CHICAGO _ Facing a wave of rising violence, and the perception that the Chicago Police Department is overwhelmed, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration announced plans Wednesday to hire hundreds of new officers to rein in bloodshed ravaging the city's most troubled neighborhoods.
The hiring plan includes more than 500 new police officers, and hundreds more to beef up the ranks of detectives and supervisors.
At a news conference in police headquarters, Superintendent Eddie Johnson said the additions of hundreds of officers will bring the department close to 13,500 sworn positions. That would mark the highest number of budgeted police jobs since the Richard M. Daley administration, he said.
Johnson said 200 new detectives would be added to try to improve the department's low clearance rate for homicides.
To improve the supervision of street-level cops, he said 112 new sergeants and more than 50 lieutenants would be added. In addition, 92 new field training officers would be hired to help train new recruits.
"The simple fact is we have to do better," Johnson told reporters.
Johnson said a few months ago that Emanuel asked what the department would look like if the superintendent was building it from scratch and resources were unlimited.
The result of those discussions led to the plan he announced Wednesday in front of dozens of officers.
"We're going to get all the things we asked for," Johnson said.
Police officials said they plan to hire new officers to replace those who are promoted. The new hiring would be above and beyond the need to hire new officers to replace those who retire or leave the department for other reasons.
The attrition of existing officers has been exacerbated by the planned departure of many who say they are fed up with the low morale and bad publicity of the last few years.
Many details of the hiring, though, remained vague about exactly when the promised officers would be hired and how the city would pay for them.
The announcement comes as the mayor and his police department have been under mounting pressure over rising crime in Chicago.
The homicide rate has increased by 50 percent this year, with the total on pace to exceed 600 by the end of the year, and the U.S. Department of Justice continues to probe the department's oversight in the wake of a string of civil rights scandals.
The mayor's administration rolled out the announcement of planned hiring a day before Emanuel is scheduled to give a speech about his efforts to address the violence afflicting the city's poorest and most segregated neighborhoods.
The mayor's address is also expected to promise more resources for mentoring and educational opportunities for young people most threatened by violence in those communities.
The lack of supervisors has often been noted by critics as a piece of the department's ongoing problems with misconduct and poor oversight.
Hiring more supervisors was likely to be among the demands that will eventually be made by the Justice Department in its ongoing investigation of Chicago police, which was prompted by the Laquan McDonald officer-involved shooting scandal.
In the past, when the mayor has promised to increase police presence on the street, the reality has been a confusing pattern of rearranging officers already on the force _ moving people doing desk jobs to the front lines, and shifting resources form low-crime areas to violent hot spots.
The announcement marks the first time Emanuel has floated a plan to hire new officers, adding police back to the budgeted ranks of the police department.
The number of officers has dwindled since the final years of former Mayor Daley's administration, when the city was confronted without mounting budget deficits and crime had receded slightly from the ranks of the city's most pressing concerns.
When he first campaigned, Emanuel pledged to put more officers on the street without increasing the size of the department.
