotion out there.
But we can't allow emotion to force us into a situation where we're now breaking the law.
We are going to do the very best that we can there.
And when there are things that we have to explain, we will explain them.
But I believe that our officers are doing a great job of trying to navigate through this, and so is the leadership.
It's a tough spot to be in.
It's a very tough spot.
But it's simple to me when the head of all of these efforts is opening one of these gas canisters, while all of his other agents around him are calm and right next to him, and he lobs his chemicals at people.
This is the guy in charge of it all, right?
I'll end here, Madam Chair.
Look, this is obviously an emotional issue.
We were on a call recently with the 10th District just talking about the posture that the police take in facing protesters and having their backs towards these federal agents.
You know, the fact is, is that I believe they have it in them to commit acts of violence, and oh, let me say, they've committed acts of violence unlawfully.
I am very concerned that we are going to be in a situation like in Franklin Park, potentially where our officers are on duty, on site, and one of these agents takes the life of somebody.
It's that serious, and us not having eyes on them as well.
So I just, I just wanted us to think about those situations as well.
I know, I've heard that I assume that those agents are lying.
I just, I am, because I've heard lie after lie coming out of this federal administration about these incidences as well.
So I'm very concerned about our protocols and posture.
I'm not questioning the integrity of you guys or your mission.
I think you just said it.
I'm very glad you said you do not want to violate the Trust Act and the Welcoming City Ordinance.
Thank you for saying that.
I think that's very important.
That's where we need to start, but not where we need to end.
I think we need to potentially have a roundtable of community members and maybe some elders to sit at a table with CPD and really think this through about what potentially can happen with our citizens.
Not just our undocumented residents, but our citizens, people born here who are at these places exercising their First Amendment rights.
And protecting their neighbors, their brothers and sisters, their family members.
So, you know, I think there's more work to do.
And I appreciate what you said so far.
I still have more questions, but, you know, we'll take that offline and I'm sure my colleagues will bring it up as well.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
That's fine.
And if I could address just one thing, and I just want to address this, and I know you mentioned, and I've heard this concern, that our officers are facing the crowd as opposed to facing the agents.
And when we talk about crowd control, number one, you never turn your back to a crowd.
And it's not that we're looking at a crowd and we assume that they're going to do something wrong.
But our officers are out there.
When they're out there, their body cams are activated.
So, for the most part, when you have the number of officers that we usually have at these scenes, everything is being recorded and documented.
The reason that we keep an eye on the crowd is because it's not necessarily the crowd itself.
You can have 100 people out there, and 99 of them are 100% peaceful, and you have the one person who shows up, and under the umbrella of a peaceful protest, they do something that's a little outrageous.
But when it comes to the agents, when we get on the scene, what we want to do is break that up.
We want to break it up because you mentioned something earlier.
It's possible someone could be killed.
This is why we try to explain to people that we don't want you to escalate a situation.
Don't physically engage with these individuals because it can lead to a higher level of crime.
So, I would love to have that discussion, further that discussion, because I think there are just some things that need to be on the table.
So, we have a clear understanding of where our responsibilities lie and where they end.
So, we just want to make sure that – I just wanted to, you know, put that out there.
For that, and all I'd say is what about that one officer, that federal officer who does something wrong, right?
Like, we need to have eyes on that as well.
That's the only thing I'm saying.
Well, 100%.
Listen.
And I bet you it's going to be more than one.
Listen.
This morning was nuts.
I can't believe it.
Listen.
For the most part, I can guarantee you that people who show up on the scene are recording.
I saw a $450 camera on someone just yesterday.
Like, they were pointing it, and it's rather – I'm glad they are.
But at the same time, this needs further conversation, but I appreciate the comments.
Yes.
Thank you very much, Chair.
We're going to go to Alderman Napolitano next, followed by Alderman Burnett.
I'm sorry that I'm – you're okay?
I have you on the list.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I appreciate the time.
Superintendent, glad you're here.
Oh, sir.
You got an incredible crew in the box.
I think you're doing – contrary to what I think you believe, I think you're doing an incredible job.
I really do.
I got just a couple really quick questions, and I'm hoping just to get through the chair,
not because these are probably something that's going to come back with a lot more information.
Is it possible through the chair that we can get the number of police officers on the job year over year for the past 10 years?
So, like, 10 years back to how many we had, to year over year over year to current date, and how many officers are on the job?
We can get you there.
Okay, perfect.
Another one through the chair.
Can we get the number, again, year over year of how many officers have retired, or just police in general, personnel has retired in that same 10-year period of time?
I'm sure we can get you there.
Thank you, sir.
In the past 10 years, can we get year over year how many officers have been hired or are on the job past the probation stage?
So not hired after the – from the academy and through the academy, but actually made it through their probation or actually up and working in the last 10 years.
So basically how many people took the job in the last 10 years?
And made it through the probationary status?
That's it, yeah.
That's not a problem.
And attached to that one, too, the last one, this is – because we have so many of these vacancies.
Also through the chair, a breakdown of how many – let's see.
That's 10 years.
Um, how many people are, uh, that based off that same question over the past 10 years,
how many people are actually applying for this job, um, taking it past, past the point of passing
the test. So took the job or took the test and how many are called to take the job after they
pass the test? You know what I'm saying? So, uh, you get four, uh, 4,000 take the, take the job or
take the test 2000 pass. How many of those 2000 actually take the job and a breakdown of who is
taking that job? Just a quick breakdown, male, female, what the breakdown is of that. So it
would be the percentage of people from an overall test that we got. And that would, it wouldn't,
it would also entail what they did with the background investigation. And we know what
reason they didn't make it past her or, or, or where it stopped. And that, that would be all
through, through the chair. Um, I got a couple of quick questions for you besides crimes, like, uh,
shootings and homicides. What's the biggest variable that, uh, that drives your OT?
Um, are you speaking just about crimes or overall crime overall? And I don't mean that you had to
keep detectives on late cause we had a bunch of shootings or homicides. What's the reason that you
would find yourself canceling RDOs? Um, I know, I, I believe there's probably two or three variables,
um, that generate that. I would like to know what, what do you, what as superintendent,
what do you think those? Well, they're events, uh, protest, um, uh, historically holidays where we
know, um, uh, have, uh, that are associated with violent weekends or a violent, uh, spree of days,
uh, day, like the 4th of July. And, um, you know, let me push that over to the, uh, chief of patrol
because we've actually pulled back on some of those things, but chief.
John, I'm chief of patrol. So historically Alderman, it is what the superintendent is talking about.
It is the holiday weekends. It's a spontaneous large scale events that take place where the,
you know, globally or nationally, some event that takes place that, uh, we need to respond and have
the appropriate number of resources deployed to that area to ensure officer safety and to protect
the demonstrators and whoever just participates. Um, I know we make it a very conscious decision
not to cancel days off. It's a big, um, a big part of the superstition administration for mental
well-being for the officers to give them their time with their families. But, you know, it's just
due to certain circumstances, we have to protect each other out there and, and those celebrating the
weekend or the large scale events. So we have to mandate those things. Obviously I think we have
pride festival takes up a lot of manpower. We have a Mexican independence. The last five,
six years seems to take up a lot of our manpower, but it's events like those. And then you have the
planned historic ones. I know we have NASCAR, Lollapalooza, those kinds of events that are kind
of planned, but the things that take up sometimes of our overtime are spontaneous events, whether they
be globally or naturally that take place that we need to respond to in a safe fashion.
And, and we, just to make clear, when we talk about, uh, particular parades, it's the,
the after effect of the praise. It's not the parade, uh, themselves. It's the, the people who come down,
the people who decide and not necessarily even part of a parade. So we know that that activity is going
to occur. So we make sure that we have measures in place to stop it. If we don't do that, the,
the, the damage that could, uh, uh, could occur in the people who could get hurt and the violence
that, uh, um, could come out of that will far outweigh what we paid in overtime for it.
I agree. And, and, you know, it leads me to a couple other directions here, but you hit it right
on the head. The first two is definitely the, the riots or the protests and the festivals and,
you know, the riots and protests have been going on since 2000 to current day. You know,
we get a lot of pay protesters out there that are hell bent on, on destroying our city. Uh,
and it's unfortunate that days are canceled to, and you guys do an incredible job. And unfortunately,
police have suffered some casualties on, uh, and injuries, I should say, uh, during these protests
that are kind of purposely staged or, or put in place. Uh, but the flip side of that too,
is the festivals. Um, I'm hoping maybe if we could do a breakdown too, if it's possible to see,
you know, what wards are generating the most festivals and, and, and calling for OT,
it would be nice for us to know, um, you know, who is, who's generating a lot of festivals,
which is a great, great thing, big part of the city. But if we're looking to cut back on OT and we
know that's a big part of what's hurting the department, uh, hurting the city, the, the mass amount
of OT, can we see where all the festivals are coming down? Would it be able to do the chair
for you guys to break down your, your festival, say the last five years?
We can get that to you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um, and, uh, with that as well, um,
pertaining to the OT and, and this doesn't fall on you because it, this is, you don't write the checks,
but are, are we, are we fully paid in the last 10 years to our overtime, to our officers that
have, I'll even go back five years when, when it really started in 2000 to 2005 with our constant
protests and, and, and, and wildings and street takeovers are all those overtimes paid. Is it
paid for up to date with our officers? And that's not on you, but is, I mean, are, are you asking that
the officers receive their compensation for the overtime? Yeah. Cause there's a mass amount still
that is unpaid. Correct. I'm not, I'm not aware of that. Um, cause I think there's a mass amount
that's unpaid. Um, uh, if, if that were the case, I'm sure the union would have said something about
I thought the union had filed a case actually, um, a lawsuit based on unpaid overtime still.
That's yeah. I, I, I believe that it was a little more nuanced than that. Um, I believe it was
about the number of hours that they worked, uh, that kind of thing. So it was probably more to
it than that. Um, but what I can tell you right now is that our officers are compensated for the
hours that they work and we are, um, we do what we can to make sure that these officers have some
downtime. But when we know that we're going to have a large scale protest, likely the no Kings March
was 120,000 people. Beautiful. It was peaceful. Um, not one arrests, uh, made under those
circumstances. But when we know we have that number of people, um, the reason that we make
sure that we have enough officers out there, that these people are marching, they're going
through intersections. Um, they, we have to make sure that those intersections are protected
and things are, so no one drives a car through and runs down a group of people. Um, and when
we keep that kind of thing down, we keep injuries and casualties down. So, you know, a lot of times
people may complain or not understand why we, uh, utilize overtime. Well, when we have those
officers out there protecting people's first amendment rights, we also have to protect,
uh, their safety and their wellbeing. And I think that's a lot of, uh, what's not, uh,
seen or heard. Yeah. Hey boss, I'm all for, for it. I mean, call as many as you need, whenever
you need them. Our streets come first, our, our citizens protection comes first. Uh, two
quick questions left. Uh, hopefully I can get them out. If you had to say that there's
two departments or, or yeah, two units in your department that are called the most to
come out no matter what, what would those two departments be? And I'm talking who everyone's
asking for. Can you get them here? Who would that be? Well, it's patrol number one. Uh, patrol
is number one. Um, but we do more on the novelty side, boss. What's that? Maybe more on the novelty
side. Who does everyone call for? So, and I get what you're getting at when, because I get
know exactly what you're getting at. And, and I'll say this, when you look at the number
of times that there are requests, um, uh, for our mounted unit, a lot of, uh, what happens
with our mounted unit. And I know a lot of people don't, don't understand why we have
those horses. We have so many community events where people call for the mounted unit because
it's, it's a different connection with our community members to actually see those horses,
the kids in all neighborhoods. Um, when, when we do things like a trunk or treat, when we,
uh, uh, national night out, um, having those horses, there's, is actually therapeutic for a lot
of people when they show up and they go out and they get to pat the horses, they get to talk to
the officers on the horses. It's a different connection from seeing an officer in a capacity
of, uh, enforcement. Um, that's still an office that's still an officer on duty. That's working
and can act as an officer in a, in a situational 100%. And it also helps our officers because now
the connection to the community, when we started to talk about officer wellness, these are things
that are helpful in developing those relationships between our community members and our officers.
I agree. Um, Madam chair, I know my time's up. Can I ask just one more quick question?
So I don't have to go around too. Go ahead. Um, I, I share the same sentiment that my, my colleague,
uh, Mike Rodriguez brought up about, uh, the masked federal agents. Um, but I, I, I see it on both
sides and I'm hoping as part of the law enforcement that there's maybe an appetite for this, if we're
pushing.
for on the federal side to making a statement of losing the masks, shouldn't that be done
on the civilian side as well? Because for every federal agent that they think is out
to cause malice or is the enemy that has the mask on, there is also these protesters that
also have masks on that are, instead of the federal agent pretending to be on the side
of good, you have some of these protesters out there that are pretending to be exercising
their First Amendment right, they're paid to be there and are causing just as much trouble
on the opposite side. So would there be an appetite for drawing, I mean, we're legislators,
we can make laws to say, hey, even if you're showing up to a protest with a mask on and you're
an instigator, it's a different charge as well. If you're wearing a mask and you're instigating,
which I think we're all seeing on TV, it's happening not just in Chicago, across the country,
would there be an appetite to create a law like that? Like if federal agents can't wear
the mask, nobody can wear the mask because doxing doesn't just happen to your agents.
Doxing can also happen to that individual who showed up to cause trouble and has to go back
to their, I would say in most cases, they don't have one, a job, but show up to the job
because I think that protest is their job. So would there be an appetite for that?
So a lot of what you're talking about and what we see out there, demonstrator tactics,
when it comes to certain types of demonstrators, obviously the majority of people who show up
in these protests are not masked. Every now and again, we see some bad actors within a crowd
who will show up with the intent of doing something outside of the scope of your basic protests.
What we've been able to do with the leadership in those protest groups is to point those people out.
