Emanuel’s Broken Promise To Add Police Costs Taxpayers Millions

When Chicago Police Superintendent, Garry McCarthy, appeared for the city council budget hearings, some of the alderman were not pleased. The Chicago Sun Times reported they were more interested in where all the additional police officers were that were promised by Mayor Rahm Emanuel during his campaign.

Emanuel campaigned on a promise to put 1,000 additional police officers on the street. But after taking office, he quickly revised the promise to include 1,000 more officers “on the beat.” He delivered half of those officers by disbanding specialized units. Hundreds of others came from reassigning officers from desk jobs to street duty.

“How can we have a conversation about staffing levels if the superintendent doesn’t have the numbers?,” Munoz said. “It’s a trick not to have the conversation in public and I, for one, feel offended.”

“We need more police to prevent the crime — not just to be reacting to it. Overtime is not a solution for a police force of this size because there’s way too much overtime. You’ve got officers working way too many hours.”

McCarthy defended the use of overtime so new officers don’t have to be trained or provided with benefits. Dean Angelo, Fraternal Order of Police President, didn’t agree.

Fraternal Order of Police President Dean Angelo has argued that it “wouldn’t take much” police hiring for the city to gain ground. He noted that there were only 200 retirements during the first nine months of this year.

“My concern is the constant work schedules these officers are involved with presently, then adding on special employment on their days off,” Angelo said last week. “It really isn’t the break and time away from work that I think one needs in order to relax a little bit and get away from the workplace.”

The Department is on track to spend $95 million in overtime in 2014.