Ramsey bows out as paid adviser to Chicago Police Department

Three months ago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel defended the $350-an-hour fee he had agreed to pay Charles Ramsey to help guide the Chicago Police Department through a federal civil rights investigation triggered by the police shooting of Laquan McDonald.

The Justice Department investigation is expected to drag on deep into 2017. But the show will go on without Ramsey.

After billing the city for $37,490 in consulting work, Ramsey is bowing out as a paid adviser.

“Chief Ramsey originally agreed to act as a consultant on a limited basis, but because of his own commitments can no longer play that formal role. However, he has agreed to continue serving the new superintendent as an informal adviser free of charge,” newly-appointed Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson was quoted as saying in an emailed statement.

“I’m personally grateful for all the invaluable assistance Chief Ramsey has already provided and that, despite his many commitments, he will continue as an informal adviser to me in making CPD a model police department . . . Chief Charles Ramsey has played an important role in helping guide the Chicago Police Department as we continue implementing reforms to rebuild trust with residents.”

Ramsey could not be reached for comment.

But sources described Ramsey as troubled by the degree to which the mayor’s office attempts to micromanage the Chicago Police Department — so much so that he urged top brass to “man up.”

He reportedly sat in on a series of meetings between Police Department brass and Justice Department officials now conducting ride-alongs with rank-and-file police officers.

Neither the Police Department nor the Law Department would say whether Ramsey produced any written reports or other work products in exchange for the $37,490 paid for less than four months of work.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported last month that taxpayers had already paid $760,725 in legal fees tied to the federal civil rights investigation.

The money went to Ramsey and three high-powered law firms. At the time, Ramsey’s fees totaled $16,100. He has since billed the city for an additional $21,390 before bowing out.

The tab accumulated over a three-month period did not include fees paid to former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb to conduct a third-party review of a Law Department that Mayor Rahm Emanuel initially claimed could not possibly be part of the “code of silence” in the Police Department.

Ramsey is the former deputy police superintendent credited with pioneering Chicago’s community policing program.

After losing the superintendent’s job to Terry Hillard, Ramsey left Chicago in 1998 to head Washington’s police department. That year, The Washington Post ran a series of critical stories on police officers using deadly force.

Ramsey contacted then-Attorney General Janet Reno and invited the Justice Department to review his department. Washington entered a seven-year agreement with the feds, which he said resulted in stronger firearms training and other changes.

“Firearms training prior to my arrival was mandatory but not enforced,” Ramsey told the Chicago Sun-Times in January.

“We had officers going two to three years without training. Tactics were poor when you dissected those cases. Judgment was questionable. We required people to go through training twice a year, myself included — not just target practice, but reality-based training to improve judgment.”

The number of police-involved shootings in Washington dropped 85 percent and have remained at about the same level, Ramsey said then.

In 2013, in response to a spike in police-involved shootings in Philadelphia, where he was the police commissioner, Ramsey again invited the Justice Department to review police training and policies.

The 18-month investigation resulted in 91 recommendations that were released in March and about 40 percent of them have been carried out, Ramsey said. Police-involved shootings have since fallen in that city, he said.

Ramsey was co-chairman of President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing.

After being hired to guide Chicago through the federal civil rights investigation, Ramsey said his hometown could adopt many of the recommendations that panel released in May to “improve relationships with the community.”

He also said that, while parts of the investigation would be “painful,” the Chicago Police Department would “come out of it stronger.”

Emanuel has defended the $350-an-hour fee paid to Ramsey as worth every penny.

“He brings a wealth of knowledge that will not only help us save lives and help improve community relations. But also we’ll make sure that, while we’re starting this process with the Justice Department, we don’t waste any time and we hit the ground running,” the mayor said in January.

“If we come out of this process with the best police department, the best community relations, you’re going to have lower crime rates. And that’s not just a dollars-and-cents thing. That goes to the safety and security” of Chicago neighborhoods.

Earlier this week, Emanuel said he was waiting for the Justice Department before acting on the most controversial recommendations made by his handpicked Task Force on Police Accountability: to disband the Independent Police Review Authority and re-open the police contract.

“If you’re going to make changes, you don’t want the Justice Department coming and saying, `You got that wrong. Now, do it again.’ These are big, heavy lifts. When we do `em, I want to do it once and get all done the right way. Nothing can be worse than trying to do this twice. I want to do it right from the get-go — from the beginning,” the mayor said.