Mayor Brandon Johnson introduces CPD chief Larry Snelling as pick for next top cop

CHICAGO — Mayor Brandon Johnson on Monday introduced Chicago police Chief Larry Snelling as his pick for the Police Department’s next superintendent, Johnson’s first major public safety decision that will set the tone on how his administration will tackle crime for the next four years.

Snelling, 54, was one of three finalists put to Johnson last month by the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, a new city body created in 2021. In a news conference at City Hall, the mayor emphasized Snelling’s experience and deep Chicago roots.

“Chief Larry Snelling is a proven leader who knows and holds dear the soul of Chicago,” Johnson said. “He commands the highest respect of his brothers and sisters in the department, and I’m fully confident in his ability to unify and strengthen these critical public servants.”

The other finalists were Angel Novalez, CPD’s chief of constitutional policing and reform, and Shon Barnes, chief of police in Madison, Wisconsin.

Snelling began his remarks Monday by introducing himself as an Englewood native who fully supports the mayor’s belief in tackling the “root causes” of violence. Johnson during his mayoral campaign stressed the importance of tapping a lifelong Chicagoan for the job following the mixed tenure of David Brown, former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s embattled police superintendent who hailed from Dallas.

Addressing reporters, Snelling said the job of public safety should not solely fall on law enforcement but rather be shared between police and the community.

“The Police Department and our community members are not two separate institutions, because they can’t be. We have to work together by listening and learning from each other,” Snelling said. “I share the mayor’s vision of public safety being supported by the full force of government to address root causes of violence to keep our beautiful city safe. And I want to be clear about my belief in the mayor’s vision in the full force of government. We cannot do this alone as a Police Department.”

At the same time, Snelling sought to underline the importance of building officer morale, which frayed further during the pandemic and recent waves of crime and civil unrest.

“For our officers who risk their lives every day to protect our residents, I know what you sacrifice on a daily basis,” Snelling said. “I know the sacrifices that your family makes when you go out to the street to keep this city safe.”

Snelling credited the other finalists as well as interim Superintendent Fred Waller, but he also nodded to ongoing issues facing the department, including the hundreds of migrants who are staying at Chicago police stations as they await shelter. Concerns have ranged from unhygienic conditions for those families to allegations of sexual misconduct between officers and migrants, the latter of which remains unsubstantiated amid an ongoing investigation.

“I don’t have a timeline on that right now,” Snelling said about when the asylum-seekers will be moved out of the lobbies. “But I can guarantee you that as long as those migrants are in our stations, they’re going to be treated with respect and dignity, like any human being should be.”

If approved as superintendent, Snelling’s top three priorities would be, in order: officer wellness and training, curbing violence and improving community relations.

“We really have to touch on violence,” Snelling said. “One of the things that I will tell you is that what I believe that we’ve forgotten everywhere are the victims of crime, the trauma that those victims deal with. We cannot forget about the victims.”

Before he faces a final City Council vote, Snelling will take part in a series of community forums where citizens will be able to ask questions about his policing and crime-fighting strategies. Those meetings have yet to be scheduled.

Upon his presumed confirmation, one of the most daunting challenges Snelling will face is lagging compliance with the Police Department’s federal consent decree, a series of sweeping reforms mandated after the video of Laquan McDonald’s murder was released.

Since the decree was entered in 2019, CPD has struggled to make sustained progress. Earlier this year, an independent monitor said the department was in full compliance with just 5% of the decree’s provisions.

Snelling suggested his approach on chipping away at that tall task will focus on the quality of the training above all else.

“My focus is to make sure these officers get the best possible training that they can have so that they can police constitutionally,” Snelling said Monday. “We can’t just simply believe that the consent decree, without true enforcement of it, is going to change the department. In order to change this department and produce the best possible officers that we can put out there, our training has to be robust, and it has to work for our officers.”

The most concrete change Snelling floated during his announcement Monday was reforming the department’s promotional procedures. City records show that Snelling twice received promotions through the CPD’s “merit” system, which was aimed at bolstering gender and racial diversity among the ranks of Chicago police supervisors but has faced near-constant criticism for rewarding political loyalty.

Asked Monday if the merit system would remain in place under his leadership, Snelling said it would but “there will be a more stringent process.”

“To be totally honest, I would like to see the entire promotional process changed to take merit into account for promotion, and not just a test,” Snelling said. “This will give everybody a great opportunity of being promoted. We have to make sure that when we make promotions, we have the right people in the right places. Of course we’re looking for diversity, but to insist that a merit promotion is just about diversity is problematic.”

Snelling would take over after the tumultuous era of Brown, Lightfoot’s hand-picked superintendent who struggled mightily with department morale amid spiking crime and officer suicides. Johnson too came under fire over public safety during the mayoral race due to his critiques of law enforcement following the 2020 Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd, but toward the end of his campaign Johnson had walked back some of his most strident rhetoric.

On Monday, Snelling said he would prioritize the rank-and-file’s emotional well-being while condemning “the things that are said to these officers now, the disrespect, that’s huge.”

“We have to evaluate and reevaluate our officers’ mental health,” Snelling said. “We have to be cognizant of what we’re doing to these officers when we’re canceling days off. We have to give them notice if that happens, because obviously there are going to be times when it happens.”

Regarding the dynamic between police and neighborhood anti-violence groups, Snelling said he planned to speak with leaders of those groups to maximize their reach. The use of such street outreach programs to combat shootings by employing at-risk youth to mediate violence and seek social services has grown in popularity among urban governments, including in Chicago, but some within law enforcement are skeptical on their efficacy.

“I’ve seen outreach (workers) and some violence interrupters do some great work,” Snelling said. “However, every program that we have, there are going to be flaws. There are flaws everywhere. It doesn’t matter what job you work. Can it be improved upon? Absolutely.”

Snelling joined CPD in 1992 and has spent much of his career as an instructor in the CPD training academy. Records from the city’s Department of Human Resources show was promoted to sergeant and lieutenant via the department’s much-maligned “merit” system. He also served as commander of the Englewood District, as well as deputy chief of Area 2 before he was promoted to chief of the bureau of counterterrorism in October 2022.

Given his experience as an instructor, Snelling is widely considered to be the CPD’s foremost expert on use-of-force scenarios. He’s been called to testify as an expert witness in more than two dozen court cases — criminal, civil and administrative — in recent years, including several cases that stemmed from the Laquan McDonald shooting video.

Johnson’s decision to hire Snelling comes about a year before Chicago is to play host to the Democratic National Convention, a large-scale event in which the Police Department is expected to play a significant role. At an unrelated news conference in Springfield on Monday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker noted that Snelling “has been in every single security meeting” about the DNC alongside Illinois State Police and other law enforcement. Pritzker said Snelling’s involvement in those meetings is “probably because of his existing role at CPD,” an apparent nod to Snelling’s post as chief of the department’s counterterrorism bureau.

“I mean, the security is significant for the Democratic National Convention and Larry Snelling is very well-versed in it,” Pritzker said during a bill-signing event at the Illinois Department of Agriculture headquarters, flanked by Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and others. “And so I think he’ll be a tremendous benefit and bonus for security at the DNC (now) that he’s actually going to be in charge of CPD.”

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(Chicago Tribune’s Jeremy Gorner contributed from Springfield.)

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