This Again?

We thought we had heard this guy was a big thinker:

• Weeks into his new post as the city’s top cop, Chicago police Superintendent David Brown said he is considering starting a citywide unit devoted to stopping flare-ups in violence and other crime, a controversial idea that has come and gone in the department in recent years.
  
  It would be the first time CPD has used such a roving team on a permanent basis since 2011, when two predecessors were disbanded amid concerns about their aggressive style and after a previous unit was rocked by a corruption scandal.
  
  In an interview with the Tribune at his fifth-floor office at police headquarters this week, Brown floated the idea, describing it as a “significant community policing-oriented unit,” that would be community friendly, a vision drastically different from other versions over the last two decades in Chicago.

"community friendly"?

• If such a unit were to form, Brown spoke of possibly replicating a program used in the Dallas police academy, which he oversaw as that city’s police chief from 2010 to 2016, that required officers to perform community service.
  
  “They could work on a Habitat for Humanity home. They could deliver meals one day a week to the seniors in the city. They could do some work with young people in the schools,” Brown said. “And what I like about a community service day once a week for groups like this, it keeps that group sensitive to the needs of the community, rather than every day, all day, every day, they come to work, that’s all they do is enforcement.”

Man, he is going to be getting the "volunteers" lining up around the block for this unit.

Here's the deal Dave. You have a unit for all of this. Last we heard, it's run by a Deputy Chief or some other such politically connected ass-kisser. It's called CAPS and it is about the most useless of positions you could find. But with the right guy in charge, it might be changed it into something worth having around instead of a useless money pit.

As for your city-wide response unit, even the Tribune admits that after disbanding SOS in 2006 and TRU/MSF in 2011, homicides totals shot up by tens of dozens, even hundreds. Having a group of 250-to-300 officers (unconstrained by the Contract protections of District beat officers) that can tamp down hot spots and respond quickly to emerging conflicts is a "must have" item on any supernintentdo's deployment menu. The trouble with these types of units has always been training (next to none) and supervision (see LA Rampart scandal).

You're listening to the wrong people already Dave. You don't know any better yet, but you can learn. And if you continue to listen to them, it's on you.

UPDATE: Someone reminded us - the Sooper Dooper CAPS Program (DCO) is currently underway across the west side. How about deciding which is the better use of manpower, assets and money, then kill the other one and send the officers back to patrol.