Jeffrey Booker                                                                                                   11 January 2016

747 E. Oakwood Blvd. |Chicago, Il. 60653 | (773) 921-3561 | jeffreybooker@sbcglobal.net

Chicago Police Board
Attn: Max A. Caproni Executive Director
30 North. LaSalle Street, Suite 1220
Chicago, Il. 60602
Re: APPOINTMENT TO THE POSITION OF SUPERINTENDENT OF POLICE
 

Dear Mr. Caproni,
I want to be the leader of a professional police department that is both loved and respected by the public because of the work it does for the public. I do not want to be a boss or a corporate executive. Events of the recent past involving law enforcement misconduct should make it clear the traditional criteria for succession is not effective because the performance issues we now face have transcended the various regime changes. If the police department does not change course now, it will likely devolve into a permanent adversary of the public. Successful change will most likely come with the appointment of someone who has served in the organization. That person should be familiar with the organizational methodologies that reinforce the negative characteristics of the informal culture of the department and be willing to change them. That person should also have a firm belief that the men and women of the police department can be inspired to perform much more effectively than they currently do. I am such a person; there are a number of other such persons currently within the department. The missing link is, and has been, in the upper echelons of the department. Leadership must clearly define what it is to be a good police officer and then provide officers with the skills to attain a level and quality of service to, and protection of, the public in a manner that is commensurate with the public’s expectations.                                                                                                                                                     

Sincerely,


Jeffrey Booker
Enclosure: Resume, Application Packet

 

 

 

747 E. Oakwood Blvd

Phone 773 921-3561

E-mail jeffreybooker@sbcglobal.net

 

Jeffrey Booker

Objective

To combine my experience in media communication and law enforcement, together with my formal academic training to help establish procedures and practices that will facilitate police to citizen engagements that offer a comprehensive array of responses to request for service that include public service as well as law enforcement activities in a sustainable and equitable manner.

Work experience

American Heritage Protective Services: March 2015-Present

Armed protection of ComEd infrastructure from sabotage and theft.

Sentinel Investigations: Jul. 2015-Present

Corporate asset, personnel and customer protection

Investigative Services: Jun. 2012 – Sept. 2015

Overnight security for summer street festivals

DHR Consultants: Aug. 2009-Jul. 2011

 Independent Contractor Consultant, assisted in creating a multilateral national development program for Mali, West Africa 

 Chicago Police Department :Oct.’82-Sep.86 & Jul’90-Retired Aug.2008                                                                                           

Police Officer

        Beat Officer, Tactical Officer, Gang Team,l                              

        * Assigned to Public Housing for 8yrs       

        *Detailed to Gang Investigations

        *Awarded Superintendent’s Award of Valor in ‘96

Video Processors: Aug.’75- Sep.’82

        Video tape post production, film color correction, video  

         duplication, night shift manager

Education

Saint Xavier University  Jan.05-May 06

                                                     Chicago, Il.

MBA with a Concentration in Governmental and Not for Profit Management

• Academic Achievement Award

  Calumet College   Jan, 03-Dec.04                                                                                        Hammond, Ind.

Bachelor of Science in Law Enforcement Management                     

REFERENCES

      Ommitted Due to Privacy Concerns

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Accountability in Policing

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     Accountability means being able to explain why a particular condition or conditions exist and the role your presence or actions affected the condition where there is an expectation of influence Accountability in policing occurs on two levels; the organizational and the personal levels. In both cases, even in situations that seem to be beyond the control of law enforcement agencies or their personnel, critical analysis of a situation as a prerequisite to engagement may offer avenues for influence and control over circumstances and prevent the further deterioration of the situation.

     Organizational accountability has several manifestations. A basic level of accountability is the degree to which the public’s perception that the activities of the police department are effective and in keeping with the community’s expectations with respect to individual and community safety and security. Within the ranks of the department, both management and rank and file, should continuously evaluate the significant worth of their collective output as it relates to the stated mission of the police department. This process can start with data analysis and regular discussions that are designed to take random information, gather as part of the daily routine, and process it into actionable intelligence. This intelligence should be operationalized into responses that show a demonstrable affect in the remediation of a given circumstance. 

