CWB Homerun on Manpower

Building on the manpower shortage that we've been mentioning for months now, the only actual investigative reporters in Chicago put together this bombshell of a report:

• Sunday evening, officers in one of Chicago’s largest police districts worked their entire shift without having a single sergeant on the streets to supervise them.

  And cops who worked the next shift in the same district also patrolled without any sergeants supervising.

  The lack of oversight was not a scheduling snafu, according to two sources. The district simply doesn’t have enough sergeants to cover all of the shifts, they said.

  After hearing about that — and confirming the situation by reviewing schedules from the station house — CWBChicago took a look at CPD’s staffing numbers. We found something incredible.

What they discovered is that every single police district in Chicago - except 016 - is down double-digit percentages, in some cases 20% and more. 016 is only down 6% - so all 22 Districts are down.

So where did they all go?

• In total, there are 1,376 fewer officers assigned to districts now than in April. Where have the cops gone?

  According to OIG, the department lost 354 of them to retirements and other separations. CPD’s five detective divisions have gained about 79 investigators.

  But most of the rest appear to have gone to citywide teams that Brown created when he redesigned the department in July.

These are the CST and CIRT teams we've been pointing out that are stripping manpower from what Brownie called "the backbone of the Department." Brownie probably ought to be referencing a body part about six inches lower than the spine. 

CWB has tables and links to all sorts of information that any media source (or citizen) could FOIA and see how Groot, the Department and even aldercreatures are either lying or being lied to. Remember that aldercreature who traded a vote for a property tax hike in exchange for cops? He was lied to:

• In 2015, Lakeview Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) voted in favor of a major property tax increase after he said he received assurances that the Town Hall Police District would receive 35 more police officers, to a total of at least 366 cops.

  Tunney began sending copies of the district’s monthly staffing numbers to his constituents in a weekly email. The last time he did that was on June 19, when Town Hall had 391 officers.

  Since then, the district’s manpower has fallen every month to its current strength of 329 officers, according to OIG. That’s far below the 366-cop minimum that Tunney said he was promised in exchange for his property tax vote five years ago. [a 10% reduction - SCC]
  

This post by the CWB blog is everything an investigative report ought to be - in depth, focused, citing numerous sources, and holding government to account. Anyone calling themselves "reporters" ought to study this post and attempt to emulate it. Go click on the link up top and give them some eyeballs.