What I will tell you this is this, not just with protests in general, we have people on the trains
that are masked when they get on the train. We will have a group of individuals riding around
in a vehicle and they're all masked up. To me, there's an appetite to be able to investigate
those types of things because we know that there's a possibility that this person could be
or thinking about committing a crime or in the commission of a crime. So these are things that
are important because when someone is robbed and someone is wearing a mask, it's hard for that
person to identify this armed robber. And then now that person gets away with it because they
could not be identified. So is there an appetite to have people unmasked all around? Yes.
And I think it would help us as law enforcement as a whole.
I appreciate that, Superintendent. I know we're going to, me and you are going to meet up after
budget's over. You're going to give me a holler. I'm going to come in. I'd love to talk about
this as well with you. Maybe it's something that we can figure out if there's something that we can
do about it, though. So I appreciate it, sir. Thanks again to your box. They're absolutely
incredible. You gave us an incredible commander in the 16th district as well, as well as they do
the best job in 16 that they possibly can with what they got. I appreciate all your help there,
too. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Next, we're going to have Alderman Burnett, followed by Alderman Lawson.
Thank you, Chair. Superintendent, it's an honor to meet you. I've had the luxury of working with
your team in different capacities over the last month, including with Chief Hines and seeing the
whole bike patrol force come out to Fulton Market, which everyone loved. So appreciate what you're
doing and all the good things. I also have some constituents in Fulton Market who are just singing
your praises. So again, everything my colleagues have been saying about your presence is deeply
appreciated. You know, in the 27th Ward, we have the luxury of working with a number of different
commanders. So to the 10th district, 14th district, 18th district, and the 22nd district, thank you all
for your work, and especially for the 11th and 12th, Tate and Byron. They've just been doing an
excellent job in terms of communicating with us, which is what everything our community is really
asking for. And you mentioned it briefly in your last remarks. The patrol is something that people
are definitely requesting on both sides of my ward, whether it's in Cabrini Green or in West
Humboldt Park. Could you touch a little bit more on this transition? I know it's hard to get everyone
out, especially because these districts are so vast. I know the 11th district alone is, I can't tell you
how many miles it covers. But you all talk about what the effort is to try to get more patrolmen on foot
back into our neighborhoods.
Well, and thank you for that, Alderman, and congratulations on the appointment. You know,
when we talked about civilianization, and we talked about that earlier, you know, freeing up positions
where we have sworn members working, where we could replace those positions with civilians. That's one of the
efforts that's moving forward to make sure that we have more officers on the street in the field.
Also, along with that, again, we, you know, we have this workforce allocation study that should be
produced in the first quarter. So we're waiting on the results of that. I'm pretty sure we have an
idea of what a lot of it is going to say, but we're looking forward to finding some of those things that
we didn't know. So those are things that we're going to work on to continue to try to push the
effort of making sure that we have manpower allocated in the places where it's necessary.
Now, obviously, in those places where we know life is of the utmost important and that it's in
jeopardy, we're going to make sure that we have the largest number of resources that we can provide
without bleeding out of the locations. But we want to make sure that we're prioritizing,
you know, the sanctity of human life, the safety of people, the safety of children.
So that's how we're working toward that. The chief of patrol does a great job of making sure
that we're focusing on the most violent areas right now. And that's how we're allocating our manpower
right now. And as we continue to hire, we'll continue to assess and reassess and make sure
that we have people in the right places.
That's awesome. Yeah, it was crazy or awesome to hear about New York in particular and how they
utilize the civilians in order to help get officers back on the patrols. Because you mentioned it,
and I know we have this EY study that has given recommendations on what department, what part of your
department should be civilianized and when. Could you talk a little bit about what that ramp up looks
like over the next one or two years? I know it's a long-term project, but what are some of the areas
that you all are focusing on for this upcoming year? You mean for the civilianization? Yes.
Well, so what we're looking at, we're assessing all positions that are administrative where that could
be taken over by a non-sworn member. Obviously, there are positions inside that you need a sworn
member for because you need that expertise, that experience and that background for the particular
type of work that's being done. But there are positions that we've identified that we can
civilianize. And we're going to continue to move in that direction. So those assessments will continue
and the workforce allocation study is going to help us get there.
How long do you think that transition will take, you know, as you identify and start switching over to
those roles? Is that something that's going to be implemented right away?
Well, hopefully as soon as possible. But obviously, there are variables. There are things that we have
to look at. How many people can we hire? We want to make sure that we hire the right people for the
right positions. And we want to make sure that we get them in as soon as possible. So, you know,
over the next year or the next two years, we want to make sure that we can hire as many people as we
possibly can. So we are working toward that.
Understood. And I appreciate that effort. As you know, as well, the current training facility is in
my ward. I grew up, I went to Skinner, I went to Whitney Young. And so I would always see the
officers training around there and doing their practices in the parking lot there. And so,
again, shout out to Sergeant Claudio for everything they do on the community engagement side. But
what you all do over there is so important to what that community has become. It felt like a
stabilizing piece to that part of the west side. And you see the development and the growth that has
happened over there. Could you all talk about, I know there was some facility that you all were
building further west, closer to near Oral High School. What is the delineation or split between
officers that are training near Skinner Park and the West Loop and the ones who are utilizing the
other facility? Because I know that would be another anchor for that community to feel
a little bit more safe and protected as those officers start to go over there.
That's a good question. I'm going to turn that question over to Deputy Chief Boldness,
who runs our academy.
Deputy Chief Boldness from the Training Support Group. We have two academies. We have the Training
Academy, which is the old academy. A lot of people know that one as the old academy.
And that's the one on Jackson. We keep our recruits there. So the recruit training is at that
building. The other building, which is the PSTC building, which is on Clybourne,
that's where we have our in-service. And we have our officers who are currently sworn that they're
on patrol. They go to training at that building. So we try to keep them separate because the
learning is separate. That way the recruits are learning what they need to learn to get on the
field and the other individuals.
The sworn officers are not distracted by the recruits who are in the academy, so we do keep them separate.
Understood. So it's like continued education is on that, what we call continued education is on the west side.
Correct. All our continuing education for in-service happens on the PSTC side.
Is there a similar number of people or officers who utilize that facility as they do on the training facility,
or do we know what the occupancy on each side is?
The training facility at the PSTC building is also a dual building, so it's shared by fire.
So they have also their recruits, the fire recruits are at that building.
So it is shared with multiple entities of training in that facility.
That's awesome. As I indicated, you know, the training center on Jackson has been such a boon to that community.
I imagine that it will continue to be a boon as we continue to work and have people out further west on the west side of Chicago.
On that continued education note, Superintendent, I know a lot.
Obviously, domestic violence is one or two in terms of the calls that you all receive,
but I imagine dealing with the unhoused and mentally challenged members of our community is another big factor into how many calls you all get.
Could you talk about the specific continued education training that officers are getting in order to prepare and work with some of these members?
I know that's a lot of the issues that are happening in my ward.
I'll have Director Milstein talk a little bit about that.
Thank you, Mike Milstein, Deputy Director of the Office of Equity and Engagement.
So we do have a team of officers who are unhoused liaison officers.
They do work directly with different city agencies to support individuals experiencing homelessness who are unhoused.
We also work to look at ways where we can incorporate revisions or improvements in our policies or in our training so that when officers are going out
and interacting with people who are experiencing homelessness, they have some basic competencies to help support them.
I know a lot of this is also covered in a lot of our CIT training that many officers get.
Every officer does get, I believe it's eight hours of CIT training.
Then that does cover also some competencies around experiencing or interacting with people who are experiencing homelessness.
Is there a specific division or a specific team that works with the unhoused or is it just any officer that's available?
Any officer can.
Every district does have an affinity officer in their CAPS office that can work with unhoused individuals.
And then we also have a team in my office of two officers and a non-support member who are dedicated.
They are unhoused liaisons who their full-time role is to work with the unhoused community.
Amazing.
And as I indicated, unfortunately, those issues are becoming more prevalent in our city,
especially in my ward on both sides of the west and east.
And constituents are a little concerned or have their own opinions on how these members of our society are being engaged.
And some have presented some type of desire to have a specific task force to deal with these individuals,
which I know because it's such a unique portion of our society that it could be something interesting.
So I'm willing to talk and explore what that looks like with you all going forward.
And one question before I run out of time, there's, I know, some talks of a satellite station in the 12th District.
Is there any update on what that might look like and the timing on that?
We talked about it, and Chief Hine gave an answer earlier.
Do you want to agree?
Right.
Excuse me, John, I am Chief of Patrol.
I know that earlier we talked about the building at 937 Northwood in the 12th District or the 13th District it used to be for years ago.
But it faced a couple of requirements or updating issues that we needed to be public facing so that residents or individuals in the area could come in and get a case report or do anything.
So I know that the superintendent, we discussed this issue, and we were committed to the manpower out of patrol to staff a satellite office.
If we can find the appropriate building and all requirements are met, that I think we could find the appropriate manpower out of patrol to staff said building.
Excellent.
Thank you, Chief Hines.
Superintendent, again, it's a pleasure.
Wish I had a lot more time to talk with you.
I'm sure I'll be connecting with you more.
And thank you to everyone in the box.
Thanks, Alden.
Go ahead, Chair Viegas, point of information.
Chair and Alderman Burnett, Laspata and I are also working on the 12th, and so we would love to continue to dialogue.
We're prepared to provide either funding from the budget through a budget amendment, or we're so committed to this that we're even thinking about putting forward menu money in order to make sure that it has the ability for public facing.
So love to work with you on that.
Great.
Thank you.
We're going to go to Alderman Quezada next, and then Alderman Lawson after him.
Thank you, Chair.
And good afternoon, Superintendent.
So good to see you and the rest of the team.
I want to thank you all again for your dedication and service to our city.
It does not go unnoticed.
I also want to highlight my commanders of the 35th Ward.
That's Commander Rivera of the 14th District, Commander Alvarez of the 17th District, and Commander Andoverde of the 25th District.
These people serve our communities with great distinction, and they should be applauded for their great work.
On the topic of ICE in our communities, you know, as we've discussed before, I have no doubt that the police department is always serving in the best interests of our city and is abiding by the welcoming city ordinance.
And I think now more than ever, we need to do everything that we can to ensure that there is trust, and that trust between community and our police department is ironclad.
And so I just have some questions because, you know, in the remarks that have been given today, you know, it is very clear, abundantly clear, that there are a number of contradictions that exist at this time because of the policies of the federal government.
And what that is putting this kind of strain in our community between different levels of law enforcement and what you're able to do, what you're not able to do.
So I think that's the thing that we're navigating here is we're navigating a web of contradictions that I think go against the nature and the spirit of what this country should be about.
But I think what's also very clear is that what these contradictions do is create the environment in which it could be perceived by community that our police department is not doing enough to protect our community members, especially when we see that ICE is engaging in unlawful activities, violence.
I mean, your officers have even been gassed by tear gas, right?
So this is happening in our communities.
But I think a lot of what folks see as when you all are doing what you can to protect our community, they perceive that as allowing ICE operations to happen in our community.
Again, that's perception.
And so the questions that I have are, you know, one, when residents see or when officers see intimidation by ICE officials or unlawful detention or surveillance, what is the response by CPD?
Well, it depends on what we're called for.
So intimidation can be subjective when it comes out as a call.
You know, as a police department, we deal in facts.
And the question is, what is it that we're being called for?
Is someone calling and saying that we're being approached by someone who's wearing a mask and we don't believe that they're law enforcement?
We show up, and this is just an example.
We show up and we will find out if this is actual law enforcement.
Once we find out that it's actual law enforcement performing their duties, that's when we take a step back.
So we've done our job there, identified these people and explained that they're actual law enforcement and not someone who's representing themselves falsely as an agent of law enforcement.
So does the department not have, therefore, any authority when ICE agents violate, you know, our mayor's executive orders of not utilizing public spaces?
You know, so like if ICE agents pull up at the Chicago Public School parking lot and start doing operations there, despite the mayor making executive action,
does the department have any authority or will they take any step to tell ICE agents you are breaking a mayoral executive action?
So here's what – let's go with the enforcement part of it, and I'm going to turn it over to our general counsel to talk a little bit about the laws around this.
So speaking specifically about the executive order, it deals with using city-owned property as a staging area, a processing location,
or an operations base for civil immigration enforcement.
It doesn't interfere with existing leases or concession agreements.
It won't be construed as restricting or interfering with the execution of lawful judicial warrants or the enforcement of criminal law,
nor is limiting the rights of any person or entity under state or federal law,
and it doesn't prohibit the lawful use of city-owned or controlled property other than for civil immigration enforcement as a staging area.
So our role, if we would be called to the scene to investigate, would be we would dispatch the street deputy who was on duty that day
as well as the watch operations lieutenant for the affected district.
If we observe that the property is being used in violation of the executive order,
we would attempt to mediate that situation on the scene.
If we're unable to achieve cooperation, the fact that we would
be able to get cooperation would be documented. In all cases, we would work within city resources,
including the Department of Law, in an effort to seek compliance through either the existing
federal court action, with which we've achieved a great deal of success thus far, or if the law
department would choose to go another route with it, with the idea being that an injunction
would have more global application than trying to undertake enforcement. On that end, and as
it had been mentioned earlier today in response to similar questions, we do not have the authority
to interfere with federal law enforcement. That's because of the supremacy clause, correct?
That's correct, sir. If we're saying you can't use our property, you can't appropriate our property
for use for federal civil immigration enforcement, that's where we would step in front of a judge
and say, judge, you need to order them not to do this anymore.
Right. So, interesting. I have some additional questions, but I'll move on to another one.