     At the personal level, individual accountability is the degree to which the individual, no matter his rank, can examine the quality and character of his day to day performance and have the expectation that the general public would approve of his performance. For supervisory personnel, this evaluation may be more a reflection of the way he accounts for the performance of his subordinates more so than his personal activities. The front line officers, on the other hand should be constantly vigilant in evaluating their performance in response to every call for service that he makes. He should also take responsibility to stand against poor performance on the part of a co-worker. This does not mean creating a conflict on the street, but rather making sure the transgression is brought to the attention of supervisory personnel and there must be a process of open and frank discussion with the aim of deciding what the most appropriate response is, but there must definitely be a response to unacceptable behavior. Additionally, officers have a lot of “free” time during the course of their tour of duty. In my experience there is little incentive to engage in what could be considered public service activities during this free time. Being paid while doing nothing has become a fringe benefit that is the result of the informal culture that permeates the department, where the notion of being a public servant has long since faded away.

  Best practices for early warning systems include a number of components.  I favor collecting and analyzing performance data on individual officers and looking for patterns of overly aggressive behavior. This could include, but not be limited to such things as, citizen complaints, traffic chases, accidents, fire arms discharges and civil litigations. Integrity checks that provide the circumstances for an officer to act improperly because he is unaware he is being monitored. Drug and alcohol testing can also be used to detect a problem before there are overt manifestation in the officer’s conduct. I believe data analysis is by far the most desirable method because it presumes the officer is doing his job satisfactorily until there is evidence to the contrary. Other forms of intervention should be “with cause.” A focus on accountability will provide more results in terms of reducing misconduct. The lack of accountability in the current police culture should not be dismissed as an insignificant contributor to poor performance. Studies have also shown that officers that have demonstrated patterns of aggression are promoted at a higher rate than others. Additionally, police officers come from the larger society and there has been a substantial change in what has become acceptable behavior. Standards for conduct should be clearly laid out, and not only enforced, but demonstrated from the top.

Bias is a particular mental leaning that is based on experience. Biased policing is a direct reflection of the biases that are perpetuated in this society. Racial bias has been and continues to be a common factor in the lives of the general public as they come into contact with members of another race. Lately, religious, ethnic and sexual orientation biases are being pointed to with more regularity. It is worth noting that the problem of racial bias was never resolved, so it cannot be used as a template to address the new biases that are arising. A more insidious, and increasingly prevalent bias is class bias.

     The police department has a unique opportunity to use education and training to point out, to individuals that have a vested interest in understanding, the nature and causes of bias. We have to acknowledge that they are there, and then demonstrate how it is in our best interest as police officers and members of the larger society to not perpetuate the social and moral decline that is the result of people being treated differently because of personal biases. At a time when so many of our societal institutions perpetuate or are indifferent to social bias,  I believe police officers would, in a short time, see the benefits of bias free policing, as a part of an overall move towards more accountability to the public and ourselves.     

 

 

Violence Reduction Strategies

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     The Chicago Police Department has employed a few violence reduction initiatives, the vast majority of which have not produced significant and sustainable results. One initiative that I heard about from conversations with command staff involved paying a visit to known gang leaders after an incident of violence occurs and making him aware that the department is very much interested in squashing any activities in retaliation before they occur and that they are aware of his potential for having great influence towards that end

     This strategy has merit in that it attempts to engage persons with a direct influence on the violence in an attempt to head off future violence. I believe this strategy can only have limited results because it does not acknowledge that large scale disenfranchisement is at the root of a lot of anti-social behavior at this level. Coming to the individual under these circumstances ignores the probability that in the short term, a positive response may be forth coming, but continued disenfranchisement will result in a resumption of anti-social behavior. Even if a concerted effort to enfranchise the individual leader is made, there is a strong possibility that his individual enfranchisement will greatly diminish his influence in the street. Whether this contact takes the form of a sincere request for cooperation on one end, to an out an out threat on the other, it is an example of too little, too late.

