It's Snelling

No surprise:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson has selected Larry Snelling, the Chicago Police Department’s chief of the bureau of counterterrorism and a longtime instructor at the training academy, to serve as the next permanent superintendent.

  A South Side native who joined the department in 1992, Snelling, 54, is considered to be CPD’s preeminent expert on firearms and use-of-force tactics. His ascent to the top position will require approval by the full City Council.

  “Chief Snelling is a proven leader who has the experience and the respect of his peers to help ensure the safety and well-being of city residents, and address the complex challenges we all face related to community safety,” Johnson said in a news release Sunday.

Experience? He spend no significant time at any rank, certainly not long enough to actually learn each job. He got moved around for another line on the resume for his skyrocketing to the top - without ever passing an exam high enough to get promoted. He was a sergeant just FIVE YEARS AGO. You're going to tell us he knows the ins-and-outs of a squad car accident investigation, TRRs, Watch Lieutenant duties, Detective protocols and running an Area?

Preeminent expert? Tell that to the guy at the Academy who actually wrote and modeled the Use of Force update. He's keeping his mouth shut, so he must have been promised something farther down the line.

And Job #1 - he's going to improve morale:

• Snelling has been the safe choice — and odds-on favorite — once the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability announced the three finalists on July 13. With police morale in the tank, Johnson is determined to improve it, and Snelling has the best chance to do just that, having already trained so many officers as a tough-love fitness instructor at the Chicago Police Training Academy.

Being a familiar face to so many younger cops will be more of a help than a hindrance - point granted. But it requires a lot more than that, and here's a helpful list:

• Manpower - yeah, it's politics, but Snelling is now the top political apparatchik. If you want to improve morale, agitate on a daily basis for manning the Districts. If that means shutting down the units (and god knows Cook County isn't prosecuting criminals hard enough), then shut down the units. If the youngsters don't want to work midnights, and you create all these bullshit little units for them to hide, the District law enforcement is going to suffer
• Time off - again, it's an offshoot of manpower, but give us back our days off. All of them. There are plenty of cops with new cars, high end habits, nice houses, that will volunteer for the OT. No need to make everyone miserable with these deployment dates.
• Get the training out of the way earlier, like in winter when we aren't needed on the street all the time. And for god's sake, trim the Academy fat. Having eight (yes EIGHT) different instructors for a single session - each "instructor" reading a slide show for an hour and then disappearing - isn't an efficient use of manpower. They could be working midnights in a Beat Car like we all did....or at least we-the-politically-unconnected did.
  
• Tell the community "No" when you have to. Yeah, you're a political pawn with political responsibilities, but what's been going on the past few years is ridiculous. How many oversight agencies do we have right now? Five? Six? It's too many and it's made cops incapable of doing anything enforcement related. 

We still remember Waller helping throw cops under the bus for the Bobby Rush Office debacle via his silence. Those cops were ordered there and no one stuck up for them. We also remember Snelling help strip cops who refused the COVID jab and he wasn't the only one we remember. Everything that has come out since those days shows cops were correct to assert their bodily autonomy. 

Institutions (and old cops) have long memories, no matter how much faster groot and BJ wanted us to leave. You'll get your wish soon enough, but in the meantime, we'll keep an open mind. 

If you do good, we'll mention it. If you step on your dick, well....we'll mention that, too.