After community input, search for new Chicago police superintendent enters new phase on the eve of summer

In Austin and Auburn Gresham, where gun violence is acutely felt, there were calls for community policing and respectful treatment of residents.

In Beverly and Clearing, neighborhoods home to scores of police officers and other municipal employees, independence from City Hall and more support for cops were top of mind.

In Albany Park, North Side liberals sounded off about officers who used deadly force, urging that they be fired.

Over the last two months, the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability fielded hundreds of questions and comments in seven public meetings held across the city — six in-person and one conducted via Zoom — to find out what Chicagoans want in the next leader of the Chicago Police Department.

The commission, created two years ago by city ordinance, will soon start interviewing candidates from the pool of 54 applicants, 32 of whom have current or former ties to CPD, one of the few characteristics that received near-universal support during the meetings.

At the outset of the commission’s first public meeting held last month in Austin, President Anthony Driver Jr. noted that civilian control of CPD has been a political fight for a half century.

“This is really important that we get to talk to you on the front end,” Driver told the more than 100 attendees. “This is something that was 50 years in the making.”

The commission has a mid-July deadline to submit three finalists for the job to new Mayor Brandon Johnson. Whomever Johnson picks will need approval from the full City Council, but he can order the search process to begin again if none of the finalists are to his liking.

Until then, Johnson has handed the reins of the CPD to Fred Waller, the former chief of patrol who retired in August 2020 after more than three decades with the department. Waller, who remains popular with rank-and-file officers and supervisors, has said he did not apply for the permanent job.

While the search process continues, the Police Department continues to struggle to adhere to a federal consent decree, and the city’s most intractable and long-standing public safety issue — gun violence — continues to dog city leaders and underscore the importance of Johnson’s choice.

Across the city, 11 people were killed and 47 others were wounded in shootings over the long Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start to summer, when gun violence typically spikes. Ten of those 11 slain were men who ranged in age from 20 to 38, while the 11th killing was that of a 69-year-old woman, according to police. The nearly four dozen nonfatal shooting victims were between 2 and 77 years old.

In a statement issued Tuesday afternoon, Johnson called the weekend’s violence “intolerable.”

“It produced pain and trauma that devastated communities across Chicago, and my heart breaks for everyone affected,” Johnson said. “That’s why as mayor, I am committed to leveraging every single resource at our disposal to protect every single life in our city.”

The search for the next superintendent also enters a new phase as public sentiment toward CPD seemingly continues to sour.

On Tuesday, results of a community survey were made public by the Independent Monitoring Team that evaluates the CPD’s compliance with the consent decree. The monitoring team, led by former federal prosecutor Maggie Hickey, surveyed 1,129 Chicagoans.

The survey found that all racial groups view the department less favorably compared to 2020, the last time the monitoring team conducted such a review.

The CCPSA held its first community meeting on April 11 at the Kehrein Center for the Arts in Austin, a several-hundred-seat theater and community space near Washington Boulevard and Central Avenue.

There to solicit comments and respond to questions were Driver and his fellow Commissioner Remel Terry.

There were a few hiccups, though. Driver was quick to apologize for not having a Spanish-language interpreter present, and several speakers went beyond the allotted two minutes as CCPSA staff did not bring a timer to the meeting.

Seventeen-year-old Tyler Phillips was first to the microphone. He was one of more than a dozen speakers to throw his support behind retired CPD Chief Ernest Cato III.

“He showed me how to be a leader, basically. Because when I started as a kid I was real shy, I didn’t want to talk in front of nobody,” Phillips said. “He taught me it don’t matter what people think about you, as long as you put your mind to it, you’re gonna be able to get whatever you want in life. That stuck with me for the rest of my life.”

Cato was a finalist for the superintendent position in 2020, but former Mayor Lori Lightfoot selected David Brown, former chief of police in Dallas, for the job. Cato, who joined the department in 1992, was the chief of Area 4 on the West Side when he abruptly retired from the department last year at age 57. Cato also previously served as the commander of the Austin District, among other assignments. Reached by phone after the meeting, Cato declined to comment.

Wilbert Cook told Driver and Terry that he lives near West Van Buren and South Pulaski, just north of the Eisenhower Expressway, a section of the West Side with a high number of open-air drug markets that often spark deadly gang conflicts.

“I’ve always seen the police more concerned about a perimeter around shootings than saving any young Black boys’ lives, or the Black women who are occasionally shot,” Cook said. “A couple minutes can be the difference between life and death.”

As Cook concluded his comments, Driver asked him, “If you were able to say something to the next person who would be the superintendent, what would it be?”

“That you make sure all your officers and you are concerned with valuing the life of every Chicago citizen,” Cook replied, garnering applause from many of the roughly 100 attendees.

The commission held its second meeting the following week at St. Sabina Church in Auburn Gresham, where the burly, deep-voiced Driver attended school. This time, a digital stopwatch was placed just a few feet in front of the microphone so speakers knew when to wrap up their comments.

In the days between meetings, when the city’s temperatures rose above 80 degrees for the first time in months, hundreds of the city’s youth gathered in the downtown area. Chaos ensued as fights broke out and property damage was reported across the Loop. Two teen boys were shot near the Chicago Cultural Center, and city officials were quick to note that a curfew at Millennium Park — enacted last year after a fatal shooting near The Bean — remained in effect.

Marion Thomas told the commission that, as a child, he met CPD officers at his school who he felt he could look up to. Now, Thomas said, “I look at officers as soldiers.”

“Officers don’t know the Black youth at all,” Thomas, now 25, said. “They sit there and just arrest us for guns and drugs and they really don’t know us, they just attack us.”

Janice Cannon told Driver and Terry that her son, Matthew Cannon, was shot and killed in 2007. His case remains unsolved.