   An examination of other strategies that I have heard about seem to be more public relations efforts that meaningful violence reduction strategies. Every seven years or so, the department announces its new strategy of, “getting police officers from behind the desk and putting them on the street”. In my experience, this results in officers, no longer familiar with street level policing, that end up serving as modern day “scarecrows”.They very provide a very rudimentary form of preventive presence, not at all in keeping with the public’s expectation of aggressive, veteran officers, being pressed into service to actively engage the criminal element.  The primary impact of this initiative is to move the scene of the crime to another location where the police presence is not so obvious. Another aspect of this practice that bares consideration is the effect that this abrupt change in status has on the officers involved and the effect it has on the officers “being taken from behind the desks.” Likewise, other officers, not directly involved are likely to be demoralized by this action which might be perceived as the higher ups “throwing rank and file officers under the bus” in the name of public relations.

    Deployment zones are another example of a strategy that sounds good at first glance, but does not stand up under scrutiny. Concentrating a number of officers, for a limited time, into identified trouble spots results in a similar “scarecrow effect”; this time the officer becomes a scarecrow being paid overtime. In a discussion with an officer that routinely works overtime in deployment zones, he described an incident where a sergeant arrived to the scene of a shooting in a state of panic, but calmed down when he was made aware that the shooting had occurred a block or two outside the deployment zone. Additionally, the reality of more aggressive patrols in high crime areas result in a substantial increase in the number of negative contacts between citizens and the police, by citizens that would have otherwise had no contact with police.

     The solution, I believe, lies in analyzing the root causes of violence and changing police culture so it no longer rewards unproductive behavior. There is research that points to the issue of respect being a common element in incidents of violence. The desire for respect, or the perceived loss of it are often the common causes. The desire for respect is pretty universal, but when you consider, that for a large number of people, Black males in particular, there are few, if any mechanism that can be readily accessed that reinforce the notion that the individual is perceived in a respectful manner. A violent response is often the most familiar response to perceived examples of disrespect. A fundamental flaw in contemporary society is the fact that so many people exist outside the mainstream and do get any type of social validation from the majority culture.    

     A common refrain in law enforcement is, “We’re not social workers.” In reality, social work is a fundamental part of policing. While police officers cannot be expected to undo the consequences of a history of social disenfranchisement, they can begin to counteract the feelings of disenfranchisement by looking for opportunities to engage disenfranchised members of the public in other than the traditional arrest situations.  

 

 

The Use of Force

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     The police department should have as a primary responsibility, providing its officers with the confidence that they can effectively do their job, especially in extreme circumstances. I believe the use of force should start with making the officers confident that they are physically fit and able to defend himself without the use of weapons. This fitness includes the intellectual confidence to routinely assess a situation without the expectation of the use of force against a citizen.

     When an officers determines that force is necessary, he should use only the level of force required to control the situation or neutralize the threat. The officer should understand that in some cases the simple solution is the best solution; simply closing a door to separate hostile parties from each other will produce a more positive result than the threat of violence or jail. Conversely, the officer must be comfortable with his obligation to physically engage an offender in defense of himself or another. Every struggle need not be a life and death struggle, but an unprepared officer can improperly escalate a situation into one.

     The use of force should be routinely documented as part of every incident report. These report are to be part of the official record of every incident. The information provided in these reports should be of the caliber to stand alone if it becomes part of an independent investigation. The vast majority of incidents involving the use of force are not controversial and the associated reporting would be a mere formality as part of the official record.

    The official record of any incident should be subject to an ongoing review by the department’s training and development unit. These reviews should be undertaken for the purpose of analysis to determine best practices, provide statistical data and to identify problems or troublesome patterns of results. The internal review process should be done in a timely manner and completed with an “Acceptable” or “Incomplete” designation. An “incomplete” designation should include a delineation of deficiencies. There should be no expectation that the departments review should serve as an investigative report. An official record can trigger a further investigation, either from within the department or by an outside agency.

     The department may undertake an investigation on its own based on an official report. The department’s investigation could be administrative, with the aim of performance enhancement. It could also be criminal, with the expectation of prosecution. Any internal investigation would be available for use as part of an investigation by outside agencies. Any discrepancy between the official report and that of an alternative investigation must be addressed and explained to the public.

