The City of Chicago pays out $50,000,000 a year to settle law suits that are a result of actions of their police force. I think that says it all.
1
How about the story today about how our soon to be gone major funded a $19m gym at a public school for a buddy?
While the kids don’t have books
Good bye and good riddance. Please close the door and don’t look back
3
"We've invited John Gotti to help us curb racketeering. So far, we've cut down on crime by not calling things crimes any more."
Thanks, Rahm.
1
This article. is a joke and it’s a shame that the Times allows such disingenuous musings.
The major sat on the evidence and covered up the murder of Laquan McDonald
4
As a Chicago area resident, I was just starting to like Rahm. Some how he fails to explain that Chicago leads the nation in police misconduct payouts: "The amount paid out for police misconduct in 2018 is more than the city has paid in any year since at least 2011, according to data released by the city’s Law Department and analyzed by The Chicago Reporter, and more than what was paid in the previous two years combined. It brings the total tab for police misconduct in the past eight years to well over half a billion dollars." This is Rahm's last eight years.
And don't forget, this is the Mayor who suppressed the Laquan McDonald video till after he was elected. So take this promotional piece with some skepticism.
2
Police officers are in the line of fire to protect their communities and not infrequently give their lives for us. Of course any considerations for reform should include their views, based as they are on experience.
4
Rahm is great at taking credit for successes of others but not the failures that are all his own as Mayor.
3
Rahm Emmanuel has NO credibility in anything. He betrayed the principles on which he was elected, lied concerning the abundance of police brutality and outright murders during his time in office, and left that office in disgrace. Don't believe a word of his essay on his so-called accomplishment. The Police are still the problem, still acting with impunity, and still feared and hated within the city. Giving them "a place at the table" merely enables them to wield more influence in their ongoing escapades to run roughshod over the citizens. He'd conceal more videos if he were still in office, and still lie about it. It's beyond booing or hissing or calling it out as a shame. He made a big mess worse.
8
The crime stats decrease is a natural dip toward the expected valley coming off of the towering peak it was. If you want to truly disrupt the cycle you have to go in hard like Giuliani did in NYC. All the soft community policing dems are so infatuated with only works in maintaining order, not attaining it.
4
@Alexander Agree with this. While Giuliana has gone off completely off the rails, when he was first elected in 1994 after a disastrous mayor, the very first thing he did was to establish the "broken windows"philosophy, which at the time, worked. He got the mob out of the Fulton Fish Market and the Javits center, previously, no one believed this to ever be possible, the mob was something New Yorkers lived with.
Guiliani was far from perfect in his two terms, but his wisdom in hiring gifted police commissioners Bratton and Kelly bettered the lives of every day New Yorkers. I'm fully aware that Guiliani was not personally responsible for the tremendous change in NYC, there were factors in and out of his control that helped. But I'm not going to discount him, either.
1
Mayor Emanuel interesting letter. Please explain why your city has more homicides than NYC (has 3 times the population of Chicago)and LA combined . Also why your police department has a low arrest rate for homes compared to NYC
5
To Rahm Emanuel,
The day you decided that the life of a black youth was less valuable than your career as mayor of Chicago, was the day I stopped listening to anything you had to say.
Sincerely,
Laquan Could Have Been My Son
4
Rahm and Trump should have a truth telling contest.
2
It's difficult to take Rahm's characterization of policing in Chicago here seriously given his record, which includes the cover up of Laquan McDonald's murder, dedicating millions of tax payer dollars to the Cop Academy rather than investing in communities and education, and perhaps most egregiously running a "black out site" at Homan Square where violations of civil rights are all but certain to have occurred.
Moreover, his administration failed to address the root causes of crime in the first place - poverty. Rather than allocating the tax base to provide universal access to a robust, well funded public education system, Rahm's administration closed 49 public schools in predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods to close deficits and presided over multiple strikes the Chicago Public School Teachers Union, all while pouring tax money into developments in already wealthy areas (including Navy Pier, Wintrust Arena, and soon Lincoln Yards).
While it's heartening that crime rates are falling, crime will continue to exist for as long as the mayor's office fails to see crime as a consequence of structural inequality and respond by making structural adjustments well beyond policing tactics.
3
I find it unfortunate that the NYT, would validate and cosign any of Rahm's nonsense. Please remember hes the guy who orchestrated the coverup of the murder of Laquan McDonald, opposed the consent decree, and oversees a police department with a 20% clearance rate for murders and currently has a suspected serial killer running around.
He's the last person around who should be speaking about reform it's a word that is foriegn to him. Maybe next time interview opposing positions to his.
10
Too bad, Rahm turned out to be a complete phony.
5
Christie the bully still thinks he was a great governor, Giuliani, Mr noun,verb and 911 thinks he was a great mayor, Trump thinks he’s a business genius, Bush Jr thought he was smart and Rahm, another loud mouth bully thinks he reformed the Chicago police and was a good mayor.
Is being a jerk with delusions of grandeur a occupational hazard of being a politician? I could see it all they way from where I live, thousands of miles from Chicago, a city I enjoy visiting, in summer at least.
6
Let's discuss the homicide rate in Chicago-specifically South Chicago. What is the mayor doing about it? I don't even hear it being discussed. He needs to rid Chicago of the gangs. What is his plan?
3
A grotesque joke? No just the usual lies for the simpleminded and the dishonest. How many people were killed, beaten, framed, humiliated and harassed by the cops under Emanuel's regime? This individual did everything he could to protect the cops. Police reform is a pernicious myth peddled to get people off the streets from effectively protesting against brutal cops. The only effective 'reform' is to jail the murderous, lying cops. They must be treated like the rabid dogs they are. The only thing they understand is jail time. Civil lawsuits are useless. Discussion with politicians is useless. We need less "dialogue" and more protests in defense of our own humanity.
