911 is a Joke in Our Town

By Prescott Carlson in News on Apr 17, 2009 4:45PM

The city council took a break from screwing us out of public assets yesterday and tried to push CPD Superintendent Jody Weis to keep the promise he made last October to realign police beats to help more effectively fight crime in the city. Members of the Police and Fire Committee met yesterday for over four hours to discuss a recent report that showed a high number of 911 calls going unanswered, with those non-response calls disproportionately in the neighborhoods that need police presence the most. The Sun-Times has one example -- over 1,200 times when residents in the South Chicago and Gresham police districts made 911 calls in 2008, there wasn't an officer available to respond. Over the same time period in the Belmont and Foster districts, only 10 calls received no immediate response. The overall tally was out of 3 million calls last year, 5,113 were put into "radio assignment pending" (RAP) status waiting for a patrol car to respond. Besides South Chicago and Gresham, the other districts with the highest number of RAPs were Calument, Chicago Lawn, and Harrison. Ald. Freddrenna Lyle, whose 6th ward lies within several of those districts, stated the obvious:

"A district that had 600 or more unanswered calls needs more officers assigned," she said. "I understand it's all dollars and cents, but we're going to have to do a better job with what we have."

Deputy Police Supt. Dan Dugan wants the committee to be patient, as Weis is researching how realignment has taken place in other major cities and that it's a process that "can't be rushed." Police Committee Chairman Isaac Carothers (29th) wants Weis to act more quickly on the matter, otherwise Carothers says he will push a motion through City Council to force Weis to realign the beats by a certain date. Given that Weis has no problem ignoring orders from a federal judge, good luck with that, Alderman. [S-T, Trib]