      If an incident occurs that requires further investigation, the primary responsibility and control of that investigation should rest with persons not aligned with the Chicago Police Department. CPD management is expected to fully cooperate with the outside investigation and rank and file officers are expected to cooperate within union constraints. The CPD’s role in any investigation should be matter of public record. The facts contained in that record will determine the department’s stance in relation to the police activities under investigation. Strong and compelling explanations must be provided if the department’s position conflicts with the public’s perception of the incident or the final conclusions. The outside investigative body should submit their conclusions, to the public, independent of The Chicago Police Department’s consideration.

     In my opinion, the militarization of the police is clear evidence of a society in decline. There have been many significant changes in societal norms in recent times. I believe third party influences have compromised the public mission of many of our institutions. Police departments are but one example. The 1st S.W.A.T team was formed in L.A. in 1969, in what could be seen as a reaction to a political situation, more so than a criminal one. In the intervening years, police departments have been steadily moving further and further away from the public service nature of their mission and more increasingly towards the enforcement function.

         I believe there is an obvious connection between increases in police violence against citizens and the militarization of police forces. The duty of a soldier is not compatible with that of a police officer. A soldier is armed for combat and oriented towards confrontation. The perception of an increased capacity to commit violence by the criminal element should not be used as a rationale for moving the police towards the military’s orientation. The general public’s well-being is not enhanced by the use of military methods or technology on a civilian population.

     Police officers come from the general population.Very deliberate programs and practices should be developed, as part of the training regime, to insure that police officers maintain a strong psychological and emotion connections to the non-police community. That community’s well-being is one of the fundamental metrics by which every development within the department should be measured.

    Law enforcement and criminal apprehension can only produce a very shallow basis for a positive relationship between the police and the larger communities. Militarization further diminishes the relation between the police and the public. More emphasis should be placed on the police officer’s capacity to act as a force in mitigation of some of the societal inequities that become the breeding ground for anti-social and criminal behavior.   

 

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Community Engagement and Community Policing

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     Community engagement and community policing are two distinct avenues that complement one another in the development of harmonious relations between the police and the public.

Community engagement is the practice of interactions with the community that involve police, acting in their official capacity, and the public working together to address, other than criminal,  public concerns that result in identifiable improvements to the well-being of the community. Community engagement is a major component of effective community policing. 

Community policing is the combination of police acting on their own to identify, prevent or intercede in criminal behavior and also creating and maintaining an atmosphere where the general public willingly assists police in their efforts at accomplishing the afore mentioned goals of their own volition. Additionally, that same public is very receptive to request for assistance from the police in achieving those goals.

     I was in the 15th District in the early 90s when Community Policing was introduced as a new program. I don’t believe it was taken seriously by the rank and file officers. It did provide supervisory personnel with a means for providing a paper trail to show attempts at improving community relations without actually gaging the real world results.

     Field contact cards and foot patrols were two key elements of community policing that directly affected patrol officers. Field contacts were to be contacts with citizens and business owners that were meant to create dialogues between the police and the community that would serve as a basis for getting to know one another by virtue of other than criminality based contacts. 

     Several years later, after having been working in a non-uniformed capacity, I returned to routine patrol and the nature of the contact card had become totally different. I found this out when my sergeant told me contact cards were forcollecting information on gang members and criminals. I am sure a lot of individuals became identified as gang members by virtue of a contact card being designated to serve this limited purpose while, its purpose as it related to improved community relations was abandoned.

       Foot patrol was to be a way of getting officers out of the car and more closely connected to the community through informal contacts, as well as being seen, on patrol, on your beat. This was to happen on a daily basis, whenever possible, for at least 15 minutes, somewhere on your beat and before dark. The only verification of foot patrol was to go down on the air. The appearance of compliance could be routinely met without any significant contribution to the stated mission.

   Again, when I returned to uniformed patrol, working midnights in public housing, officers would routinely go down, over the air, on foot, in the middle of the night. It is extremely doubtful that those officers were walking through public housing at night. Generating a paper trail seemed to be enough evidence of compliance with the foot patrol directive. The intent for foot patrol no longer a consideration.

