Chicago police chief of detectives to exit the department, according to sources familiar with plans
Among the most visible leaders of the Chicago Police Department in the past few years, the boss of the detective bureau under Superintendent David Brown intends to leave CPD, according to sources familiar with the departure.
Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan will leave the department in the coming weeks and is poised to take a position with Google, according to one of the sources. A Police Department spokesperson declined to comment on his impending exit.
Word of Deenihan’s move comes as Brown faces an uncertain future as Chicago’s top cop as Brown’s boss, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, is locked in a highly contentious bid for reelection on Feb. 28 against eight challengers vying for her job.
Long regarded as one of the most respected police officials by many within the department, Deenihan was appointed in early 2020 to lead the detective bureau by then-interim police Superintendent Charlie Beck, overseeing more than 1,000 detectives who investigate violent crimes ranging from homicides and nonfatal shootings to sexual assaults, in addition to burglaries, large-scale thefts and other crimes.
Deenihan was put in charge of a detective bureau that had been heavily criticized for posting a homicide clearance rate that was far lower than other major U.S. cities, though it has improved in recent years. The unit under Deenihan’s leadership has also seen an increased workload since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in spring 2020, with detectives investigating more homicides and other serious crimes as gun violence has risen and the number of cops within the department ranks has dwindled.
Former First Deputy Superintendent Anthony Riccio, who retired in 2020, said Deenihan was Brown’s first choice to replace him as his second-in-command when Riccio announced his retirement. After Deenihan received the offer, he came into Riccio’s office to discuss the position, Riccio said.
“I think he would have been excellent as the first deputy. I think he would have done a great job,” Riccio said. “But I think really there were two reasons he turned it down. First, he has young kids, and I think he wanted to strike that balance between home and work. ... But secondly, I think his passion and his heart was really with the bureau of detectives and he genuinely cared about the people that worked for him.”
Deenihan excelled at mentoring detectives and even seasoned ones learned a lot from him because he had so much knowledge to offer, Riccio said.
“I think his enthusiasm for it was contagious too,” he said of Deenihan’s approach to detective work. “I think that’s kind of what made him a good leader. ... I think his enthusiasm really lit a fire in a lot of other people within the bureau of detectives and I think that accounts for a lot of his success as well.”
Even before his 2020 promotion, Deenihan was one of the most visible faces of the department. As deputy chief of detectives, the second highest-ranking post in the detective bureau, he was often tasked with talking to reporters about high-profile investigations and other work within the unit.
He’s made public pleas for information that could lead to the arrest of perpetrators in fatal shootings of children and other victims. He also publicly introduced the launch of a new website that was created to display videos and photographs of people accused of looting during the civil unrest in 2020 that followed the police-custody murder of George Floyd by authorities in Minnesota.
Prior to that, Deenihan served for a time as a commander in the Chicago police internal affairs division and he also commanded the Area Central detective division, now known as Area 1, which then encompassed large swaths of the South and Southwest sides and parts of downtown. Earlier in his career, he supervised violent crime investigations for the Area South detective unit, now Area 2, covering the Far South Side.
Deenihan, who turns 50 this year, has been with the department since 1997 and as a young officer, he worked as a detective before rising through the ranks.
One of his bosses earlier in his career was Keith Calloway. When Calloway became Area 2′s detective commander in the early 2010s, he didn’t have a lieutenant in charge of homicide investigations. He said he asked around about good candidates and Deenihan’s name kept coming up, so he called him for an interview.
“The rest was history ... always really a stand-up guy, a hardworking guy and really had the respect and admiration of his troops,” said Calloway, who retired from the Police Department in 2019 and now is executive director of the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board. “Area 2′s a really fast-paced command. And he would ... not be flustered, not be overwhelmed by it all. Everybody doesn’t have that skill set.”
In his post at Area South, Deenihan helped oversee many high-profile cases, including the 2008 fatal stabbing of 9-year-old Mya Lyons, whose father was charged 2 ½ years later and after initially telling investigators that he merely found her body. Mya’s father, Richard Lyons, is serving a 60-year prison sentence for her murder.
Deenihan also helped oversee the investigation into the 2010 killings of Chicago police Officer Michael Flisk and former Chicago Housing Authority Officer Stephen Peters. Deenihan himself, though, was a witness in one incident tied to that murder case that proved to be controversial among those in the legal community.
While the suspect in the slayings was in custody, Deenihan walked past the locked interrogation room where the suspect was meeting with his lawyer and saw him talking on the lawyer’s cellphone. The lawyer, Sladjana Vuckovic, was eventually arrested and charged with a felony because the device was considered contraband.
The arrest generated controversy among criminal defense lawyers who said they routinely brought their cellphones into police interview rooms and sometimes let clients make calls. Prosecutors at the time appeared to be concerned that the suspect’s phone use could’ve obstructed the police investigation.
Vuckovic was acquitted in the case after, according to one juror, prosecutors failed to prove that Vuckovic knew she wasn’t allowed to bring the phone into the interrogation room. Her client, Timothy Herring, was convicted in Flisk and Peters’s murders and sentenced to life in prison.
Laurel Bresnahan, who retired from the department in 2016, said she was a lieutenant in Area 2′s special victims unit when she met Deenihan, then a sergeant in the area’s violent crimes section. They had some interactions on how to handle joint investigations into child abuse or domestic violence.
“He always had the big picture in mind,” Bresnahan said of Deenihan. “He knew how to talk to anybody.”
Bresnahan said Deenihan knew how to conduct himself at crime scenes, not step on the investigators but was able to get the most out of them. She said he was able to help get the investigators down the right path and keep them focused but not pressure them to come up with a solution that was politically expedient.
“His loss is going to be tremendous to the department because I don’t know where they’re going to find someone (of) that caliber to take over the detective division.”
Chicago Tribune’s Gregory Pratt contributed. Gorner reported from Springfield.
