Hi! Today I’ll be live-tweeting Chicago City Council budget hearings for @ChiDocumenters #ChiDocumenters  #Chi2021Budget

This is day 4/11 of virtual budget hearings and will feature just one presentation—from the Chicago Police Department

Today’s hearing will begin at 9am. Follow allow here: https://vimeo.com/user100351763 

Pat Dowell calls meeting to order at 9:01am. There are 4 people signed up for public comment

Vino Motzi up first. He says the city government and the police budget has failed their constituents, and demands CPAC now.

2nd speaker is Alex Butrose—“We need the funding that’s going to the police to be diverted to what we’re asking for.” Talks about need for housing, mutual aid and how the people of Chicago are demanded defunding of police

Third is a resident of Pilsen: “I can say we keep us safe. I can’t say the same of the CPD... We are currently funding the silencing of black and brown folks.” She talks about her own experience protesting and victims of police brutality like Laquan McDonald

Last speaker is not present

Superintendent David Brown starts with his statement. He speaks about challenges of this year, and how he’s looking forward to next year and with his 5 pillar strategy for 2021. Wellness is the first pillar

The second pillar is community engagement. Talks about plan to collaborate with communities more under an expanding initiative that will cover all districts by end of 2021. Officers will be “tasked to get to know community members” and learn from communities

Public safety is 3rd pillar. 2 citywide teams were created this summer to this end. He mentions protecting property, and says murders are down 29% and shooting are down 9% since creation of the 2 teams.

Chair of public safety committee Chris Taliaferro begins hearing

Taliaferro asks how CPD has been affected by covid.

Brown says 3 officers have died of covid, thousands have gotten sick. Says reduced productivity overall, but the 28 days have seen productivity go above what last year’s was

Taliaferro asks if Brown has considered bringing more access police psychologists to help cops.

Brown says that he has, but wants to explore the different possibilities. Reiterates that wellness is the 1st pillar

Asks about 614 vacancies in the budget. “What does your 2021 police department look like in terms of size?”

Answer: says they can only train about 300 new recruits a year, so that’s the “best case scenario” and with covid’s affects, there will be vacancies

The clock is out. Alderman Carrie Austin is next. “With the retirement of 2 chiefshave you filled those positions yet?

Answer: one position has been filled, one hasn’t. There’s an interim in that spot right now. Bob boik was the chief of staff

Austin asks about how they plan to deal w protests, notes he was rude to her when she’s asked previously

Says maybe it was his “southern culture” but that district teams. Chief of operations steps in to answer, saying they’re deploying resources to address lootings, outbreaks.

Austin: “What can we do to help you help us?”

Brown: “Communication, communication, communication.”

Alderman Tom Tunney is next. He compliments CPD on their job handling protests. Asks about the ratio of beat officers to detectives.

Brown: “5800 officers are on beat. 871 on tag teams and 800 on city wide teams.” Clearance rate is 41%

There’s some confusion about Tunney’s question—it’s looking like he wanted to see an answer about a clearance rate trending up.

Brown says 30% of deliverables done in 1st and 2rd reporting periods. Bob boik steps in to say the public can’t see all progress CPD is making

Tunney asks about CTA trends.

1st Deputy takes the answer. Says green, red and blue lines have most deployments and that they increased number of officers during protests. Tunney asks for stats through the chair

Detective number 1118 has gone down from 1196 last year due to retirements

Ald. David Moore wants to put CPD psychologist on staff.

**correction. Earlier, I said Brown said thousands of officers have had covid this year. He said it was around 1000

Ald. Reboyras asks about DCO program. Brown goes to Angel novalez to answer about district coordination (DCO) program to repurpose officers to smaller areas to get to know communities

Ald. Waguespack asks about steps taken to reduce police errors (and therefore expensive settlements) and discipline officers.

