‘A scheduling challenge.’ With new limits on canceling days off, Chicago’s top cop outlines plan for a usually violent Labor Day weekend

Without going into detail, Chicago’s top cop said Friday the city is bracing for the last holiday weekend of the summer by making as many officers as possible visible in the neighborhoods, on the CTA and even on the water.

“It’s a scheduling challenge,” Supt. David Brown acknowledged as he outlined a general plan to keep boaters and swimmers safe, crack down on illegal drifting and drag-racing, keep transit riders safe and tamp down gun violence that normally spikes over the weekend.

While days off have been canceled, Brown said that under a new policy announced this week, officers will only have one day off canceled, not two.

“That hasn’t occurred in decades probably,” he said.

The new policy was made public a day after the city’s watchdog issued a sharply critical report showing the police department scheduled nearly 1,200 officers to work at least 11 straight days earlier this year.

Labor Day weekend is historically a violent one in Chicago. Last year, more than 60 people were shot. Mychal Moultry Jr., 4, was killed when bullets were fired into a home. The child was visiting from Alabama.

In addition to keeping neighborhoods safe, Brown is faced with controlling street takeovers by stunt drivers that have led to clashes with police over the summer.

To stretch resources with an understaffed department, Brown said officers have been shifted from desk duty to street patrols. “We will have sufficient resources in our neighborhoods, in our parks, in our downtown area where so many events are happening,” he promised.

As for street takeovers, Brown said the department’s main focus will be to record license plate numbers and impound the cars later, slapping drivers with up to a $10,000 fine. “We’re focused on taking their cars,” he said.

Asked about state Rep. La Shawn K. Ford’s bill to elevate the offense of drifting to a mob action felony, Brown said, “Just one message to him: Hurry up. We need all the tools we can get.”

Regarding crime on public transit, Brown said officers will be watching surveillance cameras on the transit system with a fully staffed center. Brown said it was too early to say when a new batch of K9s would be deployed on the transit system.

City officials also warned boaters and swimmers to stay safe during the last weekend that lifeguards will patrol city beaches. Twenty-nine people have died in Lake Michigan this year, most of those in Chicago, according to U.S. Coast Guard commander Tom Pequignot.

“I want everyone on Monday evening to talk about the great weekend they had. Don’t be one of the 29 people who didn’t come back this year,” Pequignot said.

The warning came after a cluster of deaths along the lakefront and a boating accident in the Playpen downtown that severed a woman’s feet in August.