Sources: 500 officers to be reassigned to high-crime districts90-day initiative will all but deplete 2 specialized units
About 500 Chicago police officers will be temporarily reassigned to police districts that are among the city's hardest hit by crime, sources told the Tribune on Monday night.
For 90 days, an estimated 450 of those officers will leave two specialized units — the Mobile Strike Force and Targeted Response Unit — and transfer to eight of the more dangerous districts on the South Side and West Side, one source familiar with the reassignments said. Another 50 officers will be pulled from various other units within the department.
Starting Sunday, the South Side districts getting the extra manpower are the Grand Crossing, South Chicago, Calumet, Gresham, Englewood and Chicago Lawn districts, one of the sources said. The two districts on the West Side getting more officers are the Harrison and Austin districts, the source said.
The source described the 90-day reassignments — the longest duration of time the department can detail officers to other units without their consent — as an evaluation period for acting Superintendent Garry McCarthy to decide whether the officers' presence on district patrol is more effective in areas with a high crime rate than if they were working in the Mobile Strike Force and Targeted Response Unit.
Those two units, which will be all but depleted by the reassignments, are typically sent to parts of the city experiencing spikes in violent crimes, including gang shootings, homicides and armed robberies, before moving to other areas where such crimes are on the rise. But when officers from those units are sent to the districts, they will focus on areas within district boundaries.
If the department's leadership is satisfied with the results of the temporary reassignments, the Mobile Strike Force and Targeted Response Unit could be disbanded, sources said.
These changes come after Mayor Rahm Emanuel has repeatedly said he wants to get 1,000 more police officers on the streets by shifting experienced personnel from desk jobs and hiring new officers with funds now earmarked for economic development in special taxing districts.
On Tuesday, Emanuel is scheduled to make a public safety announcement at a South Side police station.