The department, what is the department doing maybe proactively right now? Because there are
vulnerable standing communities that are being targeted right now. Like, for example,
rideshare drivers at O'Hare have been kidnapped multiple times over. We have tamaleras,
that are being kidnapped multiple times over. If CPD knows through communication because of the
administration or through because of other aldermen, has the department also taken proactive
measures to doing outreach in the community and saying, hey, there's ice activity, you all should
be careful, or maybe giving folks a heads up when they see ice activity. That's not intervening. I think
that's helping folks know. And at the same time, it's in the line of questioning around our rideshare drivers
who are being kidnapped. Can we have police officers there to protect folks and let them know that
they are at risk or they are being threatened or that there has been an increase in enforcement
activity? What kind of proactive measures is the department taking at the time?
So there's a lot there. One, because we're law enforcement, to go out and alert people of activity or
federal agents doing their jobs, that is interference on the part of law enforcement. So as an agent of law
law enforcement, we have to be very careful there also. But when it comes to the education, and I will say
this, and I think this is part of the issue, there are a lot of mixed messages out there from people.
You know, you hear certain terms, you know, like fight back and things of that nature. Now, is that clearly
defined when we're telling people in the communities what to do? When we're chasing down agents or boxing
them in? That's not going to be helpful for anyone, because what that's going to do is increase the level
and hear me out. I get you. I don't want to kill your time. I just I want to be clear about what this is
when we're messaging out because with the police right now, there's a lot of messaging that's going
on right now that makes people trust us less. So when that message is coming out from us, people are
less likely to buy into it because there are voices out there that are saying that CPD is working with
ICE and we're violating the Trust Act. Right. But, you know, you all are sworn to protect and uphold the
Constitution and the Constitution is being trampled over. And I'm not saying that you are avoiding
responsibilities, but I don't think that it is interference if your officers were to go into
communities and let them know what their rights are, especially when there is no due process. I mean,
they're literally asking people in the street, are you a citizen? No, you're under arrest. So that is
horrible. And what I'm saying is, you know, what proactive measures can the department take to just let
people know, hey, here's your rights. The same way we tell people to come out to a CAPSA meeting is the same
way you should tell people what their constitutional rights are. So I'm just saying I think we need to
think creatively because I don't think that's that that is interference. But I think that you are
trusted. The vast majority of Chicagoans trust our police department. And what we're saying is in this
moment, there is a very large desire for our police department to think and act a little bit more
creatively in this moment so that there isn't that perceived notion that we're not being protected
right now. A lot of our communities are left to fend for themselves. We have volunteers who are
doing what they can to protect our neighbors. I have workers in my communities, residents in my
communities who are being kidnapped. In the 40th or in Alderman Martin's ward, ICE agents pretended to be
a parent and went inside a daycare. You know, like if we don't allow people to break inside of a store
on unauthorized access, why can ICE agents break into private property and kidnap people in our
communities? And so I think, again, I understand the contradictions we're in. And we need to think
creatively within the law to protect people. And my time is up. Well, and I will tell you that the
fifth floor, the mayor's office has a Know Your Rights campaign going on right now. And I do believe
that there needs to be some education around this. And I do believe that in law enforcement, if we can sit
down and educate people on all of these aspects, the response to certain things out there may be
different. We can't control what the federal government is doing. And when they come in. But
again, this is still our city. And as the Chicago Police Department, we want to make sure that we
protect everybody to the best of our ability. We also want to make sure that we're coloring inside
the lines and we're not violating any laws. And we're following the Constitution on a regular basis.
And having a conversation around all of those things, I think would be helpful.
Yeah. And thank you so much for your comments. And the last thing I'll say is I do think that,
again, the vast majority of people in our communities are engaging very peacefully,
and they are just looking out for one another. And I don't think that people are being violent. I
think people are being very peaceful and being very civil in a time of so much uncivility and so
much violence against innocent people. So thank you again for your service.
Thank you, Alderman. Thanks. Alderman Lawson, you're up.
Thank you, Vice Chair. Good afternoon, Superintendent and team. It's good to see you. I've got a couple
quick questions, and then I have a couple tougher ones. So we had a lot of conversations about hemp in
the last two weeks in this chamber. To what extent has the department been involved with hemp thus far?
And to what extent has the department been involved in the proposed hemp regulation scheme?
What was the question around hemp?
Intoxicating hemp. Yes.
Okay. Do we have any? I don't actually have any information on that right now. I can ask the chief
of patrol if he's got any information on it. Go right ahead.
Your faces say it all. I'll go to the next question, maybe.
Go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. So chief patrol, John, and I think one, I think for the festivals this
year, are you talking about the liquid hemp? So it's, it's, we're talking about regulating
this. I know that we, from the Liquor Commission and BACP and everything, they have a couple of
discussions. Right. And there were only discussions at that time about, I think, hemp being sold in a
liquid form at the larger festivals. Right. Cheap to read. I mean, I don't want to put you in the middle
here, but like Lala. I got my answer, guys. But, but that's, we only had, I got my answer. Don't
worry. We only had an opening discussion and then a follow-up discussion. We'll look into it now.
That says it. We talked a lot about events and overtime too. And I just want to, so how,
and this is maybe more art than science, but how do you determine how many officers extra you might
need above and beyond what's in the district? And then how is that determined when it is billed
and to whom? Obviously I have a lot of large scale venues or events in my ward. But, and then too,
how is that going to change? Because we've talked about cost recovery last year, now this year,
how are we seeing that change going forward for next year? Well, the, first of all, the way that
we determine the number of people we need intel around whatever event that we're planning for,
um, the number of days that that event may go on, um, the threat level, uh, behind it, um, and the
size of the event. Um, uh, for instance, take a parade, for instance, a parade could span a mile
long, a mile and a half, um, and three miles. Um, and we need to make sure that we cover every
location, every intersection, and we have to have our officers spread out. So we did, we determined that,
uh, the chief of patrol sits down with his deputy chief and they work out a plan on how many offices
they need at each intersection, each location and, uh, spread out. So those are things that we do,
uh, to determine how many, uh, people we're going to need, uh, for manpower, uh, uh, for the manpower
initiative. But what, what was the second question? I'm sorry. Who gets the bill and who's determining that?
So, so that, that's a good question. And, and I'll turn it over, uh, to Ryan Fitzsimons.
Uh, uh, to talk a little bit about that. Um, we do what we can to, and we have event numbers
associated with overtime. Right. And, uh, that event number is specific to that particular event.
So we're able to track how much overtime we've spent on that event. And you want to talk a little
bit about, uh, cost recovery? Yes, sir. Uh, Ryan Fitzsimons, uh, deputy director office of the
superintendent. So it's exactly like the superintendent said, we of course have the
overtime tracking codes, but what we've done this year is we've built out digital 211s,
which captures that straight time.
Once we account for the time that we've expended operationally within our department, we take those documents, we give them to the Office of Public Safety Accountant, or sorry, OPSA, the Office of Public Safety Administration, and they essentially work to determine who the organizer is, and then that is the person who's billed.
And then they work with the Department of Finance to actually administer the bill, provided that it is allowable under the Municipal Code and the ordinances that govern that.
Okay. I'll probably have some follow-ups for them tomorrow on that because I know there are certain venues that get a bill and certain events that don't, right?
And we can have a conversation with them tomorrow and then follow up offline.
But as far as going forward to next year, there's really no changes in your processes that you see.
I mean, you're doing everything as far as quantifying overtime for that now.
We're doing that.
I think we need to do a deeper dive and look at some of the events that are going on across the city.
Because, again, you know, when we have to provide services for events, they go up.
Obviously, there are some events that are historical, but it's costing overtime for us.
In essence, in some situations, we may be providing free security for certain events.
Well, and, you know, we've got new leadership at D-Case.
I think there's a lot of people who have left.
And we're going to have to sit down sooner rather than later to talk about, which we know is always going to be a very busy summer.
So we'll start that probably as soon as budget ends.
Agreed.
We had sent you a letter, Superintendent, about safety and security of this chamber and this building following the attacks on Minnesota legislators and the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
I think I was surprised that I didn't hear from anyone in law enforcement, in public safety of this city.
I asked my commander if he even knows where I live.
He does.
But, you know, just as far as, you know, an assessment of this chamber and this building, have you guys had a chance to look at that at all?
Or should we expect a response to our letter?
No, we are looking at it, and we were talking to, obviously, security in the building, and there was a lot of concern.
Look, you know, oftentimes when something like that happens, you know, there are times where we can reach out,
and then there are times where we're careful about how we reach out because we don't want to panic anyone.
But what I will tell you is this.
Through the Bureau of Counterterrorism, we're always looking at threats of all public officials, and we're looking at it to see what it is.
When that happened, we actually did a deep dive to see what's happening in this city and if there are any threats.
Now, were there some threats to some people?
Yes, absolutely.
And we were on top of that.
If we know that you are targeted in any particular way, we're going to make sure that we reach out.
We push information through the Joint Terrorism Task Force to determine if there are any credible threats out there.
So we do make sure that we cover that.
And I'll have Chief DeVries talk just a little bit real quickly about that.
Chief DeVries, Bureau of Counterterrorism.
And to the Seuss point, there's a lot of things that go into place that we don't want to say in this forum.
There's canines do sweeps of this building daily now, and that goes through us, and you might not know that.
But, yeah, those sweeps are conducted.
The sweeps are conducted of the chamber itself.
There's also other protocols that are put in place on the walkway underneath, along with the Cook County Sheriff's.
We've had conversations about that.
And it's not just this building.
It's all of our federal buildings as well.
You know, you have the Dirksen Federal Building as well.
So we sit down with the U.S. Marshals.
We have many conversations.
The fence are great.
Everybody goes through a metal detector.
Everybody's got bollards.
You know, we're like from the last century, the 1800s, right, that we just started going through metal detectors to get upstairs, not even in the building.
So I'm happy to hear that that conversation continues.
But I hope we can have, if not a subject matter hearing or a report back.
I know we've talked about a barrier here as well.
We've had some times where it gets a little rowdy back there.
So I don't know if, like, how long you've been here.
20 years.
20 years.
So remember, we did a tabletop and a whole drill in this building a few years back.
So it was at all over two and a half, but I've worked for this video.
So it might have been right before that.
But we did conduct a full-scale drill in this building of an attack actually happening while the chamber was in progress.
So let's do that once a term then, maybe at the beginning of every term is good, because we had 14 new members here that didn't do that.
Yeah, there's – well, we'll talk about that.
But there's a lot that goes into that, a lot of manpower that's being taken when it does go into effect, and it shuts down a portion of the downtown area as well.
So it's got to be, you know, well put in that.
That's a little more involved.
All right.
I look forward to hearing more on that.
Teargassing on Lakewood in Lakeview was in my ward that Alderman Lesbada brought up earlier.
And we've had some issues with reports, right?
We've had officers show up, and they're not going to take a report.
You've got to go to the station.
We've had businesses try to file reports online, and they've been declined or denied.
We had the homeowner who wanted to file a report for home invasion, trespass, criminal damage to property, kidnapping, assault.
I understand why he can't file something for assault, not being a victim.
But I think he was initially told no at 19, and then he was given someone who would take the report for criminal damage to property.
I think it would be helpful if there was some sort of standardized language for all the front desks and all the officers.
If there's an ICE incident, this is the reports we will take.
These are the ones we cannot take.
And if there was some centralized location, right?
I mean, and this could be with the mayor's office, too, because I understand the difficult position you guys are in.
My community supports the police.
You know that.
We want you guys to be safe.
We want you to protect us from ICE, too, and we understand that that's a little difficult.
But, you know, if there was some way to better understand so that they don't have to call me, we don't have to call you,
that everyone at the desk knows, hey, this is what you have to do to file a report.
Or if there's an issue with filing an online report, you get a call from a real person to say why so we can get that in.
That would be helpful, especially when it comes to ICE sightings, because there's a lot of people that don't know what to do.
What simple is this?
If someone was exposed to something, gas, CSC, and whatever happens, and officers show up, they need to do a report.
I mean, it's that simple.
And we'll make sure that that happens.
All right.
A couple quick things, then.
Are you documenting reporting every time an officer is impacted by gas?
Yes.
Okay.
I know you mentioned earlier that you have been, the department has been verifying the idea of federal agents on several occasions.
Is that a number that you can share through the chair?
We'll have to look into it.
I don't know how much we have documented, but we'll share what we have.
I think it would be good to document it, right?
And, again, there may be some things you have to redact on that for whatever reason.
But knowing that you are verifying this, right?
Because it's very hard to see someone who's not in uniform that you recognize with a face covered.
We've come a really long way in this city on constitutional policing.
I know we've got some work to do, which are some other questions maybe for someone else.
So our residents are trained to expect professional body cam, face, badge, name.
And when you don't get that, it's a whole different story.
You and I swore an allegiance to the same constitution, and so did they.
And I don't know how it's misinterpreted as badly as it is, but it's really gone off the wire.
So whatever we can do to be on the same page with your department, with residents, I think that will help because I think most of us do know that you guys are in a tough spot.
We've had a good year.
We've had a good year in 19.
We have a great team that's handling Wrigley.
Obviously, Pride is our marquee event that has gone well.
I know we use a lot of overtime, but it's worth it.
And I want to thank you and your team for all the coordination that goes into that every year and all the big things that happened in 44 and Lakeview.
So with that, I'll turn back.
Thank you.
Thank you, Vice Chair.
Alderman Robinson.
Superintendent, good to see you this evening.
I want to also add to my colleagues in support of you and how you are leading this great organization into new heights.
We know that we have a target on our back as it relates to Chicago, where Chicago is crime-ridden, and we know that that's not the case, that crime is, in fact, going down.
But we have a perception issue, and certainly it would be great if you have some thoughts on that.
As it relates to the 4th Ward, let me give kudos to Commander Herbert Williams, who is doing an outstanding job in the 4th Ward.
We have hot spots at 35th and King Drive, 47th and Cottage Grove.
We were able to clean up 43rd and Lake Park by the one stop.
It is because of the work of Herbert and the captain that we were able to clean that area up.
So kudos to Commander Williams.
