NEAR WEST SIDE — Mayor Rahm Emanuel Tuesday launched an effort to significantly expand the size of the Chicago Police Department and asked Chicagoans from all walks of life to consider joining the force.
Emanuel has promised to add 970 positions to the police department during the next two years: 516 police officers, 200 detectives, 112 sergeants, 50 lieutenants and 92 field training officers. The department will also fill 500 vacant positions.
The new police officers will be charged with rolling back the violence sweeping Chicago that has wounded nearly 4,000 people and killed almost 700 people in 2016.
To do that, goal, the city must enroll 100 new recruits per month through 2018 in its six-month training academy, city officials said.
The deadline to apply to be a police officer is Jan. 31, officials said. The test to get into the academy is scheduled to take place in April at McCormick Place.
Police Supt. Eddie Johnson said becoming a police officer is a secure job that can provide for a family.
"Instead of being a bystander, be the change," Johnson said, echoing the marketing slogan of the recruitment campaign.
Emanuel again pledged that the new officers will be as diverse as the city they will be charged with policing.
The police department is now 48.5 percent white, 27.5 percent black, 20.7 percent Hispanic and 2.5 percent Asian, based on data provided by the city. Chicago as a whole is 32.2 percent white, 31.5 percent black, 28.9 percent Hispanic and 5.7 percent Asian, according to the 2014 American Community Survey by the U.S. Census.
"We want these officers to represent all parts of the city," Emanuel said. "Represent its strength and reflect its diversity."
Earlier this year, the City Council dropped the $30 fee to take the test, after officials realized some people applied, but never took the next step, said Commissioner of Human Resources Soo Choi.
In addition, the city will pay Deborah Farmer, of Brown Farmer Media Group, $85,000 to convince African-American Chicagoans to join the department using social media and retired officers as influencers.
Flanked by city officials and about a dozen new police recruits, Emanuel and Johnson again touted the progress they have made in reforming the department currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for violating the civil rights of Chicagoans.
"We are on a journey of reform and we will not waiver," Emanuel said.
Speaking two days before the first anniversary of the release of a dashcam video showing a police officer fatally shoot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times, Emanuel acknowledged that the release of the video has had a far-ranging impact on the police department and his administration.
"The release of the video revealed the truth and forced us to confront it and address it," Emanuel said. "The goal is for accountability and reform to go hand-in-hand with safety. We will see reform all the way through."
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