This week’s installment of what Mayor Lori Lightfoot likes to call “Accountability Monday” will go on without Chicago police Supt. Eddie Johnson, who has the most at stake.
Johnson is in Washington, D.C., for the third leg of a four-part series of recent trips. He’s been criss-crossing the country over the last week for meetings his office called “central to CPD’s policy and crime-fighting agenda.”
Johnson first traveled to Philadelphia for the Major Cities Chiefs’ Association Executive Leadership meeting. There, he spoke on “policing issues,” his staff said, without disclosing the specific topic.
After that, he went to New Orleans for a meeting on officer morale and suicide, a subject that, unfortunately, hits close to home.
“Given the challenges CPD has had [with] six officer suicides since last July, the superintendent felt it was necessary and important to attend discussions on best practices in the areas of mental health and wellness,” police spokesman Tom Ahern wrote in an email to the Sun-Times.
The third and fourth meetings will take Johnson to Washington twice this week. On Monday, he was in the capital for what his staff called a “series of prosecutorial meetings” with the Department of Justice and the Police Executive Research Forum.
The superintendent is expected to return to Chicago Tuesday, only to turn around and go back to Washington Thursday to address “all 93 United States attorneys” and participate in “discussions around gun control, criminal investigations and effective partnerships with prosecutors,” Ahern wrote.
The Philadelphia trip was paid for by the Major Cities Chiefs; the Washington trips, by the DOJ. A source pegged the city’s expenses at roughly $7,000.
Johnson travels with one security officer. Chief spokesman Anthony Guglielmi was scheduled to join the superintendent for the second Washington trip.
Earlier this month, Lightfoot publicly dressed down First Deputy Superintendent Anthony Riccio for taking a family vacation to Aruba during the first week of June. Though authorized and paid for in October, it defied the mayor’s edict that no top brass take time off during the summer.
A few days later, Lightfoot said the controversy was “over for now” and that she was “ready to move forward” after hearing Riccio’s explanation.
Given that earlier controversy, the mayor’s office was asked whether Lightfoot has any problem with Johnson’s travel at a time when she wants all hands on deck to stop the traditional summer surge of violent crime.
The answer: a resounding “No.” Lightfoot firmly believes that “conferences where law enforcement leaders from across the country convene can be important opportunities to learn and share best practices,” deputy press secretary Patrick Mullane wrote in an email.
“The mayor encourages CPD to collaborate with law enforcement partners and peers at large city police departments, including participating in meetings that will better CPD’s practices in supporting the mental health and wellness of our police officers. Superintendent Johnson’s recent travel is fully-aligned with the mayor’s vision.”
After “flooding the zone” over Memorial Day weekend by putting 1,200 more police officers on the streets and partnering with dozens of religious leaders — and touting more than 100 events and youth programs as alternative activities — Lightfoot came away with results tragically similar to previous years.
Seven were killed, same as last year. And 34 were wounded, two more than last year.
After the following weekend was even worse, Lightfoot started what she calls “Accountability Monday,” when she summons top brass to the mayor’s office to hash out the violence from the previous weekend.
Lightfoot has acknowledged “pushing” Johnson and his team to have a “sense of urgency” about reducing summer violence and that, if they don’t have that sense of urgency, they’re in the wrong line of work.
She wants them to use all of the data analytics and other tools at their disposal to implement a winning crime-fighting strategy.
“As I said to them last week, `If you don’t want to be here, I’m happy to have a meeting where no one shows up because everybody’s doing their work and the violence is starting to de-escalate. That’s certainly the goal,” the mayor told reporters before a recent session.
