Ex-L.A. Police Chief Charlie Beck leading candidate to be interim police supt. in Chicago

Former Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck is the leading candidate to be the interim Chicago police superintendent as Eddie Johnson approaches retirement after 31 years with the CPD, a source familiar with the matter said Wednesday.

Johnson plans to announce his retirement at a Thursday morning press conference, sources said. Johnson plans to work through the end of the year and Beck will shadow him during that time, the sources said.

Insiders say Beck would be the interim superintendent through no later than the summer of next year as city officials conduct their search for a permanent replacement for Johnson.

Beck, 66, retired as Los Angeles police chief in June 2018 after nine years at the helm. All told, he spent more than 40 years with the LAPD.

Both Beck and Johnson led police departments in major cities at a time when scrutiny of police officers was especially high.

Both oversaw large rollouts of tech-based policing strategies.

And both sought to ease tensions between law enforcement and communities of color, instituting officer training protocols that focused on de-escalation tactics.

Bill Bratton, who served as LAPD chief before Beck, said last year that Beck was able to navigate a fiscal crisis within the LAPD while improving relations between the department and the city’s African-American community after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

“He was able to move forward and keep the ship on course in very turbulent waters,” Bratton told the Los Angeles Times at Beck’s retirement ceremony in June 2018.

Earl Paysinger, a retired LAPD assistant chief, said that Beck would, in time, go down as “the most gifted chief who ever led the LAPD,” according to the Times.

In a 2018 interview with The Crime Report, Beck said that he sat down and wrote out a plan for reform when he assumed the reins of the LAPD.

Beck conceded that one of the biggest challenges in reforming a police department is getting buy-in from rank-and-file officers. The Fraternal Order of Police, which represents CPD officers, has been a vocal critic of the federal consent decree that was spurred by the release of the Laquan McDonald shooting video.

Beck said he was able to cultivate trust with the rank-and-file by, essentially, being around them and showing he was invested in the culture of the department.

“I did it the obvious way ─ through the traditional chain-of-command-stuff,” Beck said. “But I also believe in managing from the ground up. So I went to roll calls in every station. And in every division for my first three years as chief I worked a partial shift side-by-side with officers in their black and whites. And I did all things that are iconic culturally within the LAPD that demonstrate that we’re all cut from the same basic cloth. For example, I hate to run [in department races] but I do it because it’s part of the culture.”

Beck also said that, when it comes to dealing with a civilian police oversight agency — in Chicago it’s the Civilian Office of Police Accountability — it’s important to foster a positive working relationship. With that, Beck said, oversight monitors will have a more realistic expectation of day-to-day interactions between police and the communities they serve.

“If they are involved enough, they’ll see just how difficult this job is and that maybe that expectation of perfect handling of every incident or perfect handling of any incident, in my estimation, is something that is a false expectation,” he said. “They’re going to influence you, but you can also influence them.”

Contributing: Sun-Times staff