4
Is this a joke? Or just the Rahm Emanuel PR campaign?
4
Emanuel has been writing lots of Op-Eds recently, praising his tenure in Chicago. Is he hoping someone will ask him to run for something?
3
Seems like somebody is doing some legacy peddling. Just go quietly. But please go.
5
Well fist off you can't be re-elected if you didn't give the cops a seat at the table which like all "tables" with law enforcement civilians are absent and or there with zero power whatsoever. Let's be clear NOTHING has changed in Chicago because the cops crimes are going to go unpunished including the house of torture they maintained. What a croc.
Why on earth the Times is allowing Rahm Emanuel to launder his reputation as an advocate for police reform - after his office deliberately tried to cover up the police murder of Laquan McDonald - is beyond me.
2
No South or West Sider will fall for these galling lies, Rahm. Your interests are in business and business alone. You covered up the murder of Laquan McDonald for 16 months, and you were only concerned about the outcome of his murderer’s trial because of the potential of a property-damaging riot were he acquitted. The Chicago Police Department’s heinous crimes against the city’s poor, nonwhite citizens have not come close to being atoned for. We remember the black sites where people disappeared for months at a time without trial, the horrific and systematic torture of ‘suspects’ arrested at random for confessions, the abuse of power of the Flat Cap Gang, and the hundreds of police shootings that were more successfully swept under the rug. You might fool the NYT readers unfamiliar with the CPD and what it does, but not us.
Meanwhile, you closed several dozen public schools across the South and West Sides in order to funnel millions of public dollars into the pockets of your corrupt charter school buddies. I hope the kickbacks were worth it, Rahm; you are well and truly hated in your hometown for how you ran it, and deservedly so.
2
Over $113 million paid out for police misconduct in 2018. Coverups for the police who shot an unarmed child 16 times in the back. Closing schools and putting up "police academies" that have not changed the curriculum for policing in this city with trainings run by cops who have serious misconduct complaints.
Rahm, lying about your record only makes you look smaller than you already are. Shame on you.
2
Chicago PD is still massively corrupt and you know it, Rahm. Don’t think for a minute that your legacy will be anything but failure.
2
But Chicago leads in homicides. Whatever you’re doing that’s politically correct for law enforcement, it’s failing the public miserably.
2
Though homicide rate movements are fickle, I generally agree with the Mayor's logic that homicide rates are a product of police reform and that explains the 17% decline this past year.
I also believe that the city's policy choices have shaped past changes in Chicago's homicide rates, such as the 58% rise in homicides between 2015 and 2016. In 2015, the city signed an agreement with the ACLU that largely ended stop and frisks. This meant that if you were a 15-year old gang-banger, you now could tuck that revolver in your pants with no fear and what happened...when exchanging word on the street with the competition, there was always a deadly force option seconds from use.
Police are children, got it.
"At the meeting, I was clear that police officers would “go fetal” if they weren’t included in the reform. "
Like a small child, you mean? Children have a very short memory for agreements to behave better. Doesn't sound as good here as you think.
1
This is such a self-serving piece by Rahm Emanuel. And it is bogus. I am no conservative, but you could not pay me enough to live in Chicago, a city blighted since the days of Al Capone with greed, corruption, and government officials who are routinely the most venal in the country. Emanuel has been one of their worse mayors and he claims success in police reform? That's like Trump claiming that his actions are moral!
2
Has it occured to anyone that the problem is not the mayor but the city?
He was right to not release that video and risk months of race riots.
1
Rahm is never a guy who should hold office. He's the bulldog you hire to get things done for you, not the man holding the leash.
He absolutely does not have the personality to lead.
Let's leave that to people like Obama.
You hire Rahm, you don't let him hold the reigns.
1
Don't forget: Rahm Emanuel covered up a murder by a cop to get re-elected. When the video finally came out, the cop was arrested, convicted and put in jail.
2
Mayor Rahm, how many Chicago cops have taken their own lives in the last year? If you can answer this question honestly, then you're showing an improvement in Chicago politics But, if you can't, then you're as misleading as Trump!
1
Being the mayor of Chicago must be a near impossible job. You are bound to have big failures and make serious mistakes along the way. Rahm made a big one in agreeing to conceal the Laquan McDonald video. Still, as mayor he has done many good things.
Chicago had to be dragged into the current police reform effort and consent decree. Dragged by the murder of Laquan McDonald - 16 shots. Never the less, it does appear that all players (except the neanderthal Fraternal Order Police), are participating. So, there is some hope.
It remains to be seen if this will be another failure in the LONG line of reform efforts here. I hope not.
10
@BJA
WHO had to be dragged by the murder of Laquan McDonald? Mayor Emanuel. He had the tapes, and only when a reporter went to court was the public able to view how Rahm Emanuel's cops operated...
Don't tell me he did a good job.
Don't tell me about the problems he inherited.
He sat on the tape until he was re-elected, and he offered the family a huge payoff before the officer was charged or convicted, thinking that would put an end to it...
Rahm Emanuel should make like George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama and disappear from public life.
4
@BJA
An extremely sound, balanced and responsible comment.
1
@Midway
I believe this is the first in my life in which I am reading former presidents GWB and BHO were compared and chastised in the same sentence.
WOW!
Please try and chill out - Mayor Emanuel's term ends in 11 days.
3
Let’s not put the cart before the horse.
Almost everyone understands that violent crime is more common in poor areas. If you correct for income and education the difference in violent crime rate between areas disappears. In other words, poor desperate people are more likely to commit violent crimes.
Therefore, it makes sense to do everything we can to restore economic equality to the community. The violent crime problem will take care of itself.
2
This article describes a collective process that is at the heart of many reform efforts. Lowering crime as well as such efforts as improving education, transportation, etc. are better addressed when all the players come to the table and work out a collective solution that takes into account everyone's perspective. No one person or single idea is effective in solving complex, multi-layered issues. These matters require everyone affected to be part of the solution.
