Photo: Chicago Police Department patrol; Wikimedia
The first place that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel should look to find the problem with policing and public safety in Chicago “is in the mirror,” says Jim Pasco, executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, according to a Chicago Sun Times news report.
In adressing the 50% spike in homicides and shootings and surge of related violent incidents, Pasco said: “When the mayor wants to look at who should ultimately bear the brunt of the blame for things that have gone wrong with public safety in Chicago, the first place he should look is in the mirror.”
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Pasco also said that politics have caused problems for public safety and the police department, and that Mayor Emanuel runs the Chicago Police Department “like an arm of his political operation with far greater attention being paid to rhetoric and optics than to the reality of the situation on the street.”
It’s a circumstance that Pasco said has left Chicago police officers “running from call to call because they’re short-staffed and there are nowhere near enough investigators to follow up and catch perpetrators.”
But problems with manpower and low clearance rates for homicides and shootings have been made even worse by what Pasco calls the “total politicization” of the Chicago Police Department during Mayor Emanuel’s tenure.