 My experience with community engagement is very limited and based on my personal decision to act in a nontraditional manner. I found the wallet of a local community activist who was generally looked upon with ill favor by the police. I chose to return his wallet to him at his office, which was housed in a ground floor unit in one of the high rises that made up the development I was assigned to. He was very surprised and suspicious of my intent; he even offered me a reward, as if that would have validated my actions based on common stereotypes.Of course I declined the offer, but I’m sure my actions registered as very positive to him, but because that type of interaction is so rare, it probably did not have a long lasting effect.  If I had chosen the traditional policing route, I could have made out a lost and found report and inventoried the wallet, which would have reduced the likelihood of his having his wallet returned.

     My philosophy with respect to community policing is, community policing can produce more substantial and sustainable improvements to the quality of life of the residence of Chicago than tasers and body cameras; it also more cost effective. Sadly, absent command support, individuals cannot sustain a meaningful implementation of the philosophy.

    My philosophy concerning community engagement, if it is properly executed, it has the potential to provide substantial, but undervalued, fringe benefits to police officers in the forms of creating a work environment that is more hospitable, more psychologically, and more emotionally rewarding. This must be facilitated through command initiated procedures if it is to become common practice.

    The distrust between the community and the police can be effectively addressed by a superintendent that has familiarity with the operations of the Chicago Police Department,but has not come up through traditional channels. By the time an officer rises through traditional channels, it is unlikely he will be willing to radically challenge the system that has rewarded him. Additionally, that superintendent must clearly articulate his plans for reform that feature accountability to the public, along with community engagement and policing strategies that are understandable and believable. Nontraditional leadership and a clearly articulated plan for improving the relationship between the police and the public has the potential to give the department the time it will take to produce some results that begin to restore public trust.     

Diversity

     Given the current conditions in the Chicago Police Department, diversity should not be a primary concern at this time. There is no evidence that the presence of a diverse grouping of officers within the ranks of the department has had a significant influence on the informal police culture.

     I identify the informal culture as the activities and relationships that are not part of the written and established rules of the department that have a significant influence on the attainment of the department’s stated goals. This “informal” culture is, in large measure, responsible for the poor relations between the community and the police.

      My strategy for recruiting persons of color would be the result of more fundamental sets of reforms that would be instituted for the officers currently serving. By developing each officer’s competency and proficiency, the public’s overall perception of what a being a police officer is will change for the better. This change in perception would expand the pool of potential recruits across the board.

.      Internal reforms are a precursor to specific recruiting initiatives. Officer physical fitness is a significant component in the improvement of overall performance. Self-defense and self- discipline are areas of development that will be more vigorously pursued. Training for officers also needs to be expanded to familiarize officers with methods for engaging the public using more supportive and non-confrontational strategies. Officers that possess quiet confidence are more likely to set an example of conduct that would be attractive to persons that may not have considered a police career to that point.

Another performance enhancing objective that has the potential to serve as a recruiting tool is to differentiate functions in responding to calls for service. Report taking would become a specialized function. The 1st responder to the scene would no longer necessarily be designated the “paper” car. Officers that may lack the requisite skills to routinely and aggressively engage criminal suspects on a regular basis, could provide substantial support in the apprehension process by being trained to produce more detailed reports that are meant to provide information that will facilitate more effective follow ups by other officers that are more street savvy. This change, if implemented properly, will give more officers the opportunity to regularly and significantly contribute to the police department’s stated mission on a regular basis. Personal satisfaction derived from meaningful participation can make officers a potential recruiter because of the way they carry themselves as a result of their improved self-image. It also provides the citizen with a more comprehensive engagement with the police so they more readily see evidence of the service nature of the police force. This could serve as a soft recruiting function in minority communities as they see conduct modeled they might choose to emulate.

      A system for lateral transfer within city departments might serve as a way to provide officers currently serving, a way to move to another city department when it becomes evident that they or the city would be better served if they left the police department. This could be accomplished without facing the prospect of becoming unemployed.. This process could be further developed to allow other city worker to transfer into the department after completing the required training. This personnel fluidity could help break down the wall around the police department and open the door to persons that might consider the police department as a viable employer if there was a smooth pathway to the job.

       As long as the police department is content to be primarily associated with crime fighting, there is going to be a disconnect between the police and communities of color because the crime that is being fought is primarily being fought in communities of color. At this point, there does not seem to be much of an effort to differentiate between the communities of color and the criminals in the communities of color. This lack of differentiation is evident within the police department and the general public.