1
Reducing crime is not only a matter of policing. The socio-economic condition that drive kids to shoot each other are still there. Chicago's population is shrinking because of the exodus taking place on the south and west side. People are leaving because of the violence, the lack of opportunity and the economic desert, while the Rahm administration is spending TIFF money on mega developments in wealthy areas ... Sorry Mr. Mayor, but it is a bit early to claim victory on the crime problem in Chicago, unless you address the root causes of the crisis.
1
One has to wonder how credible this is considering the righteous indignation Mr Emanuel publicly expressed against (the unconvicted and presumed innocent?) Jessie Smollet as opposed to the murdered Laquan MacDonald. It’s probably true that police au5orities need to ‘buy into” reform to make it effective, but how is the concerned public to be reassured that they’re not just protecting the status quo if they’re not publically held to account? For me that would start with the national police chief’s organization along with the Justice Department announcing a plan to root out and remove cops who are members of white supremicists organizations who’ve made it a mission to get onto police forces around the country. If police organizations have the idea that admitting any fallibility is weakness, they’re wrong. They are making themselves look both weak and compromised in not admitting it.
3
This editorial by Rahm Emanuel presents some very interesting data; however it would be more convincing if put forth by a disinterested party.
1
Ironic that the people we put in charge of what we say is most important to us are the lowest paid! Teachers and police. Our children and our domestic safety. Speaks volumes for our priorities! This is the reality.
3
@S. Mitchell You ought to see what they have been paying the state police in MA as well as the Boston police. If these are among the lowest paid, everyone else must be making a million or more here.
@S. Mitchell
In the USA police are very well compensated and should be required to attain a Sociology bachelors degree before applying for the job.
Simple things you can understand just from reading the title and subtitle of this essay:
1. Mayor Emanuel thinks it's all about him and his solution.
2. It's his table, and only people he invites gets to participate.
3. If you call out a policeman for abusive behavior, you will not be a team-player, and you will be dismissed from his table.
Then there is the essay itself, in which the Mayor's major theme seems to be: "You think Chicago is bad? Just look at those people in Baltimore!".
Don't do it my way? Then you're making a false choice, the Mayor implies in the last paragraph.
In their new mayor, I hope the people of Chicago get someone who will lead them, not rule over them.
8
Police officers need 4x the budgets, 4x the pay and be held 100% accountable. I read an article that noted that surgeons are held accountable for mistakes why not cops? Well, pay them and train them as well as surgeons and you will get a different kind of cop. Plus, all cops should be monitored remotely so as to immediately be able to call the swat if needed, social services, mental health services. (Incidentally, teachers need the same thing). We need to invest in the foundations of our communities and do so for a decade and we will see major positive changes in the results. Oh yeah, end the war on drugs as the prohibition post below. We have a model of what will happen.
1
@SMcStormy In Chicago 42% of our current budget goes to the police. That doesn't even count all the law suits being settled, especially from the John Burge police torture era. We can't afford more. We need to pay less for the police and have better schools and public programs to heal our communities. That will lower crime most effectively and create a better city.
1
Sounds like a Trump rally. "I am the greatest of all time." Sadly, they wouldn't say it if people didn't buy it.
1
Police officers need to know that they will be going home to their families at the end of their shift. The uncertainty of knowing if a suspect is armed would make anyone prone to overreacting. This is why the false position of the pro-gun lobby is so dangerous to the safety of our streets and citizens.
Of course, the type of psychology training mentioned in this article is also an effective tool in deescalating dangerous situations.
1
Instead of wasting our time by taking far too early victory laps about cleaning up of the corurpt Chicago police force, perhaps the ex mayor could talk more about his disastrous privatizations.
from the chicago sun times: "Chicago’s parking meter system took in another $132.7 million in 2018, putting private investors on pace to reap a hefty return on their initial $1.16 billion investment with 65 years to go on the 75-year lease.
Two other privatization deals also have resulted in windfalls for private companies. Four underground city-owned parking garages took in $34.1 million in 2018, while the privatized Chicago Skyway generated just under $99 million in cash, separate audits of those assets show.
Not a penny of the combined nearly $266 million in revenues, once a key source of funding for city government, went to ease the $2 billion avalanche of tax increases imposed by Emanuel to solve the city’s pension crisis."
7
@Adam Lang
Certainly, but these deals were inherited, not initiated, by Mayor Emanuel. Daley made bad deals for the city near the end of his tenure, which cannot be undone.
Chicago lost the Lucas museum, which would have been a nice source of revenue for the city, because Friends of the Parks decided to save a parking lot. Then they moved on to try to kill the Obama Library.
There are a multitude of factors in play here, and we need to be more nuanced in how we deal with situations and our evaluations of those situations.
Personally, I think Emanuel was never going to make it long as mayor of Chicago because he was unwilling to bend to certain interests and give everyone what they wanted at the expense of future generations. He attempted to clean up a mess, and that is a long-term endeavor, not an easy fix.
8
@anonymous
Parks are for the people, Chicago's treasure is the lakefront and the parks there.
The Obama library fiasco will eat into the people's park, Jackson Park, and make a pay-to-enter building where tourists can go inside.
Chicago would have been wiser to conserve it's rich outdoor places for the masses of citizens to come who need the natural release. Not some shrine to Rahm's buddy Obama.
Body cameras, de-escalation training, and a reduction in the number of excessive force complaints are all wonderful things to celebrate even as there is more to do. Some here would think that a new law reducing the murder rate by 50 percent is worthless because there are still murders.
A place at the table? Ha! They own the table. Hopefully they will invite the poor and persons of color to this table but I wouldn't hold my breath.
