Jan. 25--Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Monday defended paying $350 an hour to recently retired Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey to advise city leaders on policing issues, even though the East Coast city had a higher homicide rate than Chicago last year.
Emanuel said Ramsey, Washington, D.C.'s former top cop and a Chicago Police Department deputy superintendent from Englewood, will not be considered for the vacant superintendent post here.
"Ramsey's been clear that after D.C. and Philly, not only he doesn't want the job, and you don't ask someone who doesn't want the job, this is too big and important a job," Emanuel said. "And so, he's clear, and we have a committee searching for the right person."
But the mayor said Ramsey's consulting gig will bear fruit for Chicago because of Ramsey's background in developing community policing programs in Chicago and elsewhere.
"If we come out of this process with the best Police Department, the best community relations between the Police Department and the community, you're going to have lower crime rates and that's not just a dollar-and-cents thing," Emanuel said at an event in Chatham to announce a grant program for homebuyers. "That goes to the safety and security ... because safety in the neighborhood is something we want to see throughout the city of Chicago."
From 2007 to early this month, Ramsey was police commissioner in Philadelphia, which continues to deal with its own entrenched violent crime problem.
According to the Philadelphia Police Department, there were 280 homicides there in 2015. With a population the U.S. Census Bureau estimates at 1.55 million, that works out to about 1 homicide for every 5,536 residents.
Chicago had 468 homicides last year in a population of about 2.72 million, 1 killing for every 5,812 residents.
jebyrne@tribpub.com