 The onus is on the police department to move beyond being seen as primarily low level crime fighters and demonstrate their capacity for more sophisticated levels of community service. At this point in time, diversity recruitment should not be a primary concern. A focus on developing the methods for improving the quality of the service delivered by those currently serving should be a higher priority. Concentrating on bringing a more diverse group of officers into the current system will not in and of itself improve the department.

 

Police Integrity

 

     The lack of integrity that permeates through the rank and file officers is a direct reflection of the corruption at the top of the police department. Given the reality of politics in Chicago, the open acknowledgement that the superintendent of police serves at the will of the mayor is a clear indication that the well-being of the general public is not the first priority of the police department. An honest examination of the historical command staff of the Chicago Police command staff would reveal a significant number of officers that have had serious ethical, if not criminal violations in their files, but rose through the ranks in spite of them. This systematic elevation of the unworthy could be seen as a tactical maneuver that orients the culture of the organization towards compliance with directives from above, without question, because simple compliance is rewarded while noncompliance will result in subjective analysis which results in an unequal and arbitrary responses. The ability to hand down arbitrary responses has resulted in the shielding of officers from the consequences of misconduct. This provides fertile soil from the growth of unethical conduct.

 Allowance can be made for those who have cooperated with the status quo as long as it was obvious that individual resistance could mean the end of your career or subject you to physical harm; in all honesty, the process by which good people fail to challenge conditions that offend their notions of right and wrong are not so cut and dried. We are all interconnected to our environment in such a way that pragmatism often compromises our ability to do what is right.

There is every reason to believe that an example of virtuous leadership at the top, unapologetically and definitively committed to ensuring that the Chicago Police Department will be run in service of the best interest of the people of Chicago, will embolden members throughout the department to recapture their sense of personal integrity because it is so very psychologically and emotionally rewarding. They will also cease to tolerate the corruption on the part of their co-workers because they know that that corruption is no longer ignored or sanctioned by the police department’s leadership.       

     The department’s research and development division should be employed to develop training programs that are aimed at extolling the value and virtue of integrity as it specifically relates to police work. The need for such overt emphasis is expected to recede into the background as the practice of personal integrity becomes a more common feature of the operational culture of the department.

 Meaningful improvements from the current conditions will result from new procedures and practices that instill a sense of the value of ethics and integrity during the course of an officer’s daily routine.

      The introduction of daily review logs will serve multiple purposes in the effort to improve performance and morale throughout the police department. Providing officers with the means for directly contributing to improving individual and organizational performance helps to give the officers a sense of personal by-in to the overarching goal of providing excellence in community and public service. The value of ethics and integrity become apparent as a matter of course as officers routinely supply reviews and analysis of their day to day experiences. 

     Officers will be encouraged to maintain these logs on a routine, if not daily basis. The logs can, at the officer’s discretion, be submitted for formal review and filing as part of a permanent record. These logs can be submitted anonymously; however, information provided by an individual officer via his log reports will be one of a number of considerations that go into the decision to promote the officer. A system for offering promotions, outside the formal testing procedure, will be developed. 

     The information provided in the logs can cover any and all areas of concern as it regards the delivery of police service. Providing a readily accessible means for routinely reporting on misconduct is one fundamental purpose for the log. The officer not only has the opportunity to report areas of concern, but he can also provide background and analysis to support his ideas on possible methods for remediationof situational conditions that greatly contributed to the ethical lapses or misconduct. I believe a lot of unprofessional behavior starts with a gradual decline in performance that goes unnoticed or unchecked. Timely intervention can prevent the decline into criminal conduct.

     In cases where unprofessional conduct rises to the level of criminality or substantial abuse of authority, the subject line at the top of the log will designate “high priority”, this designation will trigger an in house(unit level) investigation, along with a mandatory notification to Internal Affairs as well as the education and training division. These notifications will include a copy of the original log and a file number. The file will contain a record of the actions and recommendations of all parties subsequent to their notification. Internal Affairs will be responsible for providing a final report that describes how the file was closed.