7
@Greg
It is still what's going on UNDER the table in Chicago that you have to be concerned with... Rahm Emanuel thinks it will be easy for his predecessor to clean up years of mess.
Chicago taxpayers will be paying for the mess police have made for years, and those who lost loved ones to police crime will not be compensated. Too little, too late, Mr. Mayor.
Don't let the door hit ya on the way out...
1
By all means, please hold your breath... Your polarizing assumptions only prolong the polarity. Instead, pass out, and make your silence your contribution.
If the Mayor is so confident about his police reform efforts, then why is it that our police do not have a contract, since 2017. How is it that nearly 42% of the city's budget goes to the police? How is it that across a 15 year period the city has paid 700 million dollars to settle police misconduct and abuse lawsuits?
I still hear the voice and see the proud face of Dorothy Holmes pleading to meet with the Mayor so he could apologize for the police shooting death of her son, "RonnieMan" Johnson. I feel the pain of Black families who lost their loved ones killed by Chicago Police officers: Snoop "Harith" Augustus, Betty Jones, Rekia Boyd, Michael Elam, and sadly so many more, I don't have enough space to honor.
With the support of nearly 55,000 voters is why we continue to fight for community control of police. Our ordinance Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC) calls for an all elected, democratic council with representatives from every police district in the city. It gives us power to determine who polices us, and how we are policed.
Rahm is gifted in his ability to foster a social and public relations narrative that attempts to twist the public memory to serve his political interest.
As Dr. King remarked, "How long? Not long, because “no lie can live forever.” The truth will set us free.
12
The only way this can be taken seriously is if it’s satire.
10
The good police have to set the tone for police work and make the bad police feel out of place. This is the opposite of how things usually are. Usually, good policemen have to hide their feelings about the bad colleagues their lives may depend on.
1
As a former Chicago resident, and a former supporter of Rahm Emanuel, I am really taken aback by the gall of writing a column like this. Emanuel participated in one of the most egregious coverups of police brutality in recent memory. The mayor sat on dash-cam footage of the McDonald shooting for over a year, only releasing information when it was politically expedient to do so or when forced to by court. The video that was ultimately released led to a DOJ investigation, which found the Chicago Police Department frequently treats individuals in minority communities as "animals or subhuman."
Rahm: don't let the door hit you on the way out.
16
What have Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the police done to reduce the rate of murders and other crimes in the city?
2
Chicago is still a basket case, and Mayor Emanuel is taking a victory lap ?
7
@G
The mayor is like a schoolboy. The bell is about to ring for the summer, and he is out of here...
That is what happens when you hire academics to do real-life work. Job never gets done.
Mayor Emanuel, Don't go anywhere. You will be needed as chief of staff to President Biden.
Nonsense.
LeQuan McDonald was murdered by a Chicago cop.
Rekia Boyd was murdered by a Chicago cop.
Their murders were covered up and excused. Then explain and ignored.
Chicago has more homicides than New York City and Los Angeles. While homicides are at record lows and on a per capita basis other smaller cities are much deadlier, that is not relevant.
Chicago solves about 20% of gun homicides. Among the worst in the nation.
In the aftermath of the McDonald murder cover up, the former Chicago police superintendent resigned.
A nationwide search for a new police commander chaired by Chicago Mayor -elect Lori Lightfoot came back with three names. Current Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson was not among them. Rahm Emanuel ignored the recommendations and rammed Eddie Johnson through at the last mi nute.
Rahm Emanuel does not know nor care about any black lives in Chicago.
This is the 50th year anniversary of the murder of Fred Trump Hampton and Mark Clark by Chicago cops.
This is the 100th Anniversary of the Chicago White Race Riots of 1919 that terrorized killed and wounded black African American Chicagoans. Known nationwide as the Red Summer that was a year in which white American terrorism peaked in the aftermath of end of World War I.
13
@Blackmamba
errata "This is the 50th anniversary of the murder of Fred Hampton....
Such a rosey view invites skepticism.
2
It's great that the NYT is publishing funny essays. You almost wouldn't know that Rahm covered up the killing (and video) of teenaged Laquan McDonald. Or that he closed 50 schools, mostly in poor neighborhoods.
16
Seriously?? The mayor who hid the McDonald shooting from public view to get re-elected? If that video had been shown this article would not have been published. I will say that Eddy Johnson is a very good choice for head of the police department. I am also optimistic about our mayor elect Lori Lightfoot who won because the “Chicago way” and Alderman Ed Burke have been exposed for what they really are.
4
I assume Mayor Emmanuel is running for Vice President. Ain't narcissism great?
9
I just recently watched a video of a bunch of Chicago cops getting extremely hostile, angry and theeatening when some undercover reporters went to several stations and asked how to file a complaint against police officers. Maybe it was an old video.
39
@EJS
Here's a recent CBS-TV story with videos of raids by Chicago police SWAT teams on the wrong addresses, which includes invading a child's birthday party and pointing guns at 2-year-olds.
They haven't been turning on their video cameras, which is a violation of their regulations, and allows them to commit wrongdoing without getting caught.
The police are ignoring the law, breaking the law, and getting away with it. Police Chief Eddie Johnson couldn't even give accurate statistics on police raids.
Rahm Emanuel didn't give the police a "seat at the table" or a "buy-in." He capitulated to a union that allows them to run wild and abuse citizens without accountability. They're like an invading army.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/opinion/rahm-emanuel-chicago-police-reform.html#commentsContainer
10
@Norman Looks like you gave the wrong link.
2
@EJS
Right you are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSPpZbvP17g
I was actually looking for one of the videos of reporters going into a police station asking for a complaint form in Chicago with a hostile, threatening and angry response. There were so many, but I couldn't find one from Chicago.
3
I hate to be too cynical about this, but I don’t think a city with more than 500 murders last year, where 20-30 shootings per weekend is not unheard of, should be bragging about its policing.