As it relates to the 2nd District, the captain who is there has been doing an outstanding job.
Though he is not in the commander's seat, he has been doing a fantastic job of holding it together.
I'm curious when we will see, if not that captain, which is my recommendation, but Superintendent, I know that you are in the seat.
and make those big decisions, and I would never step in that seat.
But I'm curious to know when we will see a new commander in the 2nd District.
Well, I'll tell you this, Alderman, and I mentioned this earlier, the decision has been made.
I don't name people until I get an approval.
We vet it internally, and there's a vetting from the 5th floor.
So the name has been submitted, so hopefully we'll be seeing that name pretty soon.
Great.
The work that we have been doing to curtail transforming the 4th Warden to safe community,
certainly to have a captain and a commander that's doing an outstanding job.
But I'll tell you that having a relationship and being able to work alongside of Hine has been a tremendous help.
And I believe that the commander and the captain all the way to Hine,
that is how we've been able to really get after four or five hotspots in the ward.
So, again, it's just not the work of the commander, the captain.
Again, I want to also give kudos to John Hine and the box for helping me to navigate some really tough times
that we've had in the 4th Ward, even as it relates to the summer.
The reason that we were able to have a calm summer at relation to 31st Street Beach is because of the work of John Hine
and the previous commander.
We put a lot of work and energy with the park district, with the mayor's office,
and I believe that we had a very calm summer at the beach is because of the great work of your team.
So I want to thank you for that.
Thank you, Alan.
There still is a perception problem around not having enough officers.
You and I have talked about that.
I'm curious to know what those numbers look like.
And how are we bringing on officers that look like the makeup of the city specifically?
So let me just pause there to let you answer that question.
So a couple of questions.
One of the things that you talked about was the perception of crime in the city of Chicago.
Look, our crime has been declining over the past couple of years and seriously declining this year.
And that's the work of the men and women of this police department and my leadership team that's in that box over there.
Do we still have crime issues?
Yes.
Like any other big city, we still have crime issues.
But the decrease has been steady in the work that's being done, especially around what we're doing.
Now, to go into your next question, that also leads to the perception of crime.
Do we have less officers than we had 10 years ago?
Absolutely.
However, we're working a lot smarter right now.
The utilization of technology has been effective for us in bringing down crime.
And then just having plans.
That's the most important thing.
And you just mentioned it.
We have what was deemed the safest summer since 1962 this past summer.
The work of the men and women on the ground, especially in patrol, the leadership from John Hine and all of our bureaus working together, the Bureau of Counterterrorism, the Bureau of Detectives, all the way over to the Bureau of Constitutional Policing and Community Policing.
Everyone working together is what has helped us there.
The numbers, I can get you the numbers.
What I will tell you is that we're continuing to work for recruitment to get as many qualified candidates in as we can.
Now, we know that it's not just in Chicago.
It's been across the country and in some places across the world.
It's been hard to recruit police officers lately.
It's getting better.
But we're reaching out to to multiple places.
I'll go to Deputy Chief Bowness just to give a quick overview of what we're doing for recruitment.
Before he goes up, that reminds me, you mentioned using technology.
And one of our challenges is our budget, right?
Dollars and cents.
And so are you seeing that we can cut cost because we're utilizing some of this technology?
This is a tough situation when it comes to our budget and no one wants to cut CPD's budget, right?
But when you look at technology, is that helping you to be able to bring your budget numbers down or shifting resources?
Well, here, and this is an important part of the budget when we talk about lawsuits, things of that nature.
When we have the right technology in place, our documentation of evidence, our recordings of crime and criminal activity, how we present cases to the state's attorney's office, those cases are a lot more airtight.
They're more accurate, less likely to end in something being overturned, which could later come back to haunt you.
Our helicopters and the technology there, instead of ground pursuits, where we are pursuing someone who has committed a violent crime, we now have air support that could follow these individuals to locations and then have our officers arrive on scene and arrest them.
That's been a lot more effective than a ground pursuit that could end in a terrible traffic accident.
These are settlements that have happened that we've looked at and figured out what can we do as a department to reduce the number of lawsuits that the department has seen over years, and what can we do to reduce the cost of those lawsuits?
Technology is a major factor there.
Also, the technology will help us with our officers who are working inside, and we're working on slow systems or systems that are not talking to each other, and they're going into different systems to complete an arrest.
Having one system, one location to go in and provide information that can auto-populate other reports would reduce the amount of time that these officers are in the station.
That will also reduce overtime.
So, yes, can technology cut costs 100 percent?
Thank you.
And I think we were punting to one of the leaders in the box.
Yes.
Deputy Chief Boulness from the Training Support Group.
Recruitment and retention has been out there at the military bases, high schools, going with the ROTC.
They have the faith-based, the community-driven events, affinity-based events, educational institutions, colleges.
Also, every large-scale major event in the city, we have a recruitment and retention team there.
We're looking for candidates who possess the character, discipline, and aptitude necessary to fulfill the role of a police officer.
Also, going out there and looking for candidates, we're also looking for a diverse pool from our communities.
I got 20 minutes, 20 seconds left.
Definitely don't have 20 minutes.
Definitely.
Superintendent, thank you very much.
Thank you, sir.
Appreciate it.
You could have had extra 20 seconds, though.
You good?
All right.
Alderman Chico.
Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Superintendent, for the work you do and everybody in the box.
I know the dedication you put in day in, day out in the 10th Ward greatly appreciates it.
Speaking on technology, Soup, how many mobile cameras do we have?
I'll pass that over to Director Casey.
That we actually take and put it to different locations.
Oh, mobile cameras.
Yeah, mobile cameras.
Do we have that number, Dan?
So we have what we call now RDKs, our Rapid Deploy Kits.
These are cameras that can be mounted on poles by city employees, so we don't go through the whole process with the vendor.
We bought them.
We deploy them according to CPD's requirements.
We have about 60 of those.
And then we have trailers, and we have about eight of those.
Yeah.
Trailers are what I was referring to.
How often are they utilized?
All the time.
And so we have to take them down sometimes for maintenance.
You know, they use a generator with batteries, so we do have to take them offline for preventive maintenance.
And regular maintenance, that's sort of one of our challenges with them.
But our trailers are always out there.
So those are one of the tools that we have used in the 10th Ward, leaning on Commander Millmine.
Because oftentimes when our residents call, they want to see some type of action immediately.
So putting a mobile camera right on a block is something they see.
That blue light is intimidating.
Is there a criteria that needs to be met to request one, or is it just working with the commander to bring one into the field?
Usually, and I can pass this over to Chief Hine.
I know that.
When I was Area 2 Deputy Chief, we had an issue between 75th and 76th Street in that location where people were, you know,
crowding the streets, partying, street takeovers, things of that nature.
We were able to put something up over there, and it was very helpful for keeping that down and resolving that problem.
So, Chief Heine, you want to talk a little bit more about what we do?
John Ion, Chief of Patrol.
So, actually, Alderman, your commander has been very proactive in that request.
And, you know, Keith calls all the time in requests.
So, no, I do, you know, through the superintendent, it's a request through Bureau of Patrol.
And if we find a mobile pod, we move it to their request or their location until it serves that purpose.
And then, you know, obviously another request comes in somewhere else, and we're able to move one of those eight mobile pods.
Thank you.
And the only reason I ask that is, yes, the commander has been very proactive.
But oftentimes, residents see that, and it sparks up, well, I want it here, or I want it there.
And just having that knowledge of what's kind of the threshold to request that.
I guess same would go for speed feedback.
How many of those do we have available, the mobile speed feedback radars?
The mobile.
I think Dan.
Dan Casey.
Dan Casey, Managed Deputy of Public Safety IT.
Those are CDOT.
CDOT?
Yeah.
Okay.
We've also utilized those in the wards several times.
Traffic is a big issue in many of our wards, and placing those definitely deters it for a while.
Switching now gears to the DCO and CAPS program, two programs I definitely support.
How do we gauge and measure success?
Is it just through SIMS and the amount of interactions they've had, or is there another barometer that we kind of measure that?
And let me turn that over to Glenn Brooks.
He's been sitting in the back quiet, so we're going to give you something.
Good afternoon, Director Glenn Brooks, Office of Community Policing.
So SIMS we do use as one measure of success of our efforts there.
We also look at the number of participants that move from being participants to volunteers to actually volunteer leaders.
We also look at what we're doing in terms of problem solving.
So in many of those engagements, they will identify problems.
We look at our ability to mitigate those problems.
In addition to that, we also look at the number of community-building engagements that we do that meet certain criteria, whether that is to engage young people, older adults, and so forth.
So we look at various different metrics, and as we get into 2026, we're looking at bringing in additional software, which would help us with the reporting and engaging those metrics.
Lastly, I'll add we do also do sentiment surveys, which the commanders get the feedback on to see how effective we are engaging the community to try to move sentiment in a positive direction.
Chief Navalis, do you want to chime in a little bit there?
Yeah, you know what, Chief Navalis, Office of Community Policing, Director Brooks touched on some of the markers that we look at to ensure that there is success.
The other thing that we also look at is all the DCOs in each of the districts have phones.
So we're also looking at the call logs to see how often they're making those contacts with those individuals out in the community and how responsive they're being.
Just to touch on a few numbers, and Director Brooks touched on this a little bit,
the total number of community engagement, both for community building and problem solving to date, as of yesterday, was 12,733 citywide.
When we look at the total number of individuals that we've touched on in the community, we're looking at over 166,000.
So we look at not only the community aspect of it, measuring how we're building those relationships, but we're looking at how quickly and how effectively we can mitigate issues in the community when it comes to the problem-solving aspect of it.
Thank you for that.
You know, coming off the weekend of a bunch of trunk-or-treats, I want to make sure our officers are given the recognition they deserve for putting the time in and attending all these Halloween events.
Switching gears once again, I have the last beach along the lake in the city.
How do resources, how are they allocated equally amongst the lakefront beaches?
Oftentimes we have, on a given weekend, thousands of people visit Calumet Park Beach, and we want to make sure that we're supported when all these visitors do come.
Absolutely.
Chief Heine?
John Heine, Chief of Patrol.
So the allocation of resources, Deputy Chief Sonora Ben, along with Commander Melmine, will request and let us know if there's any special events, especially going on the lakefront.
At that time, we'll move resources.
I know we have priority response teams that can move in there.
We work closely with the Park District to see if they have any additional resources that can go down there.
But we also have kind of a response overtime initiative where we cap it to have specialized or targeted overtime missions.
We send those officers, according to the beaches, if we have any events going on.
Thank you.
And one more question.
The Tenth Ward is positioned uniquely bordering another state.
And oftentimes in my CAPS meetings and talking with the Fourth District and the Fifth District, for that matter, bordering Indiana presents obstacles like no other district or ward in the city.
What's our relationship?
Commander Melmine is doing a great job with developing a relationship with Whiting and Hammond, Indiana.
What's our overall relationship?
Maybe the chief or you could speak to that.
Well, I can tell you right now, I've been in contact with a few of the other chiefs out there, especially, you know, you had an incident out there with a car that flipped and an individual got out and started to shoot at the police.
And, you know, we were trying to determine whose jurisdiction it was, and it eventually turned out to be ours.
Right.
It was tricky.
It gets a little tricky like that.
So, yeah, having conversations along the way.
I know some years ago I started a conversation with people out there when we were looking at trying to develop an intradiction team, but not a whole lot of conversation lately.
But I'll turn some over to the chief of patrol and talk about it a little bit.
Well, I think Commander Melmine has done a great job in relationships with the bordering jurisdiction over there.
And the incident the superintendent was talking about was a great collaboration.
But as far as information and relationships, it's been nothing but positive in every interaction that we've had so far.
Thank you.
Thank you for all the hard work.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Alderman Chico.
We're going to go to Alderwoman Lenny Manaha-Hoppenworth.
I just like saying your whole name.
Thank you, Vice Chair.
Good afternoon, Superintendent.
How are you, Alderman?
I'm okay.
You know, there's a lot going on.
I want to first say thank you and everyone in the box for your work from the 48th Ward.
And you mentioned earlier that the 24th District has seen a decrease in violent crime.
And we know that it's because of work that we've done together with our CAPS teams and both of the commanders in the 20th and the 24th districts working together with our youth, with the CARES team, and making sure that folks have what they need.
And I just want to touch on four things.
One of them is that every day we are thinking of our neighbors and how we're trying to protect ourselves against ICE and the assaults that they're provoking in our neighborhoods.
And so I also would like more ongoing conversations of how we can work together, especially with officers on the ground who might not know what to do.
You know, I do patrol also when I hear of reports.
And when I do speak to officers, I'm just not sure whether or not they know what to do.
Honestly, I don't know.
So I think that's just an ongoing conversation I'd like to have with somebody.
I don't know who.
Two, about victim services.
I had a question about the Office of Victim Services.
And in 2023, there were six staff members.
And now we've expanded to, is it 55 or 56?
And we have that department filled with the domestic violence specialists, victim specialists, I understand.
Is that right?
And so that's an 866% increase, it seems.
And so I was curious, because we're at a time right now where organizations are seeing cuts from DFSS funding by 43%.
And I was just curious why this office is expanding and not instead invest – we are not investing instead in community-based organizations who are doing the work on the ground for, you know, rental assistance, for cash assistance, for –
I just want to understand.
What's the difference between what we're doing here and what organizations are already offering?
Well, here's what I'll tell you, then I'll turn it over to Director Milstein.
This is specific to people who have been victimized by crimes, especially violent crimes.
So when we're looking at victim services, there has to be outreach to these victims.
Otherwise, these victims feel ignored or they feel like no one cares about what has happened to them.
These are people who have been traumatized, people who have lost family members, people who have been catastrophically injured.
And they want to know that we as a police department are following up and trying to bring justice to their cause.
As you may have heard earlier, there was made mention where some people feel like, you know, that if they don't have some level of contact, they feel like they've been forgotten.
