Amid nationwide calls to defund police departments, demonization of police as “inherently racist,” and a rise in crime in major cities, the number of Chicago cops that have retired this year is on track to be the highest number in the department’s history. The Windy City, meanwhile, remains besieged by gangs and sees skyrocketing violent crime rates.
The figures come from the police pension board, as reported by the Chicago Sun-Times. Between January and June, some 363 officers called it quits, and another 56 were expected to retire this month.
The department — which has roughly 13,000 sworn officers — had 560 retirements in all of 2020, 475 in 2019, and 339 in 2018. The paper asked a police spokeswoman about the troubling retirement numbers, and only received a general reassurance that the department “continues to monitor and maintain appropriate resources citywide” and that recruitment is ongoing.
Chicago’s 15th Ward Alderman Ray Lopez blamed the exodus in part on Mayor Lori Lightfoot, claiming she has demoralized officers with her anti-police rhetoric. “Many of our officers are not choosing to leave law enforcement as a profession but are retiring early to go to other departments because they don’t feel appreciated and respected in their home city of Chicago,” he told the paper.
the Sun-Times also spoke to John Catanzara, president of the Chicago police union, who noted that there’s also been an exodus of young officers who haven’t been with the department long enough to qualify for retirement benefits, yet still chose to leave and move to other police departments because they’re “absolutely miserable,” according to Catanzara.
He added that those young cops take leaves of absence until they can get hired elsewhere because they’re “sick of working 12-hour shifts,” having days off canceled, and being under what he described as a “constant threat of punitive action.” “You are literally treated like a rented mule and ridden until you can’t go any more,” the union president said.
Given the alarming trend of one of the nation’s biggest and most unsafe cities rapidly de-policing, the violent crime rate grows, and the gangs that drive it are on the rise.
Fox News host Geraldo Rivera, citing Superintendent David Brown and Mayor Lori Lightfoot, wrote that the city’s roughly 117,000 gang members outnumber the city’s 13,000 police officers by roughly 10 to 1.
“All you can do with this defund the police nonsense is ignore the fact that you are essentially assigning a third-world existence to a huge segment of the population all in the name of anti-racism,” Rivera said.
When running for mayor in 2018, Lightfoot acknowledged the “racial bias” that presumably existed in the police was a root cause of the policing issue, and pledged to build a Chicago Police Department (CPD) that “will be best in class in the nation.” Efforts at changing the department have been premised on its “history” of policing white neighborhoods and communities of color “differently.” In a campaign position paper, Lightfoot noted the “racial disparities” and wrote, “It is no wonder then that deep divisions exist between CPD and communities of color. I am committed to continuing work to bridge this divide.” In other words, the problem was identified as the police disproportionately “targeting” and using force against black suspects much more often that against white ones, even though black, white, and Hispanics each make up roughly one-third of Chicago’s population. Lightfoot ignored the fact that crime, and gang-related crime in particular, is chronically high in marginalized black neighborhoods, and that the conditions of unemployment, gang culture, fatherlessness, and poor education create a fertile ground for it. When police arrest the criminals, it only means they do their job, but that seems to be a problem to Lightfoot because of the criminals’ skin color.
To use Democrats’ approach, however, a problem of “racist police” seems to be absolutely unresolvable since 95 percent of the Chicago gang members are black or Latino. To use Lightfoot’s reasoning, arresting them would be racist, so they are just allowed to roam the streets, lure troubled children into their ranks, and commit crimes. Therefore, the city comes up with solutions such as prohibiting police officers from chase suspects on foot before receiving approval from supervisors. Less arrests — less interactions with the police that can go awry. Certainly, that leaves criminals on the streets — and the crimes they commit will be blamed on the guns they possess. This is exactly how President Joe Biden, Mayor Lightfoot, and Superintendent David Brown have deflected on the issue.
Biden met with local leaders on Monday to consider ways to restrict the sale of firearms and urged local authorities to hire more police officers using federal COVID relief funds. “We know when we utilize trusted community members and encourage more community policing, we can intervene before the violence erupts,” the president said.
But Chicago has long passed the point on relying on “trusted community members,” and Lightfoot asked the federal government for help to “stop the flow of illegal guns into our city” to change the “dynamic” of interactions between the criminals — which, she argued, would be “completely different” if there were “no guns.” “Illegal guns,” Lightfoot continued, “Cause deep pain, injury, and death.” Not a single word was spoken about those who pull the trigger.
Following the deadly Fourth of July weekend in Chicago, in which 16 people were killed and over 100 shot, President Biden ordered a strike force to help curb crime in Chicago, which will cooperate with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and focus on illegal gun trafficking.