     In instances were immediate action is required, a supervisor will be advised of the situation as quickly as possible, by the most practical means. A field lieutenant will coordinate the response. All officers will be trained to react in such a manner as to preserve life, control the situation, and preserve the evidence.     

     Additionally, closing the loophole that allows officers who have been fired for misconduct to sue and get their job back is something that needs to be done to reinforce the department’s commitment to integrity.

Technology in Policing

     During my career as a patrolman, I used technology as an adjunct to manual information gathering and investigation. Technology allowed me to more quickly process and correlate related pieces of information, and thereby accomplish successful apprehensions.

     I will sight to two examples that are relevant to using technology in service to taking the criminal element off the street. One case involves a robbery on a CTA platform, while the other involved the robbery of a visitor to the Ida B. Wells Housing Development.

   I received a report of a robbery that had occurred on my beat. I assigned to a foot patrol beat on 43rd street, the CTA station was on my beat. The victim was a local resident, which would facilitate my personally following up on the incident. I figured there was a high likelihood that the offender did not come from some other area to commit this crime. Because I had a rapport with local residence, I was able identify the offender by name. I was able to get a photo of him and eventually saw him on the street. I radioed information to other units in the area and we were able to take the offender into custody after a brief chase. The offender was successfully prosecuted.

   In the Wells incident, I was working with a partner and we were assigned to the Ida B. Wells Development. We received a report of a robbery that has just occurred. After talking to the victim we learned, he had dropped off a friend and after escorting her to her apartment, he was robbed by two men. One was described as tall, heavy set and dark. The other one was short, medium brown skinned, with “pop eyes” like a frog. After conversations with local residents we were able to identify the shorter offender, His nickname was actually frog, we used the nickname data base to verify “frogs” identity with the cooperating witness. We were not able to conclusively identify the other offender because the victim stated that the “big guy” bear hugged him from the rear, pinning his arms to his side while, “frog” took his property. He only saw the big guy as he ran away. Sometime later, we saw “frog” on the street and approached him as if to do a field interview. After he was in hand cuffs for what he thought was a disorderly conduct arrest, he was informed that he was being arrested for a strong-armed robbery. He was taken into the area, turned over to detectives, subsequently identified by the victim and sentenced to a term in the penitentiary.

    Each case involved, individual initiative on the part of the police, a rapport with the community and the use of technology. I think that is the order of operation that produces the optimal results. The primary function of technology should be to collect and record data and information. Police officers should be able to use technology to analyze and process that information as it relates to a case or circumstance that they are actively pursuing.

     I believe the department commits a grievous error when it allows technology to be the genesis for negative impacts, visited on the general public, that are generally perceived as police actions. Red-light and speed cameras give the public another rationale for resenting police officers, while allowing criminals transporting significant amounts of contraband to only suffer the consequences of a traffic ticket, which they will likely, not pay. Additionally, unless the camera can positively identify the driver of the vehicle, the police department is turning a blind eye to the public being convicted on circumstantial evidence and not, beyond a reasonable doubt. This practice has had serious ramifications on the public’s perception of the integrity of the police department and our system of justice.

     Similarly, the wide spread dissemination of Tasers and body cameras have a high likelihood for diminishing the quality of police service that is delivered to the public. When more officers have Tasers, the use of Tasers is going to increase. The presence of Tasers orients the officer to a more belligerent posture when approaching a situation. The fact that, “We didn’t use deadly force,” is a sad commentary on the state of affairs when this becomes the default response to allegations of the use of excessive force. This statement will be cold comfort to the aggrieved parties and another brick in the wall between the police and the public.

    Increased surveillance in general and body cameras in particular, move police further and further away from providing community service and towards avoiding sanctions. A body camera will not show the hell that a grandmother endured, prior to the arrival of police, as her out of control grandson routinely menaces the rest of the household on an ongoing basis. The camera will show the officer forcefully removing the lad after he continues to show disrespect, even in the presence of police. Often times police officers may do something that might not, arguably, be right, but it is extremely appropriate at the time.

The acquisition and maintenance cost of technology should be weighed against the cost of its influence on the personal relationships, officer to officer, as well as officer to citizen. Officers are severely compromised in the execution of their duties if they have to worry about being second guessed by a video recording that cannot recreate the living realities of the situation and provide images that are presented totally out of context.

