CHICAGO — Chicago police Superintendent David Brown defended his department’s leadership Friday during an at-times contentious special City Council meeting ahead of the often violent Fourth of July holiday weekend.
Brown largely stuck to the Chicago Police Department’s standard talking points, blaming the courts for not being fully open amid the pandemic and criticizing judges for allowing too many violent offenders back into the community.
He also tried to put the most positive spin on this year’s crime statistics, saying the month-by-month totals for homicides and shootings are trending downward from 2020.
But Brown angered some aldermen as he closed his team’s opening presentation by saying that the City Council meeting cut into his department’s time to discuss violence ahead of the Fourth of July holiday, a not-so-subtle suggestion that the meeting was a waste of time.
That inspired a rebuke from Southwest Side Alderman Raymond Lopez, 15th, who said the comment was “outrageous.”
“Yesterday we had over a dozen people shot. Three children. One of my neighbors shot right in front of my house, checked by gang members,” Lopez said. “We know and live it every single day. If you have time for press conferences, you have time to meet with us too.”
After the meeting, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the meeting generated some “interesting ideas and suggestions.”
But the mayor also criticized the timing of the meeting, which was called earlier this week by 19 aldermen.
“The Friday of the deadliest weekend of the year, to have our superintendent and his senior leadership team be in City Hall for what was it, six hours ... when they could and should have been out making sure deployments were set, making sure they were giving the charges to the troops on the ground that are going to be doing the hard work and heavy lifting, as my mother would say, there’s a time and a place for everything,” Lightfoot said.
“It’s not that the conversation shouldn’t happen. Of course it should. But what’s the timing of that?”
Brown was called to the meeting by aldermen who demanded an explanation about his crime-fighting plans at a time when the numbers of homicides and shootings in Chicago are comparable to 2020, a year that saw some of city’s highest crime levels in decades. Like other American cities, Chicago struggled with violence last year as it dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest resulting from the police killing of George Floyd, but the problem has persisted.
Through the first six months of 2021, Chicago recorded 332 homicides, six fewer than the same time in 2020, according to CPD statistics. But the number of people shot this year, either fatally or non-fatally, was up by 13.5% to 1,880 from 1,656, statistics show.
Aldermen alternated between softball questions, tough speeches about crime and pushback on Brown’s claim that the violence is being driven by a lax judicial system.
Southwest Side Alderman George Cardenas, 12th, whose ward includes McKinley Park and Little Village, said he doesn’t agree with everything Brown has said but gives him the benefit of the doubt.
Lopez, who represents a several neighborhoods with significant gang violence, questioned whether the summer strategy is working.
“Chicago has gone from being a city of neighborhoods to being a city of war zones,” Lopez said.
Rebutting Lopez, Brown responded that Memorial Day weekend was the “least violent” in a decade. Chicago’s had a decline in homicides and shootings for several months over last year, he said.
During the six-hour meeting, Brown repeatedly criticized bond reform, which drew pushback from aldermen who noted a study about bond reform done by Loyola University Chicago that found it didn’t result in higher crime.
“I would ask those researchers to move to the South Side of Chicago,” Brown responded.
Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 35th, used Cook County data to challenge Brown’s assertions that the criminal justice system is to blame for increased violence, particularly with criminal defendants being released on bail or electronic home monitoring.
Brown stood his ground, relying on anecdotes to support his claim of a criminal justice system that’s too lenient. He cited the fatal shooting of 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams in April outside a McDonald’s restaurant on the West Side, and how one of the defendants in the case was on bail or electronic monitoring at the time of her killing.
“If one person is killed by someone on electronic monitoring, you need to rethink electronic monitoring. One person!” he said passionately. “One person is worth changing this system.”
While Ramirez-Rosa acknowledged that Brown’s anecdotes were “horrific,” he said the city should be basing public safety strategies on data. And he pushed back by accusing Brown of “pushing a bad narrative.”
“The data is clear,” Ramirez-Rosa said. “(If) you continue to push that narrative after we presented to you publicly these articles, these reports, then I’m going to have to say, Superintendent Brown, that you’re a liar.”
Others raised concerns about mental health support for police officers. Alderman Matt O’Shea, 19th, read a letter from a Chicago police officer lamenting the lack of support for cops’ mental well-being.
“I don’t think the department has done enough for these officers,” O’Shea said.
Brown agreed that the department needs to do more and pledged to do so.
Wrigleyville Alderman Tom Tunney, 44th, gave Brown some advice.
“You’re our leader. You’re our leader of the employees. And also you’re a public figure that people look up to. And I think to some degree in your 15 months, or something, you’ve been a little aloof,” Tunney said. “I think we need to hear more from you. I think your presence needs to be out there more often. And if you have good stories to tell, make sure your communications department does a better job.”
Brown responded by noting, “I have been aloof in a pandemic.”
In his remarks, Brown also highlighted what he called the Lightfoot administration’s “whole of government” approach to curbing violence, which Lightfoot has talked about since the earliest days of her administration.
Lightfoot previously said her administration will focus this summer on 15 police beats that she said account for a major chunk of the city’s street crime.
Police will work in these areas but the city also will team up with community groups, libraries and other providers to mentor young people as part of Lightfoot’s summer strategy, mirroring her administration’s previous approach to Chicago violence. The beats are largely concentrated on the South and West sides, ranging from Austin, North Lawndale and West Humboldt Park to South Chicago, Roseland and Auburn Gresham.
Brown’s appearance before the City Council came as aldermen ratcheted up pressure on Lightfoot over the city’s plan to address violence. For her part, Lightfoot criticized the meeting as a political stunt and said there are aldermen “who, frankly, want to turn the legislative process into some sort of stage performance.”
Criticism from aldermen toward a top cop is nothing new for the City Council.
In early 2013, for instance, aldermen complained about the inability of the Police Department under the leadership of then-Superintendent Garry McCarthy to keep violence down in their neighborhoods.
That was in the weeks following the high-profile killing of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, a high school band majorette who had performed at inaugural events for President Barack Obama shortly before her death. That year ended with among the lowest homicide totals in the city in half a century.
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(Chicago Tribune’s Annie Sweeney contributed to this story.)
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