CITY HALL — Mayor Rahm Emanuel counseled patience and determination Friday as he pushed for the widespread adoption of the crime-fighting plan he laid out the night before at Malcolm X College.
"You've got to touch all the aspects, because this is a complex problem and you need a comprehensive plan," Emanuel said Friday in an interview on WBEZ's "Morning Edition."
Host Jennifer White pressed the mayor on specifics on his plan, especially where Chicago Police Department reforms were concerned. Critics have pointed to holes in his plan for a civilian review authority and a public-safety inspector general, as well as a separate civilian oversight board. Emanuel said he was working on various components of a "trust-building stew" to bolster a more effective Police Department.
"That resource has to be matched with the resource of public support, which has to be earned," Emanuel said.
Emanuel said details on funding for the estimated $138 million it will cost to add 970 officers to the Department would be released when he presents his 2017 budget recommendation in a couple of weeks. "We're going to make that a priority, and we're going to fund this," he added.
That wasn't good enough for the City Council's Progressive Reform Caucus, which issued a statement just before the mayor's speech Thursday about the need for specifics.
"We need to know exactly where the more than $138 million for the hires is going to come from — not to mention the funding for the new public-safety inspector general’s office and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability,” said Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza (10th). “As stewards of Chicagoans' tax dollars, we can’t simply write a blank check. The Emanuel administration can’t just say ‘trust me’ anymore. It must show us the money."
Emanuel promised solutions to funding and autonomy issues where the civilian police oversight board and public-safety inspector general are concerned, saying, "We have to have an independent authority, and we're going to."
Again, that wasn't good enough for Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th), who has submitted a proposal for civilian oversight. "We need to know more about the administration’s plan to change the culture of the Chicago Police Department that has led to hundreds of millions of dollars in police settlements related to excessive use of force,” Hairston said. “The underlying issues of Department culture that led to incidents like the murder of Laquan McDonald and the subsequent cover up must be meaningfully addressed. If they are not, we fear that those serious and sometimes deadly problems will be reinforced in the new group of recruits."
While Emanuel touted the development of a three-year, $36 million mentoring initiative for inner-city youth, intended to lure them away from gangs, he said it was a complex problem with no quick fix.
"Entrenched poverty and the consequences of that poverty are generational," Emanuel said. "You're not going to move the needle, so to say, in six months."
Emanuel blamed the murder and shooting spike the city has suffered under this year on "the fracture between the community and police" many U.S. cities have recently experienced, specifically brought on in Chicago after the release of the Laquan McDonald video late last year.
"We've always had a gang problem and we've always had a gun problem," Emanuel said. Police were, in effect, rocked back on their heels this year. "The gangs have noticed a difference and therefore they've become emboldened."
Emanuel said the essential issue was "about putting more police on the street and getting kids, guns and gangs off the street."
Emanuel said, "It's easy to be a critic," but he urged the city to join together in tackling the problem of gun violence on all levels.
"I'll take my responsibility, but this is Chicago's fight, not the mayor's fight," Emanuel said. "Everybody has a role to play."
City Clerk Susana Mendoza immediately lined up behind the mayor, saying, "The City of Chicago is facing a challenge unlike any other in its history, a challenge marked by tragedy and loss. It has affected friends and families and divided our beloved neighborhoods. However, at times like these we are stronger together than we are apart.
"We all have a role to play in creating a roadmap for the future," Mendoza added. "We must pave a new direction for Chicago that leaves no one behind. I stand fully committed to helping build a better path that helps to heal our fractured City and gives all Chicagoans an opportunity to succeed."
Emanuel also appeared at John B. Drake Elementary School, 2710 S. Dearborn St., to announce a new school-based health center there. The Drake center will funded by an e-cigarette tax, the mayor said.
The mayor started the day going on a three-mile run with police recruits.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel runs with police recruits morning after public safety address: https://t.co/Y1BG1SAkQX pic.twitter.com/UCASai3n79
— ABC 7 Chicago (@ABC7Chicago) September 23, 2016
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