10
I don’t see that Mayor Emanuel’s police “reforms” have reduced murders, violence and other crimes. Whose job is that?
7
The Chicago Sun Times recent editorial summed up your tenure well: You lead without listening. Police reform is still a long ways from happening in Chicago and perhaps this piece is your planting a flag for higher office.
8
I wish that reform here in Japan. There are many problems about Police under water but it has not bring to the surface. Japanese Press belongs to "Kisha-Club", Association of "Maskomi", Mass Communication, and the membership entitles them to attend police news conference. Therefore press can not severely criticize police because they might be excluded from the community, "Kisha-Club". The membership is only for Japanese, and international press, including you, NYT, can not join the group. So you, NYT can not attend the Police press conference, and criticize them there.
That's the big problem.
1
How about reforming some of the criminals? Definitely not leading in that regard.
4
All I know is that Rahm Emanuel suppressed the video of Laquan McDonald being gunned down in cold blood for ONE YEAR, until after a reelection campaign. He is, therefore, forever and ever tainted in my mind and I don't have one second to spare to even consider his opinion about anything, least of all police reform (in a city that had more murders under his tenure than NYC and LA COMBINED!).
14
"police-involved citizen death" might be the most darkly Orwellian phrase committed to print in the Trump era. It's called "murder," Rahm.
7
No one should take this man seriously. He didn't run for reelection because the city is tired of him. He tried to coverup the murder of Laquan. He closed schools only in the south and west sides of Chicago. He closed mental health clinics that provided needed services. This was all because Chicago was having a budget crisis. However, he wanted to spend $95 million on a new shiny cop academy in Garfield Park. One of the most neglected parts of Chicago. Before he left he made sure to jam it through the council this was right after Chicago voted for change. He also made sure to jam an approval for development in south loop and northside for luxury apartments. Our tax dollars are going to subsidize private development when schools are being turned into luxury apartments. Rahm is a disgrace. Neoliberal is often a loosely used term but Rahm is the perfect example of what it means. Disinvesting from communities and giving handouts to private business and his buddies.
14
I hope we see more of Rahm in the future. Vice President? Cabinet?
A good leader is a terrible thing to waste.
3
"I made police officers teammates in reform, not the targets of it."
You should not lead off with "I", sends the wrong message, kinda like "I alone can fix it"
Other than that, thank you for serving as Mayor of Chicago, a daunting task.
Please stop giving Emanuel opportunities to toot his own horn. He has not been a very good mayor, and many Chicago residents are scared of the city's police officers.
1
I have lived in Chicago and have family who live in the city proper, it is a city of corruption and has been for decades.
As you leave office don’t try to rewrite history, you and that police commissioner suppressed a horrific tape till the election was over. You Mr. Mayor ignored what the police department was actually doing. Democracy Now did an extensive review of how these police officers were operating don’t believe me check it out on the democracy now website.
Americans are tired of failed politicians attempting to rewrite history, as if we are to ignorant to remember what transpired with these corrupt police officers
You didn’t do any progressive policy to address crime in Chicago other than shoot people and deceive the public.
2
Chicago leads on police reform? Please Mayor go quietly into the night. So many saying and phrases are out there to describe what the Mayor is doing from The Pot calling the Kettle Black or You Got to Be Kidding. The mayor is no longer Mayor mainly because of the way policing was done in Chicago. Now as he is walking out the door he brags that Chicago is leading in Police Reform? The story is accompanied by a diverse picture of female cops in Chicago. Well I guess that is better than seeing recently convicted cop shooting the black man on the ground 14 times.
4
Mr. Mayor I hardly think you are in a position to laud the reform your administration has brought to the Chicago Police Department in light of the stellar homicide rate on the city's south side. Yes, it has gone down in recent months due to the fact that there aren't as many people left alive in that area of the city. The job of mayor and the city's police department is to serve and protect. You've failed the south side citizenry on both.
35
@Kurt Pickard
Close.
Leadership starts at the top. The law and order characteristics of this President have been as contagious as winning. Every aspect of Amecian life is responding.
Follow.
4
@Kurt Pickard The problems on Chicago's south and west sides are caused by gang wars. Why does no one mention this? The gangs constantly fight over drug sales and turf.
There are no laws or restrictions on gang membership. Gang bangers make lots of money. They get their guns from Indiana or Wisconsin because of Chicago's strict gun laws. Gang bangers kill rivals and innocent bystanders. It might help if the media started exposing the harm gangs do to their own neighborhoods, the way they intimidate young men to join or die, the way they flaunt their ill gotten gains, etc. They are scum and should be exposed as such.
5
A sincere and heartfelt thank you to Mayor Emanuel for his service to this great city of Chicago. While I did not always agree with some of his policies or decisions, I always felt that he had the best interests of every Chicagoan at heart.
I am hopeful that the preliminary results of the “Next Steps for Reform" will continue to show consistent and steady improvement when Lori Lightfoot takes over at the helm on the 5th floor and that the reform philosophy of "strong and consistent voices for improving police-community relations" which Mayor Emanuel and Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson carved out continues to develop and flourish.
May this alternative path of "listening to rank-and-file officers and residents" promote promising and positive, legitimate results. All too often, “juking the stats” paints a false picture rather than an honest one. An honest and transparent atmosphere is paramount not only for the Chicago Police Department, but for EVERY police department in the country.
24
@Marge Keller, Rahm was more interested in consolidating power, than in winning over people. That's why his first move was to try to weaken as many city unions as he could.
I will not miss him.
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@Blue Jay - I tend to think that you are not alone in your feelings. I know a lot of folks who share your sentiment.
I appreciate your point of view.
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@Marge Keller
Well apparently you don’t live in Chicago because if you did your opinion would be based on true facts not on fancy words coming from this farewell tour.
