23 applicants for CPD superintendent job: Police Board

Twenty-three people applied to become the Chicago Police Department’s next full time superintendent, the Chicago Police Board announced Monday.

The applications — which had to be in by Monday — were sent in by candidates from across the country, “as well as from here in Chicago,” board president Ghian Foreman said in a statement.

The board will now review the submitted applications and start to narrow the field. A “select number” of applicants will be brought in for interviews in the coming weeks, Foreman said.

“This search is a priority for the Board and the City as a whole, and we plan to complete an initial round of interviews by the end of this month,” he said.

Eventually, the board will submit three finalists for the job to Mayor Lori Lightfoot — herself the former president of the board.

The full-time superintendent job was vacated in early December when Lightfoot fired former Supt. Eddie Johnson a month before he was set to retire after 31 years with the department.

Johnson was ousted under a cloud of controversy after, Lightfoot said, he lied about an embarrassing drinking-and-driving incident in mid-October near Johnson’s home in Bridgeport.

The incident remains under investigation by the Office of the Inspector General.

Lightfoot then tapped Charlie Beck, the former chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, to lead the CPD in an interim capacity while the search continues for the department’s next full-time leader.

Last month, Beck told the Sun-Times that he expects to be in the role until at least March.