And everyone has a specific issue out there.
And I understand that.
And I get what you're saying.
If I'm a person who's looking for a place to an affordable place to live, I need someone to help me with that.
But I can't reallocate bodies from victim services that would help people who have been victims of violent crime to cover someone else's needs.
We need people to cover their needs also.
So it's not that we're taking one thing from another place.
This is what we need to build our department.
And it's also part of our consent decree.
These are things that we need to do to build our department and to continue to build trust.
So, Mike, you want to talk to me?
Can I just clarify one thing, Superintendent?
This office, is it mandated by the consent decree, these positions?
So, yes.
I'll let Mike Milstein talk to you.
Yeah, I can speak to that.
So to this most recent question, the consent decree requires that CPD provide victim services citywide.
So the office itself is not necessarily mandated, but we are mandated to provide victim services across the entire city.
To your earlier question, it kind of explained what we do.
Can I clarify, how many positions are mandated?
I don't think that we – it does not mandate any specific number of positions.
It mandates that we provide services citywide.
What we've been trying to do with our victim services team is we've been very intentional, as we've been expanding it, to bring in community-based organizations who, to your point, Alderman, we know that they are doing the hard work.
We are not trying to take away what they're doing.
We're trying to complement and fit into the overall, the holistic approach of victim services.
What is unique about what CPD can do is because we have access to case reports, we have immediate access to victims and survivors much faster than an agency in the community would, where in most cases, they're only getting victims and survivors when someone reaches out for support.
What we have the ability to do on our end is we can actually be proactive and reach out to someone.
We know that they had a recent incident.
We can have a non-police trained individual reach out to that individual, that victim or survivor, and ask, what can we do to help them?
Our goal as our unit is to help them start their immediate healing process.
Ultimately, our overall outcome goal is we want to be able to connect them and make a warm handoff between us and the community-based providers.
So, in theory, our expansion should be able to funnel more victims and survivors actually out to community-based organizations.
Okay.
Great.
And then do you have – are all those positions filled, or do you still have positions that need to be?
Sure.
So, currently, I have 13 victim specialists who provide support for victims of non-fatal shootings, stabbings, and blunt force traumas and other aggravated batteries,
16 domestic violence specialists, and we have 26 vacancies for victim specialists.
Those are currently – we are currently conducting 90 interviews to refill those vacancies.
I'm hoping to have interviews done by the middle of November.
Can I just jump in here for real quick?
I think it would be helpful through the chair, Director Milstein, if you can provide for all of the positions that you have,
sort of how they're broken out, if they're currently filled, and then if they're in the process of being interviewed for.
And then, in addition to that, separately, could we get – I think it would be helpful to get a sense of –
because I know you just mentioned with this team you have the opportunity to be proactive for victims.
So, can we get some statistics on that?
Like, I know you mentioned a number to me earlier when I asked the question.
I think it was, like – I don't know.
I want to say, like, 13,000 outreaches.
How does that compare to the number of crime victims, I guess?
So, the number of reported crimes – just in the last year, I'm not looking for, like, you know, five years' worth of data,
but just in the last year, how many victims of crimes do we have on record compared to the number of outreaches
and touches that your team has had?
Sure, absolutely.
Sorry about that, Alderman.
Go ahead.
No, that's okay.
Thank you for that.
Going back to overtime, Alderman Sigcio Lopez asked a question about the amount of money that we're spending on demonstrations and protests.
It's like $5 million.
Is that right?
Is that out of $150 million that we're spending on overtime?
And so, my question is, where is the rest of that overtime coming from?
Because $5 million out of $145 million is very small.
I know others have said most overtime is because of demonstrations, but that doesn't math.
So, I'm just curious, where is that money going?
And then also, I'm also interested in, through the chair, if you can explain or share what, like, internal controls we're using to prevent what I'm understanding to be end of shift overtime.
And that's when officers might take a new case right before their shift ends, and that causes them to move into overtime.
And then I'm also curious if you could send through the chair, and you can speak on it now, you know, again, of $150 million, if five is going to demonstrations, what is going to, like, medical backfill or court time training, end of shift extensions?
Is that something that you could provide through the chair?
We can get you all of it, because it's not just the demonstrations, there are events and everything else.
We can get you all of those things that you're asking.
Thank you.
One thing about the 48th Ward is that we have a lot of small business corridors, and people really love to see you all out and about, out of your cars, you know, either on the street, on foot patrol, or on your bikes.
But what I've been told is that overtime is being used for foot patrols, so can anybody speak on that and explain that to me?
Because when I speak to officers who are on patrol, they say that I'm here because of overtime.
Yeah, Chief of Patrol, you want to talk a little bit?
Sure, John, I am Chief of Patrol.
So I think every district we've tasked the commanders at CompStat and everything, identifying officers within our district who are bike trained, obviously, for bike patrol.
And then foot patrols are strongly stressed that, you know, it's important for the residents and community to be familiar with their officers.
But as far as using overtime for that, I would have to look into the 24th district and see if they're using that for an overtime purpose.
Because obviously the foot officers and bike officers should be working their normal hours instead of on overtime to be doing foot patrol or bike patrol.
Yeah, yeah.
It's not just the 24th, it's the 20th district.
20th district, okay.
We'll look into both of that.
But we strongly encourage the bike patrols and foot patrols in all of our districts.
Yeah, thanks.
Can I ask another question?
How many more do you have?
I have one.
One?
Okay, go ahead.
Do you feel like we have enough detectives, Superintendent?
Well, here I will, you know, as the police, I would always say we could always use more.
But what I will say is that the detective division that we have right now, the chief of our city is doing a brilliant job of utilizing them to the best.
Of her ability and their abilities.
The work that they're doing over there right now is incredible.
So we promote.
We keep up with attrition as best we can to make sure that we have enough detectives to do the work that's being done right now.
But we've also supplemented those teams with support teams when it comes to homicides and shootings.
And I'll let Chief of City talk a little bit about it.
And Senator City, Chief of Detectives, thank you for your question.
And just like the superintendent said, no one would ever say we wouldn't want more of a very specialized role.
But what I do think is important is that we have the right supports in place so that detectives don't have to do all the things that they're not specialized in,
which is what was the case before we really started making a lot of these improvements over the past.
five years. Some of the teams that the superintendent just mentioned in the areas,
we have homicide investigative support teams who will work with these detectives once we've
identified a suspect so we can immediately get them into custody and move forward with getting
them charged. We have the area technology centers. Those people are specialized in being able to
collect and analyze digital evidence. Very time consuming process. If our detectives were down
doing that, they're not going to be out there knocking on doors, finding interviews to conduct
and all of those things. We have our family liaison office, which sometimes people think that that's
so that detectives don't have to interact with the families, but that's not the case at all.
It is just ensuring that the right supports are there for what many families do want from the
police department. We have our forensics center or services that we've invested heavily in,
and that comes back to making sure that the detectives have the kind of evidence that's
going to allow them to present the strongest case for prosecution. No one would expect that
detectives would be processing this evidence or on the phone all the time trying to chase down to see
what is the status of this. So having all of those specialized positions in place are just as critical
as having the detectives to do that work. And I think our efforts have been towards making sure
we have that kind of robust team in place to support our detectives.
Thank you. And I see your homicide clearance rate is getting better all the time. I'm glad
for that. I just want to let you know that one of my team members' family needed a detective last
week. Nolan Hart is a victim of a suspected homicide and could not reach a detective for three days.
So I would like to follow up with somebody about that. Because the stats are great. But what we're
hearing is that there just isn't enough personnel to go around if somebody is off.
And then my other comments have to do with civilianization. You know, if we did accelerate
that process, would you indeed get more detectives or other officers that are needed on the ground?
We were doing a better job of civilianizing our department.
Well, yeah, we're working toward that right now. And absolutely, it would open up positions for
officers to be in the field a lot more and the possibility of increasing the number of detectives.
Yeah. And just to remind everybody, we do anticipate the workforce allocation study results to be coming
out sometime in the spring. Yeah. All right. You good? Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, Vice Chair. Thank
you, Super. No problem. Chair Taylor, can you hear us? All right. Can you hear? Yep. We got you. Yep. Go
right ahead. Hey, Superintendent. How are you? I'm good, Alderman. How are you? We work for the city.
Um, got a couple of questions. It's been a long day. Um, where are we on the engine that young ordinance?
Well, on our end, uh, uh, we completed it. Um, but, um, obviously there are some things going on. Um,
uh, you want to talk a little bit about that, uh, Scott? Uh, we're continuing to, I'm sorry,
Scott Spears, general counsel. Um, we have gone through the engine at young ordinance. We've
provided our feedback to, um, city's IGA and, uh, we're available if, uh, there are further
discussions on that ordinance. Um, and that's, uh, that's where we're at with it. Okay. Through
the chair, I would, uh, I want to have a meeting about where we are for that. Um, it is important
that we don't, um, digress with some of the things that we've been able to, uh, move forward,
uh, when it comes to policing. And so I want to have that conversation. Superintendent, can
you talk about Memorial Day at 4th of July incidents versus last year?
Sure. Um, I'll have the, uh, Chief of Patrol talk a little bit about the numbers, um, compared
to last year. Uh, we, we actually saw a lot of success this year.
Thanks, John. I'm Chief of Patrol. So Memorial Day in the 4th of July due to the, the deployments,
kind of a platoon approach to deployments to the areas, um, and working with obviously the
residents of the area, faith-based business corridors, alders, and everyone, we saw a great
reduction in the numbers. I'd have to get you the actual numbers. I don't have
those numbers exactly with me right now for the 4th of July or Memorial Day, but, uh,
this year is a lot more peaceful for sure.
Absolutely. Um, you ain't supposed to get shout outs, but I'm gonna get shout outs to
Commander Williams, Commander Branch, Commander Mark, and Commander Quartz. Um, I really appreciate
the work that my commanders do. Um, I like that they're out in the community. They do come
to the office. There is a conversation. I feel like this was something that I needed in my
first term, but glad that we've done it in the second terms. Um, you might have to give
me this through the chair, but how many CPD officers have been hurt by ICE agents? We've seen these
videos go around where the police have gotten, um, pepper sprayed or knocked over. There have
been a bunch of videos. And so want to know how many ICE agents, how many police officers actually
got hurt by ICE agents? Well, we'll get you that information through this year. All right.
Can we talk about team takeovers? So after not implementing the, um, the curfew, how many more
team takeovers have we had? Well, here's what I can tell you. We, we had a, a lot of, uh, team
takeovers scheduled, but, uh, as I said before, um, I, as a department, I don't worry about what we
don't have or what tools we don't have a focus on those things that we do have and our department
and our members, uh, utilize what we have in the best way possible. Um, we've been able to stop a
lot of these things, uh, by getting there first, uh, getting the Intel, taking it seriously, mapping
out a plan around it and making sure, uh, that these things don't spark up. We know that when these
things happen, um, uh, the kids start to fight and they could also lead to a shooting. And in some
cases we've even had homicides. So we have, uh, greatly reduced the number of those just by getting
out there. Um, and you know, along with that, uh, working, uh, with CPS, um, having them message
things out, um, working with, uh, a lot of our, uh, violence interrupters who show up, uh, to help out
with these teen takeovers has, uh, has been instrumental. And I'll pass this over to the
chief of patrol to talk a little bit about, uh, the planning around that.
Thank you, superintendent. Again, John Hine, chief of patrol. Uh, you know,
Alderman, there was a slight uptick this year for our teen trends or teen gatherings that you
call from last year, but, uh, I just to piggyback on exactly everything that the superintendent said,
the collaboration between the bureaus here, between the Bureau of Counterterrorism,
um, director Brooks, uh, CVI, especially CPS helped us out a lot this year, sending out letters,
obviously to the parents to, uh, to inform of the events that might take place. But, uh, early
deployment, the strategies, the men and women in, in, uh, in the districts that got out there early,
the commanders that you spoke about and everything, it did an incredible job with the collaboration
setting up and, uh, the strategy. So it was a very peaceful, uh, you can knock on wood kind of,
uh, uh, summer for as far as teen, teen takeovers ago. So I just want to say to the superintendent
and the entire department, thank you for not over-policing our young people. Thank you all
for taking the stand to make sure our young people are protected when these type of things happen.
Thank you for not doing what the country pay or wants you to do, which mistreat black and brown
students. And so I appreciate you for taking the stand and you actually being able to speak up to
say that the tools in my box I could use already to make sure this is not happening. Can anybody
talk to me about cold cases? I had a constituent call me about an old case and I didn't really know
where to center or what to do. So of course I sent it to the police department. Where are we and what
is the work that CPD is doing around cold cases? Uh, we'll turn it over to chief or city.
Antoinette or city chief of detectives. Good evening. All there one woman. Uh, so each of our
areas have, uh, a dedicated cold case team of experienced homicide detectives also supported
with civilian investigative analysts. Uh, together that team will regularly review files that have not
been able to be, uh, closed at these cases, uh, the leads dead ended. Uh, they could not develop any
more leads or go anywhere with it. Uh, but our department is never going to say that a case is
done. Uh, we're going to continue to look at it. We're going to see if there's an opportunity,
especially with developments in, uh, DNA and forensic sciences to see if there's anything.
we can do to process. Currently, we have each of these investigative analysts every month
produce cases where they meet with the Illinois State Police Forensics Lab, Cook County State's
Attorney's Office, and the detective leadership to go through and to see if there's something
that we can do with those cases so that we can move them forward. It's a very active team,
a very committed team, and it's very important that families understand and victims understand
we are never going to suspend a case where there's an unsolved murder or anything like that. We are
going to consistently be looking at those cases to see what we can do, and we're going to do that
with our partners. Where are we with talking about a team dedicated around missing women and children?
