Expanding the "Brass"

Here's Ed putting out the bullshit he's been told to put out:

And here's the announcement of what's been appearing in our comment section for a few days now:

• Three high-level civilian employees have been hired to oversee reform, strategy and finance for the Chicago Police Department in a continuing shake-up ordered by Supt. Eddie Johnson.

And the $428,00 in salary for these three new positions?

• OT cuts, especially in the Areas. No VRI only gets you so far

The justification is amusing, too:

• “We made a commitment to change the way CPD does business and to put these reforms into place. We weren’t just saying we were going to do it. We’re actually going to do it. So this is just another mechanism for us to ensure that we’re basically policing ourselves. I need the sworn personnel to focus on the crime fight. For so long , what law enforcement would do is pick a police officer and say, ‘You’re in charge of this’ with little or no expertise.”

That's called the "merit" system Ed. You were raised in it, you benefited from it, you continue to hand out the undeserved product of it. And Ed is already setting up the force-feeding of it to the rank-and-file:

• Johnson openly acknowledged that cops don’t trust civilians and, as a result, there might be resentment to three new bosses.
  
  That’s particularly true of Classen, given his role on the Task Force on Police Accountability that portrayed the Chicago Police Department as racist and was promptly denounced as “biased” by the Fraternal Order of Police.
  
  “I’m sure there’ll be some resentment. But if we want to be successful, we need expertise in certain areas. So, we’re bringing in experts,” the superintendent said.

Rest assured, there will be consequences for resisting the assimilation.