This mayor is horrific he has destroyed communities and families. He is responsible for the death of minorities.
He deserves no thanks from the people of Chicago. Thank goodness his term is finally over. Just go quietly,
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I’m a native Chicagoan. I’ve moved to the exurbs. I still maintain a small, rarely used part time office downtown that I will close when the lease expires.
My wife and I sold our pied-á-terre in the city. Once our weekend hangout, we now visit a few times a year, and otherwise drive or fly elsewhere where we feel safe.
Violence, taxes, and contributing corruption. Three strikes and you’re out. My love affair with you is over, Chicago. Thanks, Rahm.
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@David i’m A native Chicagoan who lived in NYC for more than 30 years but returned to Chi five years ago. And I’m very pleased I did. This city has problems, esp with gun violence and misconduct by police resulting in millions of $ in payments. But I find it overall much cheaper than NYC, taxes included, more resident-friendly across fall income levels ( not that our poor are treated well or given opportunities - that’s another huge problem), and thriving with culture, new businesses, college students, tourism. Leave it at your own change of lifestyle, but know that Chicago goes on, longtime inhabitants mostly secure and safe, youthful newcomers keeping things lively.
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@David Where was your pied-á-terre in the city, Englewood?
I respectfully challenge you to tell me which specific Chicago neighborhood you kept an apartment in, and where you go now where you feel "safer." Boise, Idaho? Whitefish, Montana?
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Rahm Emanuel Is declaring victory way too early. Too many things will have to happen for the situation in Chicago to be declared better than other cities like Baltimore. The new Mayor of Chicago has been given a horrible situation. Two years worth of statistics are not a real trend. In the end, the violent crime rate in Chicago needs to come down dramatically before any program based on a focus group can be declared successful.
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@William "Rahm Emanuel Is declaring victory way too early." Did you even read the article? There was no declaration of victory nor was it implied. A legitimate comparison was made to point out what is and is not working.
Note to NYT: Perhaps each person offering comments should be required to sign a legal document asserting that he or she has actually read the article?
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How is Chicago, where I was born and raised, or any other city supposed to deal with its violent crime problems until drug laws are changed? Prohibition was the harebrained idea that brought organized crime to Chicago, but the ban on alcohol lasted only 13 years. Regarding drug use as a crime, and a profitable business, has gone on for decades with no end in sight. Decriminalizing drugs and treating their use as a public health problem, as Portugal has done, would take away the profits that allow street gangs to thrive. Beyond that, the federal government should publicly acknowledge that domestic killers take far more American lives than foreign enemies and revise their budgets accordingly.
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@Joseph Flynn "the federal government should publicly acknowledge that domestic killers take far more American lives than foreign enemies and revise their budgets accordingly."
Amen. Every life taken prematurely here in America matters. No lives lost to crime should be seen as acceptable.
That said, until the violence rates drop, you'll have a hard time convincing most citizens that it is in their best interests to have heavier drugs flowing even more freely through the region, which is what unregulated "legalization" will do...
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@Midway
Studies have revealed a correlation between drug enforcement operations and a subsequent rise in gun violence. This happens through a two-fold process:
1. Right after the operation, dealers and their soldiers go out hunting for whoever they think tipped the police off. If they can't find those people, family members can be killed instead.
2. The turf the arrested people used to control is now wide open to all comers. In an illegal business, where it's impossible to negotiate using courts and lawyers, guns get used to settle these purely financial disputes instead.
Americans didn't decide to vote for Repeal in 1932 because the gangsters had stopped killing each other. The argument for Repeal was that Prohibition vastly increased the violence in the country. Women especially were not going to tolerate it anymore.
Americans are stuck in 1930, when politicians were still confident that alcohol would be eliminated from the country soon.
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@Patricia I don't care what the history books are telling you about what works in different areas: Chicago does not need to open its doors to become an open-air pharmacy. We can't afford the homeless here like they can in Cali.
Legal drugs bring their own social problems. Chicago/Illinois have big MONEY troubles right now -- the costs of caring for the homeless, as well as the newcomers coming for sanctuary, will be overwhelming to the workers and property owners.
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Rahm’s farewell tour can’t end soon enough. In opinion pieces in national outlets, he keeps trying to convince readers that he did a great job as mayor of Chicago. Those of us who live here know the truth. The police department is a mess. His decision to close 50 schools was disastrous. From parks to parking meters, he has been terrible. Go away, Rahm. And please retire from public life.
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@Emily
In opinion pieces in national outlets, he keeps trying to convince readers that he did a great job as mayor of Chicago.
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Why do you think this is running in the NYT and not the Chicago Tribune or Sun Times. The editors are more skeptical; they've got his number there.
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@Emily
I applaud the decision to close 50 schools. It was unavoidable and allowed students at underenrolled schools better educational opportunities. What's wrong with the parks? At least in my part of town they are in good condition. His only serious mistake there was backing the George Lucas monstrosity in Jackson Park. How could you possibly blame him for the parking meter situation which he inherited from Daley? I do, however, think it was time for someone else as mayor. Lori appears to be well qualified to deal with keeping police reform on track which is why I voted for her.
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@John Jones I applaud the decision to close 50 schools. It was unavoidable and allowed students at underenrolled schools better educational opportunities.
------------
Did you listen to the people in those neighborhoods who told you how many gang lines those kids now have to cross to even make it into school for the day?
Sadly, only in Chicago are young bodies asked to bear witness to the truth, which is the opposite of what Mayor Emanuel is preaching here: the violence is so great in so many of these South and West Side neighborhoods, that children are shot inside their homes -- through windows and doors and walls -- sleeping inside on their couches, or sitting outside on their porches, or playing in their parks or coming to and from school.
Only in Chicago would the collateral damage to children be acceptable where a mayor would try to plead that he has instituted "reform" while children are still dying in streets. If you don't have the cops straight, you can't confront the gangs properly, and if you can't confront the gangs, you surrender the schools and neigbhorhoods...
