April 01--Interim Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson says he has no immediate plans to change any crime-fighting strategies in the face of escalating violence but wants to quickly meet with community leaders about his concerns that gun offenders are becoming increasingly younger.
In his first extended interview with the Tribune since his appointment earlier this week, Johnson acknowledged the deeply rooted lack of trust that minority communities feel toward Chicago police, saying that would be his No. 1 priority to address.
He also said he wants to speak honestly with parents of young offenders who are caught up in the life.
"I have to emphasize that because these gun offenders are becoming so young, I'm going to ask the parents in the black communities to step up and be parents," Johnson said. "You have to be mothers, you have to be fathers. You have to know what your children are doing because if you don't raise them, the streets will."
Johnson said he has already set out to improve how the department red-flags problem officers. He admitted that the current system hasn't been effective, in part because too many supervisors were charged with monitoring officers. Under his plan, a more centralized group of supervisors would track officers across the department.
"Now we're going to focus it more so that certain people see these flags, and they can identify those people a lot quicker," said Johnson, with First Deputy Superintendent John Escalante at his side.
Johnson said he was still settling into his new fifth-floor office in police headquarters and joked that the move down the hall had cost him his view of U.S. Cellular Field.
The graduate of Corliss High School on the Far South Side also briefly reminisced about playing center field in his youth for the Jackie Robinson West Little League team.
"There was a lot of pride in watching those kids," he said of the team that was Chicago's feel-good story in 2014, only to have its championship stripped amid allegations of cheating. "We always had the talent to go to the Little League World Series. We just didn't have the discipline."
Johnson, a 27-year veteran of the Police Department, takes over the 12,000-strong force in the midst of one of the worst crises in its history.
The fallout over the release of dashboard camera video showing a white officer shoot black teen Laquan McDonald 16 times led to street protests, the firing of police Superintendent Garry McCarthy and a U.S. Justice Department investigation of the department's use of force.
Officers, fearful of being the object of the next viral video, became less aggressive on the street as morale plummeted, according to a report in the Tribune in February.
At the same time, officers were required to fill out more detailed reports every time they made a street stop as part of a new state law and a landmark agreement worked out with the American Civil Liberties Union. That kept officers busy with paperwork longer than before and also increased their anxiety about being second-guessed over who they stopped, officers told the Tribune.
As a result of both factors, arrests have nose-dived, to 6,818 in January, a 32 percent drop from nearly 10,000 arrests a year earlier. The number of street stops has also plunged.
Many believe that the low police activity has led to the sharp rise in violence so far this year, even though crime experts warn that no empirical evidence supports that conclusion.
With the first quarter about to close out, homicides have reached levels unseen in almost two decades, putting the city on course to top 500 killings for only the second time since 2008. And shootings have jumped by comparable numbers as well, up 73 percent from the first three months of 2015.
Johnson had not even applied for the superintendent opening, deferring instead to Escalante, who had been named interim superintendent after Mayor Rahm Emanuel fired McCarthy in early December. Escalante, who sought the permanent post but did not make the final cut, had promoted Johnson to chief of patrol.
In a surprise move Monday, Emanuel passed over the three finalists his hand-picked Police Board had chosen for superintendent and instead plucked Johnson from the command staff for the post.
The lifelong Chicagoan has a reputation as a cop's cop who knows Chicago's tough streets well while remaining empathetic to community concerns.
In explaining his decision not to apply for the post after McCarthy's departure, Johnson's answer reflected the humble and quiet man colleagues have described.
"Well, in my 27 years as a police officer, I've never applied for any position," Johnson said during a news conference at police headquarters. "I kind of went where I was told to go and did it to the best of my abilities."
A father of three who has a grandchild, Johnson grew up in some of Chicago's toughest neighborhoods.
He lived in the former Cabrini-Green public housing complex until he was 9 when his family moved to the South Side's Washington Heights neighborhood, where he still lives today.
jgorner@trib.pub.com
asweeney@tribpub.com
