Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday said federal officials will soon come to Chicago to continue work with the Police Department after a major report last month found systemic problems at the department.
Emanuel met Monday in Washington, D.C. with senior members of President Donald Trump’s administration, among them new Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Asked Tuesday whether a federal consent decree for the Chicago Police Department came up in their conversation, the mayor didn’t say.
Instead, Emanuel talked about ongoing work with Justice Department officials in response to the findings they released days before Trump’s inauguration.
"I don’t know if you know this, the Justice Department is going to be here next week, meeting with our people consistent with the consent decree, and starting those conversations and continuing those conversations," Emanuel said. "We plan on continuing to build it."
The mayor then pivoted to talk about the type of federal help he requested from Trump advisers, a list he has repeatedly cited in response to the president’s tweet last month threatening to "send in the Feds!" to Chicago if the city doesn’t get its violence under control.
"My purpose of my meeting was to go out and see, be very explicit, that if you’re talking about federal help, this is what we mean by federal help, from law enforcement cooperation and participation, to investing in kids, to prosecuting gun crimes, to economic development in our neighborhoods, in our areas," he said.
Training, screening of police officers assigned to CPS questioned in new report Juan Perez Jr.
Chicago police officers assigned to the city’s public schools lack proper training, face little accountability and often have been the subject of citizen complaints to the city’s police review agency, according to a report released Tuesday by the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law.
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Chicago police officers assigned to the city’s public schools lack proper training, face little accountability and often have been the subject of citizen complaints to the city’s police review agency, according to a report released Tuesday by the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law.
… (Juan Perez Jr.)
Emanuel last month said he agreed to enter talks toward a court-enforced agreement on a number of policing reforms with then-President Barack Obama’s Justice Department. A consent decree would allow the courts to enforce a set of Police Department reforms in response to the Justice Department civil rights investigation that criticized the city’s police force. The report concluded officers were poorly trained and quick to use excessive force — often against African-Americans and Latinos.
But Sessions has been critical of consent decrees in the past. And Trump has supported aggressive law enforcement to fight crime, specifically in Chicago. So it’s far from certain the new administration in Washington would support such an agreement.
Also Tuesday, Emanuel said he told Trump administration officials they should make a federal investment in renovations to the CTA Green Line. The line carries trains from Harlem Avenue and Lake Street on the West Side, through downtown to two South Side stations on 63rd Street.
The mayor has seized on Trump’s pledge to invest in the nation’s infrastructure as a rare area in which he hopes to be able to work with the new administration. "What would be greater economic opportunity and job creation than helping us revitalize the Green Line, as we have seen in other communities?" Emanuel asked during a news conference to announce architecture firm exp will move its headquarters to Chicago.
Mayoral spokesman Matt McGrath later released a statement saying the mayor "asked the administration to rebuild the Green Line, which serves the South and West sides."
"Rebuilding the Green Line is one way the administration could ‘send in the feds,’ create jobs, and help improve public safety — and a particularly notable one given that they have made it clear that investing in infrastructure is a priority," McGrath said.
Such a project would likely run into the billions of dollars at a time the city is trying to secure federal funding for other massive rail projects, among them the renovation of Union Station and the extension of the Red Line to 130th Street.
jebyrne@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @_johnbyrne
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