1st Deputy says they have a program to address search warrants. Dana O’Malley, General Consel, says they train officers who do the most search warrants

Asks to define “merit” when it comes to promotions. Brown says the previous superintendent did away w the “merit” promotion and he’s unsure if he’ll bring it back

Ald. O’Shea asks about how the Community Safety programming is going (these are the 2 new teams from this summer)

Brown: “we were overrun by looters and violence” this summer and says teams are a “bright spot” for this year

A 40 hour crisis intervention training program has been completed by 20% of police force, says Antoinette Ursitti

Ald. Harris asks for more resources in her district, citing increase in violent crime and carjacking. “Is there a plan to give districts that are on fire extra resources?” Chief McDermott says they are deploying more resources to 4th district.

Ald. Ervin (28th) asks about the 11 media people on CPD staff. Brown says he doesn’t like that that many people have to be on staff for media, but that it’s necessary to process all media requests

Ald. Scott (24th) asks about overtime. Brown says that until summer protests, CPD was under the budgeted amount. Says he hopes to stay at around $125-130 million in overtime but that he doesn’t know what will happen on Election Day

Scott asks about East/west Garfield covid spikes and crowds of 100-150 masked people, especially late at night. Chief McDurmott talks about officer dispersal, says it’s up 144% citywide and that these citywide teams potentially could work later hours

Scott: and about staffing and dispersal, “have you thought about boundaries?”

Boik: says CPD is adopting a new model. “I don’t believe this will result in redrawing districts, but it will likely result in redrawing beats.”

Round 2 is starting. As in round 1, each alderman has 10 minutes

Ald. Reilly praises work done after a specific violent crime in his ward. Brown speaks about “extraordinary job” done by officers handing out groceries, talking to kids, etc.

Brown is talking about “bottom up engagement” from officers within CPD. Prior to this, change within CPD has been framed as “top down”

Reilly asks about how issue of drag racing will be address in the summer. 1st deputy says this is included in 2021 motorcycle and tow truck plans

Reilly wants upgrades to social media intelligence gathering—Boik says a significant tech purchase was made recently for this purpose and 23 people in CPD will be on - social media intelligence team.

Ald. Silverstein (50th) asks if CPD is seeing an increase in hate crimes. Brown says that they are not.

Ald. Michele Smith (5th) asks about a plan made to deploy 1100 officers back to districts. Boik takes the question: “We’ve taken a hard look at our staff at headquarters” to put more officers on the street. Smith asks where she can check these numbers, boik doesn’t have an answer

Boik says they added resources to office of constitutional policing and will continue to do so. Risk management, training, force review unit are all under this department.

Ald. Sadlowski says 40 hours of CIT training is good, but she wants to see mental health professionals responding to mental health emergencies—not the police. Brown agrees and says the “model is to mitigate so that the officers don’t need to be the ones to respond”

Sadlowski: “What is your overall budget this year compared to 2020?”
Brown cites $58.9 million reduction in budget

There’s some confusion over the reduction number Brown just gave. Chairman Dowel says the $58 million is on personal only. A chief disputes this.

Ald. Napolitano (41st) asks for number of sworn officers. Answer: 9693 officers. Napolitano says there aren’t enough officers to face “modern number of crimes”

Napolitano: “We want more officers in our neighborhoods, but we’re losing them to special teams... I don’t think we’re getting ahead of the problem.”

This is getting at a key conversation. Brown: “It can’t be a police only approach. We have to mature our street outreach... this includes policing, but we have to have a collaborative approach. When we mature this approach, we’ll start to see a bend in the curve.”

Ald. Osterman asks if they accept this budget, what can Chicagoans expect to change in terms of violence.

As an answer, Brown says that the consent decree, wellness pillar, and more are important and helpful

Osterman asks for after-action reports about the protests in late may/early June and aug 9/10 this summer. Boik says they can give a briefing in it right away, but that the reports themselves are confidential

Boik on consent decree: “This is the most extensive consent decree written in the country, ever. And we’re proud of that.” He emphasizes change. Osterman: “we’re not going to get to a safe place in communities until we have trust.”

Ald. Hairston acts for implementation dates for initiatives. Angel Novalez says Jan 2021 for 5th and 4th, late March 2022 for the 3rd, Jan 2021 for the 4th and March 2022 for the 2nd.