“Since then, I’ve been really watching and hoping for change in the Police Department and in the detective department so that my son’s cold case can be solved,” Cannon said.

“I would like police officers to understand the mental illness that our children go through,” Cannon added. “To recognize that there could be something going on at home and don’t make them feel like they’re children that are walking in the shadow of death.”

Several more speakers again voiced support for Cato, but a handful other possible candidates — who each have strong ties to the South Side — also received endorsements, including CPD Chief Larry Snelling, Deputy Chief Rahman Muhammad and Cmdr. Roderick Watson.

Along with hosting the public forums, the CCPSA has met with other experts and stakeholder groups to ask for feedback in the search.

“We have been engaging a broad group of community groups, experts and police officers, reform people from all over the country,” Driver said in the third public meeting, which was held via Zoom in late April. “I think we have over 60 or something subject matter experts that we have (met with) or are about to meet with, as well as meeting with different community groups. So, faith communities, labor unions, outreach groups, you name it. We have a robust plan to gather input from all parts of the city of Chicago.”

At least a half dozen people addressed Driver and Terry at more than one meeting. Among them was Matt Brandon, a South Shore resident who first spoke at the St. Sabina meeting.

Brandon spoke again at the Zoom meeting, when he endorsed Grand Cross District Cmdr. Roderick Watson and made a thinly veiled swipe at Cato, the former CPD chief who retired in late 2022.

“We need a superintendent who’s been out here in the community consistently doing the job. Leaders don’t leave,” Brandon said. “As you sit down and go through all these candidates — and you’re going to go through a bunch of qualified candidates that are here on the job — you don’t need to go back and look at candidates who decided to leave the job. Leaders stay. When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

By the third meeting, it was clear that the majority of speakers were in favor of the next superintendent having close ties to the city and Chicago Police Department.

On May 4, the commission held its North Side meeting in the auditorium of Roosevelt High School in Albany Park. A few dozen people showed up, far less than the meetings in Austin and Auburn Gresham.

Sam Christian retired from CPD in 2008 as a deputy chief. Before that, he was commander of the Albany Park District, where Roosevelt High School is located. Christian, who sports a goatee and ponytail that reaches the middle of his back, attended each of the CCPSA’s six in-person meetings.

“What’re the important attributes for our new superintendent?” Christian asked rhetorically. “I think he or she has to be accepted by the department members and the community both.”

Several other speakers called for the firing of Officer Evan Solano, who shot and killed 22-year-old Anthony Alvarez during a foot chase on the Northwest Side in March 2021. Though the Civilian Office of Police Accountability called for Solano’s firing, the Chicago Police Board agreed with former Superintendent Brown that Solano should be suspended for 20 days.

Others who addressed Driver and Terry were critical of the commission for not providing Spanish interpreters during the meetings. Driver then announced that another CCPSA meeting — one held entirely in Spanish — had been scheduled for May 18 at Little Village High School. However, even fewer people attended that meeting, and those who showed up mostly spoke about the disappointing turnout.

Just about a dozen residents, mostly young adults or other members involved in community organizations attended.

Baltazar Enriquez, of the Little Village Community Council, said there is a clear divide between older adults, such a street vendors who have been frequent robbery targets, and young adults on how public safety should be addressed.

”Both should be considered, but they’re not here to share their points of views,” he said at the meeting, which was mostly conducted in English.

Pro-police signs and flags dot many front yards in the Clearing and Garfield Ridge neighborhoods near Midway Airport. Predictably, the tenor of the CCPSA’s May 10 meeting at Kennedy High School at 56th and Narragansett was overwhelmingly supportive of Chicago police officers.

“It has been the practice of this department to rely too heavily on canceling days off to compensate for manpower shortages,” 23rd Ward Ald. Silvana Tabares told Driver, Terry and the more than 100 other attendees.

“Our next superintendent must work to better allocate how resources are deployed so as to not rely too heavily on simply canceling days off to throw exhausted officers at their problem. Further, the next leader of this department must prioritize and expand the mental health resources available to our officers and their families.”

Hours before the meeting, Driver and Terry held a news conference at City Hall to announce that the commission received 54 applications for the superintendent position with 32 having ties to the department.

Among the first speakers was Carlos Yanez, the CPD officer who was shot in the head during a traffic stop in West Englewood in 2021. His partner, Officer Ella French, was shot and killed.

Yanez likened CPD officers to soldiers engaged in combat, and he said that support from department leaders was critical to their success.

“The next superintendent should be from Chicago, a true leader that will stand up for the officers,” Yanez said. “Officers are not going to go into battle if they’re not supported.”

“I say ‘battle’ because it’s a battlefield out there. There’s evil out there,” Yanez added. “And if you don’t believe so, look at me and the officers pay the ultimate sacrifice. Officers go out there on a daily basis and they fight evil every day.”

The last in-person meeting was held in Beverly, another Southwest Side enclave with strong allegiances to law enforcement.

Many of the roughly 200 attendees were quick to say that the 19th Ward enjoys a largely positive relationship with police officers because so many live in the area. Ald. Matt O’Shea pointed out, though, “that’s not the case everywhere.”

“I think it’s critically important that the next superintendent of the Chicago Police Department understands that we need to build trust in some communities with law enforcement,” O’Shea said.

Keith Brown, a lifelong resident of the 19th Ward, told Driver and Terry the city is at a crossroads.

“Once at the precipice of a dark chasm, sometimes a leap of faith is required,” Brown said. “By ‘a leap,’ I mean leadership, engagement, authority and participation. That is what we need in a superintendent.”

Chicago Tribune’s Laura Rodríguez Presa contributed.

scharles@chicagotribune.com