Antoinette City Chief of Detectives again. So right now, our work has included, again, as you may be
aware, there's a statewide task force. We've been showing up there regularly. We have dedicated
designees who will attend and get feedback there. Our missing person cases continue to be handled at
the area level. I think what's important to understand about our missing person cases is when
you look at the end of the year for the past several years, we're at a 99% clearance rate. The
majority of these missing person cases do have resolution. And as I think your question is getting
at, what is going on with the 1%, especially if that is cumulative? Some of the things that we have done
this past year, we developed a missing person's dashboard. What we've been working to do is to
try to identify trends that are happening where we see the same people, oftentimes young people,
who are reported as missing or are long-time absences from the home. What we want to do is
to make sure that those cases not only continually get the attention they deserve. We're never going to
assume because somebody was reported missing before that it is not a bonafide incident and that they
could not be in danger or harm's way. But what we want to do is to make sure that our detectives are
able to move through their cues when they get these cases so that they're not constantly having to go
out to the same locations when we could be connecting those families to services. So we've actively been
doing that. Another thing that we have developed this year in the Bureau of Detectives is what we call a
missing persons investigative task tracker tool. What this does is allow our supervisors in the special
victims unit to see all in one place the status of our detectives who are assigned to missing persons,
what the status of their cases are. Are those cases moving along? Are key investigative tasks being done
and in a timely manner? That way, no case is sitting there. As we heard earlier, it's not just with
homicides. Families need to hear from our detectives and they have a right to know and to trust that
those cases are active and moving forward. I appreciate that. My last question is,
and maybe this is something you can get me through the chair, how many jobs at CPD
that we have officers at that could currently be taken up by civilians? And that's across the board.
So, Alderman, what I will tell you is when we get the workforce allocation, which is supposed to be the
first quarter of the new year, we will also have a dashboard up around it, giving constant information
about what that could be. It would be really hard to give you a concrete number right now until
we get that workforce allocation study back. But I promise you, we will be getting you that
information as soon as we get it to them and we'll make sure that we keep you abreast of all of the
updates. Thank you. I'll end with this. Superintendent, you were what we needed at this time and I appreciate
you. Despite what's going on in D.C. and what's going on in our communities with this ICE agents,
I always feel like that you're honest with us and you're truthful about what CPD can and cannot do.
And while I know we have no control over these ICE agents, I want to make sure that we're talking to
you about legislation that we can push on the city, county, and federal level about when folks come in
our communities and they're ruffling the feathers of everyday citizens and people, what is the punishment
for them? And I don't care if it came from D.C. You're pulling teachers out of schools. You're
pulling people out of cars. The videos that we've seen are horrible. And while I get that you, if they
have a signed warrant that you all can't intervene, it still leaves us with a bad taste in our mouth
about police. Superintendent, don't quit. I know it ain't easy for you. I appreciate you being here
and keep up the good work. Thanks, Chairman. Well, thank you all the women for that. And I'm sure
CPD appreciates it and we'll keep communication through your third term. Thank you, Alderman.
Next, we'll have Alderman Mitts. Alderman Mitts, are you on still? Yes, I am. Thank you. Thank you,
Chairman. Good evening, Superintendent, and to all your team. I wanted to ask about sex trafficking.
You know, whether it's a big issue or not, do you have numbers that can reflect on the number
of sex trafficking? First of all, good afternoon, Alderman Mitts. I'm going to turn that over
to the Bureau of Counterterrorism, Chief DeVries. Okay. Chief DeVries from the Bureau of Counterterrorism,
and good evening, Alderman Mitts. Good evening. We do have a task force that works with the
federal authorities. It consists of detectives and police officers. That task force handles the
obviously across borders and the high attention type human trafficking cases. We also work collectively
with the detective division on a lot of the tips that come in. They get filtered through. If it's
something that's going to be more longer term or something that needs the federal abilities,
we take that case on the human trafficking task force. If not, then the detective division handles
it. But both times, we're lock and step with each other and sharing that information. We do have a new
order that has just been published on human trafficking and how the flow of that information and how those
cases are handled. That has just come out. That should help some of this be more thorough and more
transparent as in numbers, as what you're asking for. But yes, human trafficking is a huge priority.
Year to date, what's our numbers here in the city?
We'll get that to you through the chair, if you don't mind.
Okay. That would be fine. And also, the areas where they are occurring at, there are a lot of young
girls, and I hear things happening just from the community standpoint where kids go missing. And I
guess it'd be some may just leave home, go with friends and families. But you should have, I want the
numbers of calls, even though they may have went home. But I want to see the trend that's occurring.
And it's not just here in Chicago. This is occurring all across the country. And I don't want to get where
we're not focusing in on it, because I think it's really important for us to do that.
Let me ask another question around mental illness. How do you handle mental illness case now in your
department and interacting with mental illness? A person that may have, you get a call on someone, but they have
mental illness. How do you all interact with them? And let me just say this, I'm not saying that to say it's in a
negative way, but I think it's something, because we have so many mental illness, it'd just be on the street
walking and things happen. So we have a number on a number of cases as well.
Are you asking for calls for service, dealing with people with mental illness? I'm sure we can
say that to you, ma'am.
Okay. All right. Very good. And I just want to echo my faith-based organization who work with the
police department from 11, 15, and 25 have three great commanders who, you know, work really close
with us. When we get through with the commanders and the DCOs and the new CCSCs out here, we have
a lot of the nonviolent institutes.
who are working with us as well, we're able to get a lot of things down collectively.
So that's another part of interacting with public safety
and to help to bridge the relationships with the police
and all of us trying to solve the crime and make it safer on our streets.
So I just wanted to send a thank you out to all of them,
including the commanders and all of our faith-based leaders in all districts,
the CAPS program, they're all working together.
So let me ask this question.
Ottoman Viegas mentioned earlier today about open drug market,
and you gave a very good insight that there are a lot of things that you could do,
but privilege have been removed to not allow.
Well, first of all, what is the number for a call for open drug market?
If someone were to call and say, well, they're selling drugs,
I think you rank them by number.
What number would that be if that was just a call that came in and said they're selling drugs?
Are you, when you say ranking, are you making a number system?
I mean, priority.
Priority calls.
Yes.
Okay.
It is a priority call, ma'am.
And obviously, if it's a priority, our officers up can get there quickly.
Obviously, there are times, especially in the district like 11, 15, those really busy districts,
10 districts, where we have issues with domestic violence, shootings, shots fired.
Obviously, those calls are going to take precedent, but a call of selling drugs is up in priority.
So I don't want people to believe that it's not a priority.
But the first thing that we look at is the safety of life and the possibility of people being physically injured.
Those are always going to be priority calls.
Domestic violence incident is a priority one call.
So we want to make sure that when we get to those calls, the officers are free to get to them,
and there's nothing else more pressing when it comes to someone's life or their safety.
Well, thank you for that information.
I hope one day we get to the quality of life just so that we can keep working.
That means we have work to do to get to the quality of life, of seeing it, and it's a challenge.
I get it.
Let me ask, can you give me your take on legalizing hemp products?
So, ma'am, that question came up a little earlier.
That's something that we're going to have to work on.
Okay.
That's not something that was necessarily on our radar, but that's something that we're going to look at.
Obviously, there's been a legalization of marijuana.
So, you know, these are always going to be conversations.
And I want to go back for something that you said about this being a quality of life issue when it comes to open-air drug markets.
And you're 100% right.
So when we talk about prioritizing calls, we prioritize those calls in a different way because just officers showing up each time there's a call for drug sales,
that's just going to continue.
It becomes a revolving door.
So this is why we usually, in those situations, do long-term investigations.
They take a little longer.
You may not know that they're going on, but they are happening.
So the Bureau of Counterterrorism has dedicated people to investigating those quality-of-life issues that you're talking about.
So I don't want you to believe that there's nothing going on or that we don't go there because it doesn't meet the same priority as someone who's involved in a domestic violence incident.
Well, I thank you for that clarification because I know in my area when I do call, I have such a great relationship with all of our commanders.
And the meetings that we hold and just the one-on-one to get updates is really helpful.
So they've done an excellent job on it.
I just, you know, everybody want what they want, and they want it right now.
But we let them know that we're still working on it and continue to work with our commanders and our law enforcement and our faith leaders and our violence prevention groups and the community at large, CAPS program.
So we'll get the work done.
Do you have you been able to receive or do you get any reports on the number of guns that are found in schools?
Or do anybody report anything that occurred at the schools related to guns?
I'm sure we have that number, ma'am, and I'm sure we can get you that number.
And let me just turn this over real quick to Chief DeVries.
He had a couple of comments.
Chief DeVries, Bureau of Counterterrorism.
Again, on the open-air drug markets, there's some stuff being done that hasn't been done before under the leadership of this superintendent in collaboration with the Chief of Patrol, Bureau of Counterterrorism.
The DIOs in these districts, a lot of them have come from narcotic backgrounds.
They're very good at getting information, being able to talk to the citizens.
They share that information with our bureau immediately.
So there's no, like, lack in the information or them withholding and keeping that information themselves and working their own cases.
That's being shared.
So with that information, we're able to take narcotic teams and go in there immediately instead of waiting and building our own cases,
learning who these offenders are, taking our own surveillance, and doing all that.
That legwork's all being done by the district for us.
So these cases are kick-started quicker with all the offenders being identified.
It's almost a hand-delivered package to us based on the work from the district officers and these district TAC teams and the DIOs.
So that is something that's being done.
It's been a huge success.
There's, like, one-offs where we're doing search warrants.
Some of these main offenders' houses, we're taking the guns and getting the drugs and getting that main offender taken out of the community immediately instead of working on it as a long-term.
Now, we're not getting all the participants of the group, but we are getting some of these main offenders based on the DIO's information.
So that collaboration with patrol is amazing.
And Alderman Ford, Guns Recovering in Schools, we can get that information to you through the chair.
All right.
I appreciate it.
And there was one other concern that I see occurring now with drugs more or less being transported through vehicles.
And because you don't have the tool now to be able to, you have to have a reason, I guess, to stop.
A lot more that are occurring than on the streets.
Do you have any comments?
I'm sorry, ma'am.
Are you saying that you're saying?
I'm just saying on the streets, drugs being transported by in vehicles now.
Yes, and that's something that we're aware of.
Better also than just standing on the street.
Yeah.
You're saying that drugs are being transported through vehicles on the street.
Right, right.
Yes.
So that is something that we're aware of.
Obviously, if we have intel or we're doing some type of investigation and we know that, anything that we do with that, we still have to have reasonable suspicion or probable cause to stop that vehicle so that these stops are constitutional.
But we make sure that we cross all of our T's and dot all of our I's when we know that we're stopping a vehicle for the purposes of narcotics trafficking or something of that nature.
We've done our homework and our background on that.
So if it's just information, obviously, we have to establish reasonable, articulable suspicion for a stop.
And then we do a further investigation from that point.
But we are aware of these things.
All right.
Very good.
Well, again, I have no further questions.
You're doing a tremendous job.
Thank you for holding it down here and getting the numbers down lower than we've seen them in the past.
Mental illness is a serious case.
And I've heard conversation today regarding how it affects you, affect one who have seen or been involved with things that are traumatizing.
And so we're going to keep working together and keep addressing the issues and thank your department, all that's in the box, everything that everyone have done to help keep us safe and keep up the great work.
Thank you, ma'am.
Thank you, all the minutes on the Coleman.
Thank you, Chairman Irvin. I'm glad you returned so I can remind you of all of the greats that come from the south side of Chicago by way of Englewood.
You know, Bernie Mac, King of Comedy, Jennifer Hudson, Derrick Rose, Bill Cates, the largest employer of African-Americans in private sector, and Larry Snelling.
My apologies. You did forget one.
Excuse me?
You did forget one.
Oh.
You'll catch that on the way home. You might figure it out before we finish.
And my mama. All right.
Superintendent, the old 7th District where the Englewood Rangers started, what is happening at that building?
I'll have the Chief of Patrol talk a little bit about that.
All right, John Iain, Chief of Patrol.
What is happening at the building is the PRT team where Area 1 is dispatched out of that building right now.
PRTT?
Priority response team.
It's teams that are at the discretion for the Deputy Chief of Area 1 right now.
It would be Deputy Chief Brian Kinane.
Okay.
Awesome.
Chief, I'm still waiting on that request from October of 2024 for the schools.
Where are the barricades?
Yes.
Where are the barricades actually stored?
The barricades we'd have to request through Streets and Sands.
And through, I know Director Brooks is behind me here, but we'll request it again for the...
Okay.
And I want them delivered in my ward, to my ward, and not at the various locations.
We'll put that request in, Alderwoman.
Thank you, sir.
Also, the Bureau of...
I'm sorry, the Animal Crime and Animal Control.
I have had some advocates come and visit me.
There are some, you know, troubled animals that are starting to attack neighbors.
How exactly, on a district level, is that being handled?
So, we talked about earlier, there's Sergeant Matt Lopez now is in charge of the Animal Crime Unit.
Oh, great.
And so, any investigations done with animal cruelty or abandonment or anything to do with animals at all,
that this, you know, collaboration between BCT, like I said, and the Detective Division,
Chief of City and everything, we have all of our officers assigned to this new Animal Crime Unit.
So, they'll pick up that investigation and do the case report and do the investigation.
Okay.
Thank you, Chief.
District Council protocol for our 8th District Council members, they work great with the commander.
I noticed that in the 7th District, there is a disconnect.
So, what is the protocol?
Are they allowed to talk to the local CAPs, to the district?
Well, it depends.
Okay.
And what we've seen is we've gotten different responses from different district council members.
We know that they're supposed to bring the concerns of the community to our district commanders.
There are times where there are demands for certain things that they possibly shouldn't be making demands for.
But we have to have clear communication with them.
But, Scott, do you want to talk a little bit about their responsibilities and some of the things that we do with the Open Meetings Act when we have to meet with them?
So, Scott Spears and General Counsel to the Superintendent.
The district councils are an elected body.
They're subject to the Illinois Open Meetings Act.
