City Council to vote Wednesday to give Johnson top cop job

With murders and shootings spiking, high-crime summer months fast approaching and a federal civil rights investigation in high-gear, the City Council will vote Wednesday to sanction Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s end-run around the Police Board by handing Interim Police Supt. Eddie Johnson the permanent job.

The die was cast Tuesday, when the Committee on Public Safety anointed Johnson as the permanent, $260,044-a-year replacement for fired Police Supt. Garry McCarthy after 90 minutes of debate about the “dangerous precedent” being set.

Only after the committee signed off on what aldermen were assured was a “one-time exception” was Johnson put on the hot seat for a grilling that was a partial substitute for the vetting he didn’t get from the Police Board.

Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd) cut to the chase. He asked the new superintendent what he planned to do to get a handle on runaway overtime that topped $116.1 million in 2015— and about what Munoz called the “elephant in the room.”

“Do we have enough police officers?” Munoz said.

Johnson answered the red-hot manpower and redeployment questions the way McCarthy always did. He punted.

“We have to take a hard look at are we using the resources that we have efficiently? Once we can say that, then we can look at whether or not we have enough,” Johnson said.

Munoz and others also claimed that cuts to community policing have dissipated the once pioneering program into little more than an “in-person 911.” Johnson did not disagree.

When CAPS officers were severed, Johnson said it “inadvertently created mistrust and my No. 1 goal is to get that trust back.”

Toward that end, the superintendent said he favors putting police officers back in Chicago Public Schools.

“The young folks don’t look at police officers as people. All they see is the uniform. Putting police officers back in schools — all that stuff is important in bringing back that trust,” he said.

With $6.5 million more in police abuse settlements poised for approval Wednesday, Ald. Willie Cochran (20th), a former Chicago Police officer, had a warning for the new top cop.

“These financial settlements are driving us to the poor house,” Cochran said.

Johnson said he is fully committed to implementing recommendations from Emanuel’s Task Force on Police Accountability, scheduled to be released Wednesday, and from the Justice Department after that.

In the meantime, he’s talked to Internal Affairs about creating a “mechanism so we can flag narratives of inappropriate behavior in real-time.”

“One bad officer paints all of us in a negative light. That hill is tough to climb every time we have to face that,” he said.

“We’re working on mechanisms now where we can flag inappropriate behavior early on. Those things will go a long way toward relieving the stress of large pay-outs.”

Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41st), a former Chicago Police officer-turned-firefighter, told Johnson he has one request:

“Fix the morale. Bring back that pro-active police officer.”

Turning to his colleagues and the community at large, Napolitano said, “Let’s get behind our police officers. Let’s weed out the bad apples. But it doesn’t ruin the bunch.”

The former chief of patrol takes the reins at a perilous time.

The U.S. Justice Department is conducting a federal civil rights investigation of the Chicago Police Department triggered by the police shooting of Laquan McDonald — and conducting ride-alongs with Chicago cops–that is almost certain to culminate in the appointment of a federal monitor to execute mandates that will cost millions of dollars to implement.

Since the court-ordered release of the McDonald shooting video, homicides and shootings have spiked while arrests and police stops have plummeted. Police morale has hit rock-bottom. Officers have adopted a defensive crouch, concerned about being caught doing something wrong as the star of the next viral YouTube video.

On Monday night, a 16-year-old boy was fatally shot by a Chicago Police in the West Side’s North Lawndale neighborhood after officers on patrol in the Harrison District saw a vehicle matching the description of one used in an earlier shooting.

Tuesday’s hearing got off to a rocky start when aldermen were asked to sanction Emanuel’s decision to ignore the three finalists that emerged from a nationwide search that cost the Police Board $500,000 to conduct.

“What is the urgency? Why can’t we just follow the process?” said Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson (11th).

Ald. Susan Sadlowski-Garza (10th) called the one-time exception a “dangerous precedent” during a time of crisis for the Chicago Police Department that demands transparency.

But Ald. Walter Burnett (27th) tried to call a halt to a debate about process that he branded “B.S.” at a time when Chicago’s never-ending gang violence has homicides and shootings rising through the roof.

“Folks are killing people in our neighborhoods . . . Police aren’t doing anything. They’re not doing their jobs because morale is down. We need to get morale up. We have somebody they respect right now. I’ve spoken to the police. They said they will work with this man. They said they respect him,” Burnett said.

“We need to do what’s expedient. What’s expedient is we need to save peoples’ lives in the city of Chicago. I don’t care about no board. I don’t care what people think. Half those people who think stuff — they’re not dodging bullets like we have to in our ward. They’re not going to funerals like we have to. They’re not listening to people come into their offices asking, `Can you help me pay for a funeral?’ like we have to.”

The mayor’s request for the City Council to sanction his end-run around the Police Board comes at a time when aldermen have been pushing back, emboldened by the Laquan McDonald controversy that has weakened the mayor politically.

That’s why Part One of Tuesday’s hearing took 90 minutes even though it ended just the way Emanuel had scripted, with Johnson being handed the permanent job.

On a voice vote, Daley Thompson was the only one who shouted “no.” He later told Johnson it wasn’t personal. It was about the process.