CITY HALL — The city's top cop says he's not going anywhere, at least not in the "very near future."
After his five-hour-plus City Council budget hearing Tuesday, Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said, "Eventually, I will be out of this job, but I'm not going to do it in the very near future. Too much work to do. We've come too far."
McCarthy faced off with aldermen Tuesday, a day after 15 members of the Black Caucus, joined by three others, called for him to be fired.
"It did catch me a little bit off guard," McCarthy said after his Council grilling. "But you have to be prepared for surprises in this business.
"I've been around this business a long time," McCarthy said. "Every once in a while, these things happen."
McCarthy said he'd gone through a similar rough patch when he was chief of the Newark, N.J., police department.
McCarthy insisted the budget hearing was part of a "nice, progressive process," and that it had been constructive in that he and aldermen had shared their frustrations.
"People got things off their chest and got to say what they wanted to say," McCarthy added. "It was an interesting day. Quite frankly, it was nothing I didn't already know. I feel the aldermen's frustration. I feel the community's frustration. I feel my own frustration. I think some of that all came through."
While dealing with a September spike in shootings and murders, McCarthy said he was cheered by the aldermen's focus on "quality of life" issues, reflected in his own "broken windows" policy of cracking down on small crimes to deter larger ones.
"Everyone understands each other," McCarthy said. "I think that's what we take away" from the budget hearing.
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