And what I understand, they've been advised that if they have a quorum, it needs to be conducted as an open meeting.
So, a quorum for a three-member body is two members.
So, if more than two members want to approach the commander at a time, at one time, then that needs to be posted as a public meeting.
Notes need to be taken.
Everything needs to be handled in accordance with the Illinois Open Meetings Act.
What about to speak with the CAPS office or to even have some collaboration in terms of BEAT meetings and getting community to participate in neighborhood public safety events?
Well, here's what I will tell you about that.
Now, when it comes to that, that communication should absolutely be happening through the district commander.
Because if the purpose for that district council member is to bring those concerns of the community to the district commander and to the district as a whole, those conversations should be happening.
Well, as you know, Superintendent, there are some challenges with one of the members who is just not as supportive of our district officer and our commander as I am.
And that has become the biggest challenge for 7th District Inglewood, where there's a disconnect.
And again, I'll just stress that the concerns that brought to the district and the district commanders should be those expressed by members of the community.
That is the purpose.
And there are times where people have made demands.
Our district commanders have a lot on their plates.
They're making sure that they're trying to keep communities safe.
We should be working together, not against each other.
So we would take each thing case by case, and we would have to see what the details are of this particular relationship.
Superintendent, is our chamber safe?
You know, I have a thing about my door facing, my back facing the door, and I'm often concerned about, particularly the women here, you know, it gets a little intense.
Well, what I can tell you is that our officers in this building and the security in this building do a great job.
Agreed.
The security of keeping down situations that can become volatile and get out of hand.
There are a lot of times things that happen outside in the hall that you may not be aware of, that they do a great job of maintaining security in the building.
As you know, this building is a tough building to secure when you look at the number of ways in and ways out.
But, again, the security team here does a great job.
Now, asking can we do something to make it safer, we can always do things to make it safer.
And that's one of the things that, you know, we're constantly talking about right now, what can actually be done.
But that's going to bring a lot of people into the fold where we have to have these conversations about the safety of the building.
Okay.
I know that there have been some assessments and some, you know, just looking at what could possibly create some more safety measures in addition to I couldn't agree with you on the team here.
But I am concerned, you know, I can see someone thrown, you know, anything could kind of happen with our backs to the door.
No, you're 100% correct.
And that's why we're doing the assessment.
Yes, sir.
Domestic violence and the increase.
I have found it so challenging helping women find housing.
And it seems to, it seems like we don't have enough beds.
And what has our subcommittee on domestic violence, does it need more support?
Do we need to call the philanthropic community for DV as we've seen that that crime is increasing versus, thank God, homicides?
Well, you know, I've been saying this for quite some time.
You know, domestic violence is a serious, serious issue.
No, and we've, we have seen a number of our homicides have happened inside domestic-related incidents.
People have to feel safe and people who are in trouble and in these homes where they're being abused.
People need help.
People need help.
We have to take it seriously.
But, and you mentioned this, and one of the frustrating things for me was when I was a commander of Engelwood.
When someone would come in, a woman would come in with her children, it had no place to go.
Yeah.
And we struggled to find some place who could take her in.
This domestic violence problem is everybody's problem.
Yeah.
Not just, it's not just the police.
We have to get everybody involved if we're going to take this seriously because we all talk about domestic violence, but we all have to chip in.
And we all are going to have to give something to make sure that we're keeping people safe in these, in these situations.
Who, from your office, from the team, your, your C-suite, if you will, who is that person that is the, who's handling DV?
So, we, we've got Director Milstein in the box, and then there's a lot of work being done by Chief for City also.
Thank you, Sue.
Last thing, street closures.
Um, sometimes we find that, you remember as commander, we've had to team up on certain organizations, you know, get street closures, but for major events, walks, et cetera, et cetera.
Is it protocol that CPD must have, um, input?
Well, when you say street closures, are, do you mean, um, a march?
March.
protest um anything for when when it's legally when you know folks do go about and getting the
permit but is it mandatory that cpd has some input or a part of the approval i know in my ward
we make sure that our commander but for others yes it is and here's why it's important um if we
don't know your route or you refuse to give us the route we cannot guarantee anyone's safety
um that that that's a fact so in knowing the route we also have to have input on that because you may
want to take a route that's going to be dangerous for everyone or a route that's going to be hard
for us to cover we want to make sure that uh we don't go down that road that kind of thing could
cost us more manpower but it could also lead to something catastrophic happening so we we do need
to have that is it mandatory like is it in law is it via ordinance yes it is okay thank you uh
chairman may i just give my shout outs thank you so much uh seventh district commander lewis courts
and the entire team they worked overtime on september 13th where we hosted over 20 000 at the inglewood
fest i am so grateful for him for commander mark and nine commander spurnie also inglewood
grates melvin branch commander tate and i want to give a shout out to all of the officers here
officer pete garcia officer harper uh sarge who looks like he belongs on tv uh downstairs lieutenant
parker and officer bryant when i tell you i am so grateful they we have been here late at night they
have walked me across the street walk us to his car walk us to our car assistant uh chairwoman lee um
they have just thank you and i know sometimes we have a thankless job but i am so grateful for
the men and women that serve and protect our great city under your leadership sir well thank you ma'am i
appreciate that i'm sure they appreciate it the same yes and uh chairman the other great is the first
woman elected to city council and that is anna lankford from the 16th ward all great things come from
inglewood i'm still missing one but i'll let you catch that on the way home okay all right uh
on the clay soup how are you doing good evening how are you um awesome how are you life is good i
appreciate that um i want to always start off by thanking you so much for your leadership um it has
been tremendous to see the work that you all have been doing throughout this great city the
communication has been amazing um the transparency i think is something that a lot of chicagoans really
appreciate and i think that you being at the head of that has made a huge improvement so i just want
to say thank you and kudos thank you um i know lately i've been getting a couple of questions about
our snow trucks and snow plows just being everywhere can you talk to um what is the purpose behind us
using snow trucks and how are they being used so it depends on the situation i remember once uh during
a protest um we uh we had a row of uh trucks out um someone filmed them and thought that this had
something to do with an ice operation which it did not um when we know that there's a possibility
um of there being a takeover on the expressway or something of that nature and it could cause gridlock
we want to make sure that we have measures in place to stop those things from happening right
these creates this creates dangerous situations for people who are just trying to commute people who
have their kids people who are trying to get to the hospitals um that's important for us to make sure
that people can still move while we uh protect people's first amendment rights um their right to
assemble their right to protest um so we want to make sure that we have measures in place for that
um and you may be talking about something that you just saw recently yeah um so there was a there was a
a lot of back and forth about uh um you know uh the uh breakdown and snap services uh uh monies that
people thought that they wouldn't get um people being hungry um and there was a lot of chatter online
about uh people going into stores and walking out with things and there was a concern from uh business
communities um so the city as a whole wasn't just a police department but it was a city
uh as a whole where we worked together to make sure that uh nothing like that happened um we didn't
want uh we're not going to allow anything that happened in 2020 to happen now um so as a department
i believe it's important for us to make sure that we're proactive on things but obviously we do we
don't want to give off the image that our city is under siege uh because it's not um i believe that our
our city when it comes to crime is moving in the right direction i believe we're all moving in the
right direction um obviously we've got some hiccups right now and there's some challenging things going
on in the city right now um but uh to your point um that's something that was temporary we try to do
that the least amount of times possible so where we can cover these things with uh just uh manpower
because it also reduces the need for overtime when it comes to our officers and putting them out there
because we would have to put a lot more officers in these positions uh if we didn't have those
measures in place so it's just one of the things that we worked okay so then help me with this
how are you all utilizing veterans um to kind of help the police department i know there was a lot of
conversations around retirees or folks that have military background to do some of the civilian
policing aspect um of cpd is that a possibility are we working towards that so so some our civilian
positions um or some of our civilian positions especially when it comes to training officers because
they have the background in policing we've hired as civilian training officers that has reduced uh the
number of officers that we actually sworn officers we need in the academy so those positions are on
the books so we could hire civilians and we can hire civilians who are also retired police officers so we are
utilizing those positions uh to maintain some of that institutional knowledge especially around training
it's it's been helpful okay i was looking at your um grant appropriation from last year to
the projection for 2026 and it is probably one of the lowest numbers that we've had in the last 10
years can someone talk to the decline in the grant funding that you have as a part of your budget
please right uh good afternoon ryan or yeah ryan fitzman's director uh office of the superintendent so
one of the big things that you're going to see in our grant funding is the um ending of the
presidential nominating convention so that was worth 75 million that event is done so that fell off um
what is that what is that detail what does that include so in order to host a presidential nominating
convention so in our case we had the democratic national convention milwaukee had the republican national
convention each one of those cities received 75 million dollars got you um so that was in our grant
appropriation for uh this year because that had kind of rolled over um so we needed to fully expend
that so we're working through that to make sure that the city is fully reimbursed okay so that was one of
our big things that fell off we also had a um idot license plate reader expansion for 9.5 million dollars
that was also completed and then another probably the most pressing issue that we have and this is
more of a structural more so than a one-time project like those other two is our urban area security
initiative funding uasi um that funds a lot of the things under chief debris and we've seen kind
of a decrease in funding there but that is currently tied up in litigation with the uh federal government
but chief debris can talk much more in depth about what that funding does for us thank you ryan
chief uh debris from the bureau counterterrorism so uasi funds funds our entire fusion center cpc based
for the officer salaries there and all the equipment and the licenses that they use for all the different
computer programs that they run it also funds like our swat bearcats and a lot of their equipment
a lot of our barm tech equipment our command bands uh things of that nature so when we lose those funds
we can't replace like outgoing equipment that needs to be updated on new technology when it comes to a
lot of that um then we have to search for other means to you know support those investments um you
know in the past uasi's paid for a lot of training too in our bureau like the bomb tech training uh tlo
training that with the district officers get a lot of that's going to come to an end now to the fact that
we're not going to have this funding got you thank you for that clarity um i know that we are
looking at um how are we getting better with handling our lawsuits right and i know year over
year you all budget just a baseline i think it's like 80 million
And we go above and beyond that every year. Is there an opportunity for us to get a little bit more realistic with that number, just given the history of cases that we deal with every year to budget it a little bit accurately?
Because I feel like we say 80 million and we know we're not going to just we can hopefully pray. I don't want to be paying hundreds of millions of dollars to folks, families or estates. Right. But I feel like that number is a placeholder and then we exceed it.
So is there an opportunity for us to have a little bit more of a realistic value place there?
So I'll turn this over to general counsel, Scott Spears. But, you know, before I do, I just want to be clear about something.
You know, when we look every year, which this isn't something that CPD necessarily controls, but we look at payouts from cases that are old, some of them decades.
And what we're doing right now is making sure that we put measures in place to reduce the number of lawsuits, to reduce the number of times where an officer has done something that's questionable.
That could lead to a lawsuit. And I believe that we're moving in the right direction on that.
And I'll let Scott Spears talk a little bit about that.
Good evening, ma'am. Scott Spears, general counsel.
So as the superintendent said, that number is historically placed in CPD's budget, but it's not a number over which the department has any control.
Ultimately, this comes from the budget office.
They put that number in.
The CPD really has no control over how settlements are negotiated or what those dollar amounts are.
But as the superintendent said, you know, through the operation of the consent decree, the development of better policy training, accountability measures, we're seeing successes.
We're seeing some wins.
And I know that's tough to say in a year like this, but we're seeing a huge decrease.
The law department will talk about this more.
I don't want to steal their thunder, but in the traditional civil rights cases, the excessive force, the false arrest, cases like that are both declining in the number of cases filed and the amounts being paid out on them.
And also to a point, the superintendent made a big portion of this year's, more than half of this year's settlements dealt with cases where the fact pattern occurred before 1995.
So it's, you know, something where we work closely with the law department just on the legal affairs side to trend spot, to identify.
We work closely with our policy team to develop policies that address issues that we're seeing.
And we work across the board as a department to identify opportunities for training, try to identify situations where we need to put officers in a position where they get training they need to stay out of trouble.
Thanks for that, Scott.
Last question.
And this is for all of my folks who live along the lakefront.
So they say that we are getting car caravans taking over Lakeshore Drive at any given moment, and they feel like we are not catching them.
Can you talk to our either coordination, because I know Lakeshore Drive is state and it's also us, right?
So can you just talk through our coordination efforts to man Lakeshore Drive and potentially if there are any options for technology that we could be using to kind of track these car caravans that are just revving up at 2, 3 a.m.
up and down Lakeshore Drive.
And I'll turn this over to the chief of patrol to talk a little bit about some of the plans that we have in place when it comes to these things.
Obviously, people have the right to drive on Lakeshore Drive, but we are concerned about illegal activity when it comes to that.
So, Chief Hyde?
Chief Hyde, John Hyde, Chief of Patrol.
Appreciate the question.
Absolutely.
So if we get notified from any of our SDSE rooms or through the Bureau of Counterterrorism that these events are taking place, there's a car caravan team.
There's actually three car caravan teams, one extra one we started this year, where these officers, along with our street deputies, are assigned to that location.
And we've asked now a sergeant and our wall to assign to go to that area also to assess what's going on, to see if we need more manpower to address the situation.
But immediately, those car caravan teams are sent to the area with our street deputies.
And the great asset we have now is the helicopter.
The helicopter is also able to pick up the car caravan teams and to let us know where these car caravan teams possibly might be going to notify the advanced districts to send appropriate personnel to break that up.
Thank you so much.
Again, I appreciate you.
I appreciate your leadership.
My shout-outs go to the 19th and 20th District, Commander Jasani, Commander Gilmire.
The entire Caps team has been amazing.
They have made so many strides in my neck of the woods, and it is paying off tremendously.
So I want to make sure that they get their flowers publicly.
Thank you so much for your time today, Sue.
Thank you, Alderman.
I appreciate it.
We'll follow up on that.
Thank you, Alderman.
Clay, I think I have won round two.