That is the Chicago Rahm Emanuel is leaving to the new mayor to clean up: someone who will address crime in all parts of the city. If you don't admit there's still a problem, you were a big part of the problem yourself...
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As an armchair psychologist, I found the following statement by Rahm Emanuel to be very revealing:
"an effective and focused police department, along with increased after school activities, more summer jobs and greater local economic opportunities all contribute to safer neighborhoods."
Particularly the "increased after school activities" part.
So if those kids don't have a distraction like being on a baseball team, etc., they get into trouble, they hurt people, they become criminals. An idle mind is the devil's workshop, eh?
Our moral national fiber must be made of soap bubbles. It hardly exists. A slight breeze can blow it away.
Not very confidence-inspiring. My fellow man's ethics are held together with a lick and a promise. One thing is constant in human nature: We are untrustworthy. If we had no laws or, more importantly, law enforcement, we would live in a jungle. Rousseau couldn't have been more wrong, and Hobbes and Freud more correct.
The former mayor neglected to mention that he and his administration sat on the video evidence on the McDonald shooting for more than a year, having known the evening of the event that his police department's version was bogus.
Mayor Rahm was also out front in making the wealthy neighborhoods of the city wealthier, and many of his friends much wealthier too. In poorer neighborhoods, he tried closing as many schools as he could get away with, while creating a social environment where police activity focused on confrontation first, followed by damage control. Rahm, as a former hedge fund guru, is very good at cherry picking data to support ideas he thinks will sell. Since his close-the-door-on-your-way-out exit from city politics, he has kept a low profile; all the better to rely on the short memory of wronged citizens.
If buying anything from Rahm, caveat emptor.
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@JS The more you know, the more you see the political pattern. He jumped in as mayor when Obama offered the other Daley brother a spot in his administration, temporarily. Remember, there was the confusion about whether Rahm was really still a Chicago resident for legal purposes of his candidate? It's the same as the questions that initially arose about Tony Resko/Rezko helping the Obama couple to buy the side lot adjoining their family home on the South Side, when they were first starting out... Or how the Ryans' sealed divorce records got unsealed just as Obama was first competing in politics, and Ryan ended up dropping out of the race.
Ah, local Chicago politics. The stories, and they are true! Rahm adds the chutzpah factor in writing articles trumpeting his successes though. The rest of them knew to keep it on the down low, how things really operate in Chicago...
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@Midway; Chutzpah is too mild a word, but the correct one would not be in polite company; not for nothing was he known as Mayor suburb.
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Rahm, you make it sound slightly Polyanna and not at all the city I live in. The systemic racism in the CPD isn't being addressed quickly enough and what good is a body camera you can turn off at will? I voted for you with a hope for reform, alas it came too late for Laquan.
10
Chicago like it's sister city NYC is simply too big and too diverse to manage.
Chicago is beyond change, beyond fixing. All the money on Washington can't fix it, the roots of corruption run too deep to be altered. NYC likewise harbors deep issues but because of serious money it continues a slow creep of gradually expelling fringe
communities, groups and ethnic societies.
There is ample evidence of these transitions that cleverly skirt the core issues without refute and so the movement goes on impeded.
Yet, having spent time in both cities and their suburbs, NYC still offers more than Chicago and that will not change, if ever.
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@Nick DiAmante
I don't know about Chicago, but I know a bit about New York. I live in Queens, perhaps the most diverse borough in the most diverse city in the country.
I know senior police brass. A chief whom I know refers to people who live in the half of Queens that he commands as his "constituents."
At a meeting on Monday night with police commissioner O'Neal, he said, in response to a question, in no uncertain terms, that he would not tolerate an officer's discourtesy.
And I know of actions by individual officers and managers to deal with officers who have treated the chief's constituents unpleasantly.
Don't get me wrong, I have personally witnessed NYPD misbehavior but I know that it is not acceptable to NYPD management today nor do I believe that it is acceptable to most police officers.
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@Eugene You must not live in the same New York as I do. Depending on where you live and how you look is how you are treated by most cops. To say anything other than that is disingenuous.
1
1. If Chicago focused on raising the homicide clearance rate above 25%, instead of feel -good nonsense such as these reforms, that would be tremendous achievement in enabling trust in the police.
2. Cook county is notoriously lax in prosecuting those who unlawfully possess or use firearms. This issue goes hand-in-hand with #1 above.
If the Mayor and the majoritarian Democrat controlled city and county were serious about the safety of city residents, these issues would be first and foremost. Instead Chicagoans get identity politics and sleight-of-hand policies that exist solely to buy votes. Perhaps the next Mayor will finally address this issue in a sound manner.
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@JDK With respect to item 2: black civil-rights activists joined the NRA in opposing increasing penalties for those individuals arrested for illegal guns possession to avoid more black youth being incarcerated.
African-American law professor Randall Kennedy (Harvard) has been quoted as saying that some activists seem to be more concerned with protecting the perpetrators of crime rather than the community being preyed upon.
Emanuel is not being very clear. We do not understand what are the issues that are in contention in either the Chicago nor the Baltimore Police Department and their communities. It would help in understanding what he is trying to say.
Sociologists for a very long time have observed that police tend to become insulated and isolated from the communities which they serve. This occurs because the communities reject police officers because they enforce laws and police find that only other police will support them. The relations between the communities and police become those of opposing tribes, in effect.
It has also been observed that communities which accept their police and work with them are less likely to see police isolated and insulated. The police and communities cooperate with each other. The laws are enforced by police and conflicts about that are infrequent.
But in some high crime neighborhoods, a curious thing happens. While the people want to be safe, they are reluctant to offer assistance to police. Often it's because the crimes are being committed by friends, neighbors, or relatives, so they do not want to be involved. Sometimes it's because the criminals can retaliate. But they also seem to oppose the police enforcing laws against any offenses short of very violent felonies, claiming it is oppressive policing.
