Amid shooting controversies and a Justice Department investigation, top brass in the police department have resigned or been fired. Rahm Emanuel has a chance to repair a broken relationship – but is he equal to the task?

Just hours after the US Justice Department announced this week that it would investigate the Chicago police department for civil rights violations, local elected officials went on the offensive.

During an often-tense press conference, embattled Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, who previously called a federal civil rights investigation “misguided”, pledged his full support.

“We welcome it, and Chicago as a city will be better for it,” Emanuel said. “It is in our best long-term interest.”

Also on Monday, Emanuel tapped a new head for the city’s Independent Police Review Authority, a recently criticized agency tasked with investigating all police shootings. But the move, which Emanuel said he hoped would “re-establish trust” with the community, was largely overshadowed by the release of another dashcam video showing a Chicago police officer shooting a black man.



The day’s developments were the latest in the ongoing crisis facing Chicago’s police officers and officials, following controversies over the fatal shootings of two young black men, 17-year-old Laquan McDonald and 25-year-old Ronald Johnson III, both of which were recorded by dashcams; revelations of alleged abuses at a Homan Square police facility; and the dismissal of several officers charged with varying degrees of use of excessive force.

There have been daily protests calling for firings and resignations, including the mayor’s, since the 24 November release of the Laquan McDonald shooting video, which contradicted officials’ accounts. While the demonstrations have been generally peaceful, there have been occasional conflicts with police, motorists and shoppers after activists held a large Black Friday demonstration downtown.

The conflict between the protesters and police got more tense when officers arrested local activist and aspiring poet Malcolm London for allegedly punching a cop during a demonstration. All charges were dropped the next day, but his short detention only fueled the fire and drew more unwanted attention towards a police department many called corrupt.

In the past few weeks, heads have started to roll as the city finally responded to calls for changes.

Dismissed were police chief Garry McCarthy and detective Dante Servin, who months earlier had been found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter for an off-duty shooting that left a woman dead. This week, Constantine “Dean” Andrews, the department’s chief of detectives, and Scott Ando, the former head of the agency that investigates police shootings, suddenly resigned.

In the Laquan case, white officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder after shooting the teenager 16 times, but Cook County state’s attorney Anita Alvarez decided not to charge officer George Hernandez in the Johnson case.

Despite these swift actions, the Justice Department (DoJ) investigation could be the tipping point for a police department long criticized for police brutality. Most notably, former detective and police commander Jon Burge allegedly tortured more than 200 suspects for false confessions between 1972 and 1991. In 2010, Burge was convicted of obstruction of justice and perjury, but Emanuel and the city have been dealing with wrongful conviction settlements since.



Since the beginning of 2010, Chicago police have fatally shot 81 people, but it took the release of the Laquan video for the situation to get national attention.

Since the DoJ was given the power to investigate police departments in 1994, it has found violations and imposed reforms in other major cities, including Los Angeles, Detroit and New Orleans. In 2011, the DoJ even investigated the police in Harvey, a suburb just south of Chicago.



The DoJ investigation “will examine a number of issues related to the Chicago police department’s use of force, including its use of deadly force”, US attorney general Loretta Lynch said in Washington on Monday.

It is not uncommon for cities to fire their police chief before a federal investigation, and many cities go through numerous top cops while implementing the mandated reforms. While protests will continue, the immediate personnel changes are not likely to lead to immediate changes in policy.

McCarthy, who came to Chicago after leading police in Newark, New Jersey, was unpopular with many officers and black aldermen, who said his strategies focused too much on data and not enough on crime prevention in the city’s most violent areas. His supporters noted a reduction in “overall crime” stats during his first two years with the department.

“Nobody is really crying over McCarthy being gone,” retired Chicago police lieutenant Bob Angone told the Guardian. “He was a stat-fudging bully who loved the cameras and never paid attention to his supervision, which got away from him.”

Yet many Chicagoans do not believe McCarthy’s dismissal was enough, and want an investigation into what the mayor knew about alleged police cover-ups, especially in the Laquan shooting.

“People see [McCarthy’s firing] as just a political move,” pastor Corey Brooks, a well-known community activist, said. “They see it as him just trying to save his own position, and his own status as a mayor in our neighborhood.”

Brooks, who came to national attention when he camped out for months on the roof of a vacant building near his New Beginnings church to protest urban blight, worked with McCarthy on innovative community policing strategies and now has his own youth facility down the street from the infamous “O Block”, a notorious gang stretch.

“A lot of people are wondering why there is no probe into the mayor’s office,” Brooks said. “Why just a probe into the police department? That is the question to a lot of people in our neighborhood.”



Chicagoans shouldn’t expect sweeping changes any time soon. Lynch gave no timeline for her investigation, which will focus only on the police department, a process that often takes more than a year.

Changes in the police department have not stopped protesters, who said they will continue to march until Emanuel resigns, a highly unlikely move for a newly re-elected mayor who has faced controversy before in his handling of the city’s public schools, where he has already fired two handpicked CEOs during his first five years on the job.

Emanuel’s next major task will be to name McCarthy’s replacement, a job currently being held temporarily by former chief of detectives John Escalante.

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A committee is in charge of selecting a group of candidates for the mayor to choose from. Many officers would like to see a longtime Chicago police officer promoted to the position of superintendent instead of bringing in another outsider.

One outsider who officers might respect is Charles Ramsey, according to Angone. The African American former Chicago police officer has been in charge of the Washington DC and Philadelphia police departments. He has previously been linked to the Chicago job, but recently said he is now retired and would only be interested in consulting with the city.

“I would hope that it’s someone within the police department who has the wherewithal,” Brooks said. “There are a few great people that I’m hoping for ... I think having an African American woman would be great.”