    Technology should complement the activities that officers initiate as the officers create the uses for the available technology. We must be mindful of any circumstance in which technology is allowed to dictate or greatly influence the initial actions of police. Technology should always remain the servant and never the master of the police or the general public.  

 

Terrorism and Related Matters

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    My experience in addressing the issues surrounding terrorism as a member of the police department is limited a certification from The Chicago Police Department’s Terrorism Awareness and Response Academy training. I have done independent research on the topic and come to conclusions that do not reflect the official line being propagated to the general public.

     The T.A.R.A. training consisted of a couple of days of classroom in-service training. We were given an overview of various types of terrorist attacks and practical responses by 1st responders. The long and short of it was that you should limit your exposure to the threat, attempt to establish a perimeter and alert support personnel, more properly trained to handle such incidents.

     During the course of the training, there was a discussion of groups made up of individuals that share particular political or social views that are currently active domestically. The Nation of Islam and “militia groups” were mentioned as examples of hate groups. While these groups have been openly critical of the government and the practices of certain people, they do not have a record of violence against civilians or the wanton destruction of property in random acts that are designed to strike fear into the public that would elevate them to the level of terrorist. To bring them up in a training regime that is to focus specifically on terrorism is misleading and has the potential to create a bias in people who are unfamiliar with these groups to that point. It also creates the ability to conflate criminal incidents that are more accurately described as incidents that involve mentally ill persons with terrorism.

     In an informal discussion that I had with one of the presenters, he stated The World Trade Center collapses were unquestionably caused by being struck by the airplanes. Being careful not to express my skepticism about the subject, I asked him his impression of what happened with building #7, which had not been struck by a plane? He replied that it was a combination of the heat from fire and the weight of people jumping out to escape the twin towers. At that point, I did not see this as a serious, in depth presentation about terrorism, but rather another program that was driven by the availability of federal money. As superintendent, I would mandate cost to benefit reviews of all training programs to insure officers were actually becoming better prepared to perform their assigned duties, whatever they may be, as a result of the training.

     In actuality, the likelihood of being killed in a terrorist incident is about the same as being struck by lightning. The same process that has led to the exaggeration of the reality of the terrorist threat in the public mind, has also led to police officers being unnecessarily apprehensive in their contacts the general public in certain communities. For a topic as serious as terrorism preparedness, the paper trail left by the implementation of the training process cannot be allowed to trump the real world value of the training. The actualworth of the training with respect to the degree it actually benefits the people of the city of Chicago in terms of improving the level of police preparedness to effectively prevent and respond to terrorism should be the bottom line. As Superintendent, I would assign a small group of sworn personnel, working in league with civilians to keep abreast of terrorist activity, locally and internationally. This group would be charged with designing practical methods for mobilizing the department to prevent or respond to a terrorist attack. I would not allow the entire department to become oriented towards fighting terrorist while performing their routine assignment of serving and protecting the public.

     I would enhance the process for operationalizing information into intelligence by expanding the scope of that intelligence sharing with other law enforcement partners to include an examination of the best practices, the social. and the environmental conditions in municipalities that do not have the degree of anti-social and criminal behavior that we struggle against. I would look for opportunities to use what we can learn by contrasting the conditions in more functional communities to the prevailing conditions in our more dysfunctional communities to see if we can find additional strategies to improve the quality of life in those communities that are not directly tied to crime fighting. I believe a focus on what is effective and good can enhance the relationship between the various law enforcement partners because it expands the communication channels from a one way flow of engagements aimed at suppressing adverse conditions to a two way flow of information that features the expansion of successful practices that contribute to social order.     

     Chicago Police Department has procedures for federal engagement already in place. I would, over time, become intimately familiar with the process and the people involved; however, as a first step, I would make it clear that we welcome the assistance and support of our federal partners, in our efforts to serve and protect the public, but we will not cooperate with, nor ignore any violations of the law or the civil rights of the public under the guise of law enforcement. That same message would be delivered loud and clear to all personnel employed by The Chicago Police Department, as well as the general public.