Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart Hasn't Spoken To Rahm Emanuel In Four Years

By Jim Bochnowski in News on Jul 7, 2015 9:05PM

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Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart recently revealed that he hasn't spoken to Mayor Emanuel in four years, despite his prominent role in criminal justice in the city.

In a lengthy interview with Crain's, Sheriff Dart reveals that his department has been sending police officers to known high-crime neighborhoods in Chicago for quite some time. Last year, Sheriff's officers seized 112 guns, made 522 arrests and performed 862 home-monitoring checks over the course of about six weeks.

Technically, the Cook County Sheriff's Office is only responsible for "providing services and security to all county court facilities, administering the Cook County Jail, and policing the unincorporated areas of Cook County," according to the county's website. However, Dart still has the ability to send officers anywhere in the county, including, of course, Chicago.

But when asked about the feedback he's received from Mayor Rahm Emanuel about these efforts, Dart said, "We probably haven't spoken for four years." He also claims to rarely speak with Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, although his officers regularly communicate with their CPD counterparts. "We run the numbers and then call the (CPD district) commander in the area, and my commander meets with him. ...The whole intention is suppressing crime."

In a statement, a CPD spokesperson told Crain's:

"CPD partners closely with the sheriff's office, along with a number of other law enforcement agencies, in a variety of ways to ensure public safety in neighborhoods throughout Chicago...warrant checks, probation checks, random drug testing and evictions. These are the same services sheriff's deputies perform on a daily basis all over the county

The Sheriff's Department is even headquartered in the the Daley Center, right next to City Hall, so it seems like it would be easy enough for the mayor to invite Dart over to chat about any number of issues that are important to the city and county. But Sheriff Dart isn't in bad company, necessarily. As the Chicago Sun-Times points out, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle expressed a similar relationship with the mayor in this video: