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Top Chicago Cops Plan "Listening Tour" Of 22 Districts

By aaroncynic in News on Apr 30, 2015 2:40PM

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Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy (Photo Credit: ~cynthiak~

Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy and other top cops are planning a “listening tour” of the City’s 22 police districts in an attempt to mend fences between officers and community members. According to the Sun-Times, First Deputy Al Wysinger and Deputy Chief of Community Policing Eric Washington will attend along with rank and file cops. Superintendent McCarthy told the Sun-Times:

“This initiative will help strengthen the relationship between the department and residents we serve as well as build trust, which is crucial to our efforts in lowering crime and ensuring everyone enjoys the same level of safety.”

Alderman Howard Brookins Jr., chair of the City Council Black Caucus, believes the tour has merit. “I think it’s a great idea, the timing aside,” said Brookins. “It can’t be seen as an election ploy because the election is over. We have to restore the trust of the community.”

But Brookins and McCarthy have an uphill battle in attempting to rebuild a more than strained relationship between various communities, particularly those on the South and West sides. Last week’s ruling in the shooting death of Rekia Boyd by Detective Dante Servin sparked the latest in a growing and regular series of demonstrations against the police, particularly over the shooting of often unarmed people of color.

Brookins said that it would be good for CPD brass “to hear from people and see what they can do about their concerns” especially since crimes can go unsolved because people refuse to cooperate with the police. Despite the rhetoric coming from elected officials and others about a return to “community policing” in the City’s neighborhoods, it’s going to be more than difficult to undo decades of mistrust. Chicago is still one of the most segregated cities in America and economic opportunities for people living in communities of color—often the poorest in the city—are nearly non-existent. There is little to no social safety net in many of those communities, which have seen a large swath of neighborhood mental health clinics and public schools closed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Charlene Carruthers, national director for the group Black Youth Project 100, told the Huffington Post that she was encouraged by the listening tour, but pointed out many communities have been voicing concerns for too long.

“I think if the [Chicago Police Department] is at all serious about changing their relationship with the black community, a listening tour could be perhaps a good first step, but the community has made these demands for quite some time and they haven’t been met.”

Indeed, it is a concern how much listening will actually happen at these meetings, of which dates and locations have yet to be announced. According to the Chicago Tribune, McCarthy said that the fact that Servin was even charged with anything created a “safety hazard,” for officers. “My concern was how is this going to affect policing in general in the Chicago Police Department because every single officer who's out there now might be in a position where they hesitate, and as a result, they could lose their lives,” McCarthy told the paper. That shoot first, ask questions later policy is what has ended up costing the lives of many men and women of color, who often turn out to be unarmed and unthreatening. While the City has yet to admit wrongdoing in most cases, it’s still paid out half a billion in settlements.

To make that first step become one in the right direction, CPD brass will have to make sure they actually connect with the members of the community. Speaking about both the civil unrest in Baltimore, which sparked an hours-long demonstration last night, as well as the strained relationship between cops and the community, Father Michael Pfleger told ABC7:

"I'm a student of Dr. King so I never believed in violence as a solution, but at the same time this didn't come out of a vacuum. This comes out of years and years of rage and anger and feeling neglected and abandoned.”