Good policing requires both police and communities to trust and to work together.
17
Crime down from insanely high to ridiculously high, taxes up from ridiculously high to out of this world high, deficit completely unsustainable, corruption strong as ever. NOT my kind of town.
22
Crime in Chicago is bad. Rahm closed schools in most of the poor neighborhoods and that made it worse for the kids living in them -- they had/have to walk through gang territories to get to school or be bussed. The Laquan coverup was a disaster, we all expected riots the day of the trial. Most of us are hopeful that Lightfoot can work with Johnson and make improvements. Rahm is a good man but he was a mediocre mayor who never won the heart of Chicagoans. This is a tough city and I don't envy anyone who wants to run it.
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@Tom J
Don't lie to people. Rahm never learned that and he's not really a good liar either. Too many truths uncovered for him to operate as he would have liked...
5
Mr. Emanuel,
Of all the unmitigated gall.
This would be a lot more believable, not to mention acceptable, if you hadn't tried hiding the video of Laquan McDonald being murdered, releasing it only when ordered to do so by a judge. We'll set aside, for the moment, the state attorney general's failure to force disclosure and transparency--if I were you, I wouldn't spend much time pointing to that office to show what a good job you've done.
You played patty-cake with crooked cops and only did the right thing when forced into it, and everyone knows it. That's why you didn't run again, and why you couldn't have won even if you had.
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Plus still not even a mention by him of the horrors of the Homan Square domestic black site...he and the cops are clearly "teammates in that effort" indeed!
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@August West
Right on!
3
@August West
Honestly, it's easy to get the impression that Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago cops have never seen Laquan McDonald as being human.
4
Rahm, don’t try to re-write our history. Funny how you mention Laquan McDonald, but not your part in the foot-dragging cover-up.
We got the change we all voted for. Let’s hope it is real change.
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Rahm is a liar. He was forced to do all of this, dragged kicking and screaming - now he's very cynically trying to take the credit.
He withheld the video of the police murdering Laquan McDonald till after he was re-elected. There is no depth to which this man isn't willing to sink.
Thank goodness his tenure as the mayor of our town is only a few days away from ending. Lori Lightfoot, the mayor elect, an African-American gay woman will be light yuears better - which really isn't saying much because the bar is so low. As a resident of the South Side Emanual treated me and my neighbors as second class citizens for eight years but did manage to give usmassive tax increases while he cut services, closed 50 scools and some mental health clinics, and refused to hire more police even thouh overtime was killing both the cops and citizens,
He was a horrible mayor and a truly bad human being.
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Good job Rham! It shows
1
"Leadership instability and missteps in engaging rank-and-file officers in the reform effort may be sources of the problem in Baltimore," but not in your city, where Police Reform programs were only implemented in July/August of 2018? Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson has yet to be removed from his leadership position, despite covering up and aiding police malpractice throughout his entire tenure.
This is a slap in the face to every family in Chicago who lost someone as a direct result of police brutality and violence, and who still seek justice for the crimes perpetrated by officers under YOUR command. Good luck to Lori Lightfoot, who has to clean up your mess.
27
Politicians typically have ego's but this is ridiculous. Rahm Emanuel knowingly withheld a police dash cam video showing a Chicago police officer shooting a black man 16 times as he walked away from the officer.
It was only after the mayoral election and after a journalist sued to get the tape that it was finally released.
During the initial phase of that case other police officers lied in their official reports to cover up the murder. Rahm Emanuel did nothing to facilitate justice in that case.
The mayor only 'negotiated' a consent decree because the evidence of police malfeasance was overwhelming.
Homicides appear to be down in Chicago but that's due to a grass roots organizing effort, not the mayors policies.
Any mayor that is serious about real reform will do three things:
Decriminalize marijuana and end all arrests for possession.
Have social services, not the police be the initial responders to homeless issues.
Create a civilian crisis intervention team to deal with cases involving persons experiencing psychological episodes. Police should be available to those teams, but as back up, not first responders.
Real reform is not a body camera or community policing. Real reform is when the citizens fundamentally change the nature of policing, which is to protect life and property.
These other interactions contribute to a high rate of police violence and simply need to be legally defined as no longer their job.
This is what leading on reform looks like.
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As a current Chicagoan who voted for Emanuel the first time and never again, I can honestly say that Emanuel completely turned a blind eye to the needs of this city. The cover up of the MacDonald case and the consistent lack of staffing up the police presence are two of the biggest reasons he lost my support. He also consistently caves to the teachers' union which has become bloated and absurd. Rahm Emanuel is an intelligent person but he's also a politician in the worst sense of the word. He failed Chicago and now is trying to paint a different light on himself before he exits the office...We need to hire more police, period. We also need better police training.
35
The Times has lost all credibility with this one.
Chicago is inching forward -- inching! -- after years of systematic torture, in spite of Rahm Emanuel's mayorship. He closed his eyes, approved payoffs, and had to be dragged -- dragged! -- to address the problems of out of control violence against out of control subjects in out of control areas of the city. We all watch tv drama shows. The Red Line has recently been set in Chicago and deals with the police vs. the politicians in working with the people who are finally demanding reforms. (Which is why Rahm Emanuel is on his way OUT as Chicago's ineffectual mayor...)
Whoever helped the current mayor write this has been watching too much tv. The next mayor will be out addressing the violence police see in all areas of the city, and will not trumpet Chicago as a leader of police reform until the real results are in. This isn't a tv show. Promises made are not promises kept. Hope and change, and $3 will buy you a coffee downtown nowadays...
(The Jussie Smollet saga, not this essay, best defines Mayor Emanuel's time in office and the justice system under him. Fact)
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