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30 More Police Officers Coming Downtown, Alderman Says

 About 30 more police officers will patrol Downtown streets soon, right before summer starts to heat up, a local alderman said.
About 30 more police officers will patrol Downtown streets soon, right before summer starts to heat up, a local alderman said.
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DNAinfo/Lizzie Schiffman

DOWNTOWN — About 30 more police officers will patrol Downtown streets soon, right before summer starts to heat up, a local alderman said.

"We're getting some new cops in the next month, about 30, which is good," Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) told River North neighbors at an unrelated development presentation Tuesday. 

The announcement comes amid rising crime throughout Chicago, and even Downtown. Police reported 189 robberies in the four police beats that roughly make up River North and Streeterville last year, up from 121 in 2015. 

Reilly echoed other politicians' calls that the police department is "spread thin," but is glad the extra patrols will come before summer, when more tourists and the criminals who target them start flooding the Mag Mile. 

"You know that joke 'Why do you rob banks? That's where the money is,'" Reilly said. 

Police declined to comment, saying the department does not discuss "deployment operations."

"We assign them based on operational needs," an unidentified police spokesman wrote in an email. 

Reilly's ward covers much of Downtown, and includes officers stationed in both the Central and Near North police districts.

It's unclear whether the extra police Downtown would add to or are part of the extra patrols coming to the city's lakefront this summer. 

Northwestern University campus police are also negotiating an expansion of their patrols beyond the school's Streeterville campus with the Chicago police department. Bob Rowley, a Northwestern spokesman, said Wednesday there was no update on those negotiations.

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