Bucktown, Wicker Park Beat Officer Loss Contradicts Emanuel's Inauguration Promise

There are fewer officers patrolling the streets in Bucktown and Wicker Park, according to a recent look at Chicago Police Department staffing numbers. 

And a Chicago Sun-Times analysis found that since Mayor Rahm Emanuel took office, there are fewer beat officers across the city, overall. Many districts on the North Side were hit hard, it indicates.

While the local 14th Chicago Police Department District shows a loss of nine officers, the adjacent 18th and 19th districts decreased their forces by 30 and 34 beat officers, respectively, the report says. The most significant losses were found in those latter two districts, which were joined by the 12th, 13th, 24th and with the largest decline of 79 officers, the 2nd districts.

The Sun-Times reports:

The reason is simple: For every newly hired officer assigned to a beat during the past two years, six other sworn members of the department have retired.

And because about 1,200 retirements have sharply depleted the payroll, rank-and-file police staffing even in some high-crime areas where new officers were added last year is again declining, the Sun-Times found.

The analysis further discovered that while since May 2011, nine districts have seen an increase in beat officers, the total number in Chicago has fallen by 108—a direct contradiction to Emanuel's inauguration promise to increase the beat officer ranks.

Reporters Dan Mihalopoulos and Frank Main found that the number of beat officers in the city did rise in the fall of 2011, but began to decline soon after.

Read the full story: Rahm Emanuel’s police deployment shuffle

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