Alderman C.T. Lopez, you're on.
Thank you.
Thank you again, Chairman.
And I just want to finish some of the line of questioning some of my colleagues left, but they also wanted to check in.
And I'm glad Alderman Taylor mentioned, you know, public safety, especially when it comes to children, minors, I think it's something that we must take not only as a priority, but ensure that we really make it a mission.
And I'm extremely concerned today, as none of you heard, but we've got ICE agents now going to child care centers.
And this was following a traffic stop, according to what they say themselves.
I'm concerned about two things.
One, child endangerment, as you know, is a state crime.
Putting children in danger is a state crime.
And also, what I'm concerned about is this traffic enforcement, which I don't think they have any jurisdiction on.
This is the second instance where traffic enforcement is reported, and yet these individuals continue to defy our local laws.
So my question is around child endangerment, I heard around jurisdiction.
How do we start by making sure that public safety is not trivialized?
I cannot think of a more shameful way of, quote-unquote, enforcing public safety and putting children in danger.
Today, I think we just touched a very new low point, and I didn't think that that was possible.
But in terms of, like, child endangerment, this council put a resolution forward.
I think as a city, we recognize that every child should be treated the same.
But I'm extremely concerned about how unhinged this operation.
And again, I just want to respond directly about this.
There's no two sides here.
There's a side who's heavily armed, and there's another side that has whistles and megaphones.
This is what we're talking about here.
So my question is, like, in terms of child endangerment, and just for the record, how do we start?
And I really appreciate when officers, at least in Chicago Police Department, are wearing body cameras that have been fundamental for us to know what actually happened.
Because I tell you, Superintendent, these individuals lied to you when they said that they were in danger in Brighton Park.
It was just a lie, and we cannot continue to lie to continue to allow this to happen until a child or a senior or someone is going to be shot and put in danger unnecessarily.
So I'm going to be very direct around this issue of child endangerment.
How do we start holding accountable so we talk about public safety, but in a real way?
So just for the record, how do we enforce this?
We're putting children in danger, and today was a horrible day.
There's many people who are not here because of that.
So around child endangerment and how we can start enforcing, where's the jurisdiction?
How do we start enforcing this?
Really concerned about what's happening with children in our city.
Well, Alderman, and thank you for the question.
Right now, you're talking about a specific incident.
We've been here all day, so that's something that we would have to take a deeper dive and look into.
But when, again, the overall thing is this.
When the agents are in a performance of their duty, once again, we can't interfere with that.
Now, we may not like what they're doing or the way that they're doing it,
but there's a bigger issue here, and I'll let general counsel talk about it a little more,
and he brought this up, about going to the courts.
Where our hands are tied in a lot of cases, we as a police department are sworn to uphold laws
and not to break them, and I hold all of my officers accountable for that.
I hold the leadership accountable for that.
And there are a lot of times where we see people who are in danger.
We see people who have been harmed and hurt.
And on a personal level, we want to do something about it.
But if we act it out on a personal level, we're acting out on our feelings
and the way that we feel about something.
And then we look at it on our feelings and the way that we're doing it.
And when that happens, we overstep and then we make mistakes.
And when we make mistakes, then we have to be held accountable for those mistakes that we make.
So. If these issues are going to be addressed because no one wants to see a child in danger, I mean, all the woman Lee brought up something earlier today where we saw a man beaten and robbed in front of his four year old.
I mean, it's a brutal thing for a child to have to experience that and then think about this for the rest of their days.
So nobody wants to see a child in danger. And it's a terrible thing.
And what I can tell you with the Chicago Police Department, we train our officers from the very beginning to the end.
They start everything with respect, respect our laws, respect people's rights, respect the Fourth Amendment, respect the Constitution.
I cannot. I cannot tell you how other agents are trained.
I can tell you what we do as the Chicago Police Department.
And this is why I said when we show up to these these situations and you mentioned something before that someone could get killed.
You're saying there are people with whistles and bullhorns. Yes.
And as long as people are doing that and keeping their distance, they have the 100 percent right to do that.
What we don't want people doing is physically engaging with these with these agents because we don't know their rules of engagement.
I can tell you this. They're way different from ours. We're trained differently.
Our officers are trained in different disciplines. So we have to make sure that whatever we're doing, we're following the law.
And like I said before, I understand everybody's emotions around this. Right.
This is an emotional situation. People are looking at things that they have not seen in their city.
So the collaboration has to be across the board.
There needs to be education, because I think that lack of education leads to more anger.
It leads to more confusion, because when we're not clear on what it is we can and cannot do, we're confused.
Once we become confused, we become frustrated. And that frustration leads to anger.
And then we end up acting out in ways that could get us into more trouble.
So what I would say is there needs to be more communication across the board with everyone.
We can't draw a line in the sand and say, well, I'm not going to talk to you for this reason or that reason.
Once that education happens, I think we're all better for it.
But Scott, do you have anything you want to add?
So Scott Spears, general counsel, just just to add, this department is is very disciplined.
It is heavily regulated. You know, our officers wear body worn cameras.
They wear their badges, their star numbers, their unit identifiers with their names on them.
Even in instances where they do wear masks for medical reasons, which is allowable under our directives.
You are still able to identify that officer as a Chicago police officer.
And you'll know who that officer is by name and star number.
We're confronted with a federal agency that doesn't adhere to those standards.
I know that our law department and the Illinois attorney general's office are working very hard through the court system to bring that same sort of accountability to these officers.
And I think that that is where we're going to achieve the greatest successes in bringing safety to our neighborhoods.
And let me just add this lastly, because I know you you had a concern about the traffic stops and you were talking about state law.
These are federal agents.
No matter where they go in the country, they have jurisdiction.
That that's the difference.
And that's what has to be understood.
We are jurisdiction is within the city of Chicago.
There's is the is the United States of America.
So their federal agents, their jurisdiction runs across the country.
And this is the part of where I said that that education needs to be clear.
And once we're more clearly educated on it, I think that people come up with better ideas on how to respond to situations.
Yeah, thank you, Superintendent.
And I think what I will end, I know I'm out of time, but in terms of jurisdiction, you know, at least what I understand is that ICE agents do not have jurisdiction over traffic enforcement.
They have a strict jurisdiction over immigration enforcement.
And I think they're overstepping and I think they're overstepping and they're provoking.
I think that Chicago's have been patient and they are extremely should be commended or city should be commended by the level of restraint by the images that we continue to say in a day by day.
But this is not sustainable.
I think that it is no doubt that there is an escalation that is provoked on one side, because I just want to be very clear.
I've been in many occasions and I tell you, I commend the commanders on both the 10th and the 12th district.
I think that they have done a really good job de-escalating the amount of money that we spend.
You talk about how many protests and arrests, all of it is caused by the federal government.
And I do hope that the communication that you mentioned in the state, county and city allow us to start putting some breaks, because one thing is to have jurisdiction.
A different step is going overstepping and worse, violating our constitutional and state laws.
One thing is federal laws, but I do think there has to be a level of respect to state laws, child endangerment being one of them.
So that's what I'm saying is that the need, the need for us to communicate, attorney general, state's attorney, their crimes.
These individuals are not above the law.
And there is a jurisdictional effort that I do think that we should look into.
I think like choking an individual out of a traffic stop, I mean, that is that is misconduct.
So I just want to be on the record, the child endangerment.
It is something that the federal government is provoking and is going to provoke a state of unrest that I think it is something for us to discuss.
I think in terms of the Chicago Police Department, I think in a time like this, we expect to work to make sure that there's a minimum of public safety.
Children being one of them, I think that's what we draw the line.
So thank you again, Superintendent, and I thank you, Chairman.
All right. Thank you, Alderman.
Thank you, Alderman.
I just got a couple of things that I don't think have been covered.
Number one, I know we met with the Cook County State's Attorney in relation to the felony, Class 4 felony gun cases.
Has that moved forward, or is that still in the same state when we last discussed?
Right now, our officers are in training for all of it.
I believe there's an e-learning.
I don't know if we finished that e-learning.
Have we finished that e-learning?
So it's still in progress.
We want to make sure that our officers are clear on everything.
We want to move forward with the program, but we want to make sure that we have training and outreach on all of it.
And I know you were in 7th, if I remember correctly, the 7th District.
Have you expanded to other districts, or are you still just in the 1th District, or are you training in other districts currently?
We're training, but we're developing that training right now.
So we want to make sure that everyone is trained.
No one can be a part of that unless they're properly trained by the state's attorney's office.
Okay.
But are we still just in the 1th District, or where are you?
We're looking to span the other districts.
Do you have those districts with you, John?
Aldrin, yes.
Currently right now, you're referring to the felony bypass program.
It's in the 5th District and 7th District, and the training is being developed right now to possibly expand.
Okay.
All right.
Very well.
I think we talked about the 9-1-1 assignments, and we'll work through OPSA with that.
They talked about the wraps, the medical role.
I know the audit has been done.
What steps are you all taking to reduce that and get people back to work sooner?
So we've had a meeting with Executive Director Eric Patterson over OPSA.
We're in talks about what we could do to work together to make sure that we're getting people back to work and that the medical role is being used properly.
You know, a little more oversight, especially from us and our department, to make sure that our members are utilizing it the right way and that we have a number of officers at work who are working, who are healthy, to make sure that we keep those numbers down from officers who are on the medical.
Okay.
Okay.
The counterterrorism, when I look at the budget, you have about 420 people in, I'm not sure if there's criminal networks or special functions.
I found it odd that there was not a commander in that group with 400 sworn personnel in that group.
I think you do have a deputy, but that would include narcotics, gangs, vice, and asset forfeiture.
There's not a commander.
I see a series of lieutenants, but no commander in that area.
I remember there being a commander in narcotics and gangs.
I know there may not have been one for asset forfeiture, but I do remember there being commanders in those areas.
Is there a specific reason why we no longer have them?
No, we do actually have a commander there.
So we do have a commander there.
So Chief DeVries?
Chief DeVries from the Bureau of Counterterrorism.
We do have a commander.
Commander Joshua Wallace is a commander of narcotics and gang enforcement or gang investigations.
That is considered the criminal networks group.
Then we do have a commander of narcotics.
We have a commander-in-air,
and then we have a commander of一起.
functions as well, which is the other side, which has your bomb unit, your canine, your
mounted unit, the dogs, the Marine unit, helicopters, SWAT, all the special units.
Okay, maybe I missed it in that conversation.
Okay, no worries.
With the change in how you redone the organization and the first deputy is not in the direct
line of patrol and the like, are the street deputies still in existence, or are they still
part of that group, or are they reporting up somewhere else now?
Well, so the street deputies now report directly to the chief of patrol.
Okay.
Because they're going to be responding to things that are happening in the street.
Having them directly under the chief of patrol makes more sense than right now having them
in a different office.
So, because the duties of the street deputy have expanded.
So, they're not just responding to police-involved shootings and police incidents.
They're also responding to large gatherings, you know, protests, things of that nature.
So, the street deputy role has expanded.
That's why it's important to have them under the chief of patrol.
Okay.
All right.
Like I said, the budget has got them still with the first deputy, even though you guys
have made those specific moves.
I know the management ordinance has proposed, has the department coming before this committee
and a joint committee of police and fire on a quarterly basis to discuss and go over your
overtime use or utilization and the like.
I know our systems are not the best.
So, how soon do you all know how much overtime has been expended in a particular period?
Right.
Ryan Fitzsimons, Deputy Director, Office of the Superintendent.
So, what we see is usually about a two-week lag for the numbers to be fully settled.
Within about a week, we have a good idea, but usually it takes about two weeks to feel confident.
We know what we're seeing.
Okay.
All right.
So, then we should anticipate probably 30 days after quarter in scheduling something along
those lines if this management ordinance passes as intended.
Ryan Fitzsimons, Deputy Director, that sounds reasonable to me.
What I will say is with these numbers, oftentimes I'm trying to use them to be responsive in time.
They may not be set in stone.
There may be a dollar here, a dollar there that may get adjusted, but we do realize that
the longer the time goes, the less useful that information is.
It's probably the best statement I heard all day.
We definitely want timely information.
It doesn't have to be exact, but it does, you know, it does need to be timely for us to be useful with it.
And so, my last question, and this is just a personal pet peeve of mine, what happened to the beat tags on cars?
That's what we're currently working on those.
Okay.
We're currently working on the beat tags right now.
Go ahead, Ryan.
Ryan Fitzsimons, Deputy Director, Office of the Superintendent.
We have worked with Office of Public Safety Administration and 2FM to get the plastic pieces of the beat tags.
Now we are getting the actual numbers for the beat tags.
So, I had one of my staff members call over to our vendor today to press them for a quote,
and then ideally we can get those ordered as soon as possible and start pressing those stickers onto the plastic to get the beat tags out there.
Please do.
One of the things, it's difficult to, it's always good to kind of get a sense of where people are from,
especially where I live in the 11th District, and I know there's always people from not in the district that are in the district,
and it's difficult to ascertain who's from where or what unit that they're part of when you don't have the beat tag on the car.
So, you may want to order two sets of those, you know, just so that everybody has an extra one,
because it's just a pet peeve of mine.
Well, we're also rebuilding our inspections division.
So, they'll be out there to make sure that there's accountability for those officers who have beat tags and those who don't.
Okay.
All right.
Well, that's all that I had, just really, really simple stuff.
Looks like people are pleased with the overall leadership of the department.
I know that this overtime is going to be new conversations for us, as well as you,
and I know that's a big piece of accountability.
I know the overtime number has gone up on the budget side,
and it's going to be our job and everybody's job to kind of work to hold everybody within those confines,
while not diminishing our public safety in the city.
So, we thank you all for joining with us today.
With that, the committee will stand in recess until tomorrow, Thursday, at 9.30 a.m.
We will start with the Office of Public Safety Administration.
Thank you all, and enjoy the balance of this evening.
Thank you, everyone.