CHICAGO — About half of Chicagoans polled in a new survey say Rahm Emanuel should step down from his post as the city's mayor.
Of the 739 people surveyed Saturday by Chicago-based polling company Ogden & Fry, 51 percent said Emanuel should resign. Only 18 percent approved of how the mayor is handling his job, compared to 67 percent who disapproved, according to USA Today.
After the fallout from the October 2014 police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, a video of which was released last month after a long legal battle, critics have raised questions over a possible cover-up of police misconduct extending from City Hall.
Asked in a Tuesday interview with WTTW about the poll and the growing chorus of Chicagoans clamoring for his resignation, Emanuel said it "wouldn't surprise [him] that people would be upset."
But the mayor asserted his belief that he's capable of righting the ship and restoring the city's faith in his administration.
"I’m ... responsible for not only fixing it, but in that process, restoring trust not just in myself but in the government," Emanuel told interviewer Paris Schutz. "I believe I’m responsible, I’m supposed to be held accountable — not only for what happened, but to fixing it — and that’s exactly what I’ll do."
In the weeks since the video was released, Emanuel has made a series of high-profile moves in response to the public uproar, including firing Police Supt. Garry McCarthy and appointing a new head of the Independent Police Review Authority. The mayor also called Tuesday for the re-opening of an investigation into officers' treatment of a man who died in police custody in 2012.
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced Monday that the Justice Department would investigate the Chicago Police Department for potential civil rights violations. But the investigation will not look into the mayor's personal handling of police shootings, as some have called for.
On Wednesday, Emanuel laid out his agenda for police reform before a special meeting of the City Council.
According to the poll, Emanuel's poll numbers had been sinking long before McDonald was cast into the public eye. A poll showed the mayor with a 25 percent approval rating in September, around the same time he pushed a massive property tax hike through the Council.
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