Hairston asks for the gender, ethnic and racial breakdown in headquarters, how many candidates in the do not hire box, number of complaints for rule 14 violations, number complaints filed against department, number of felonies/missing persons investigated, sexual assault numbers.

She also asks for drug missions in 2nd, 3rd and 4th districts, and how many have officers have take home vehicles, and how much is spent on promo materials. CPD is unprepared for any of these questions other than some basic demographic stats.

Ald. Ramirez-Rosa asks for status of gang database that is in transition. Boik says they started w litigation and have since finalized policy. He emphasizes a “5-year sunset” where if they have no criminal activity, people are removed from the database after 5 years

Ramírez-Rosa: “Why does the CPD need military grade equipment?”

Brown says they’re used for rescue and to get personnel into dangerous rescue situations. He says they are not used offensively

Ramírez-Rosa asks for the cost. 1st Deputy says a Bearcat is $700,000. Maintenance is minimal while under warranty. Ramirez-rosa asks for exactly when the equipment has been deployed in the last year, and the total costs, through the chair

Ald. King (4th) asks about resources, saying shootings are up significantly in her ward but deployments are down. Brain Mcdermott says officers from every district are deployed downtown.

King asks why it’s important to have officers downtown when shootings are happening elsewhere. McDermott says they’re “not ignoring needs of neighborhoods” but that around 70% of the city’s revenue is generated downtown, and they can’t afford more looting

King says she disagrees with this strategy: “you’re focusing disproportionately focusing on downtown... just sitting around waiting for a looting incident.” “I would like to see some of the strategy used to mitigate gun violence.”

King is saying she would like to explore a model that does not always use police, but mental health professionals, to respond to non-violent offenses.

On lunch break now—see you in an hour.

Aaaand we’re back. Ald. Mitts is the first to go after the break

She asks how many unsolved homicide cases there are right now. Brown answers that they have a 41% clearance rate. In raw numbers, he says that’s 646 murders this year to date, with 262 solved

He chalks this up to inexperience and lack of diversity in the police force

Mitts (37th ward) is asking for more positive role models in the police force and public safety training. “Weed out the bad apples,” she says

Ald. Thompson asks Brown what he and other alderpeople need to do to deal with gun violence. Brown talks about how he wants to work toward sustainable solutions, referring back to the collaborative approach he’s been talking about all day

Brown: “We likely need to engage with nonprofits and street outreach programs more than we do.” Thompson says he wants more training for officers

Thompson asks how often the superintendent meets with nonprofits. Director Glen Brooks says they meet w a nonprofit every 2 weeks.

Ald. Mitchell (7th) asks how CPD is dealing with “people living in places they shouldn’t be,” looking for extra enforcement. 1st Deputy Carter talks about their process and how they use vouchers

To be clear, Mitchell is talking about single family “drug houses.” He’s asking what he can do to “shut them down.”

Brown says they have people on ground to make sure to arrest more people and have them serve longer sentences for selling drug. He also explains that the demand for drugs is equally important

Ald. Sposato (38th): “we never seem to hear about the positives about the Chicago Police.” Ironically, his audio starting cutting out as he said this. He asks for some diversity stats, then he and Bob Boik joke that Italian Americans are people of color

Sposato wants to bring attention to the damage done to police equipment during the “rioting” this summer

Sposato says the mental health responses that have been talked about today are a “very very bad idea”

Ald. Quinn asks how many applicants the CPD has in the queue. Boik doesn’t have the number. Quinn has a reaction to this, saying “that’s a real concern.” Brown says they have to move recruitment efforts out of IL

Quinn is angrily saying he sees a big “blind spot” coming for policing in his neighborhood. Brown says due to covid restrictions, they can only put 300 officers through training. Quinn says the restrictions shouldn’t apply to cops

Ald. King is taking the chair position for a little bit while ald. Dowell steps out

Ald. Rodriguez points out a $10 million difference in overtime costs vs the budget and asks how they came up with the overtime budget. Brown says he wants to “expand and mature” violence outreach efforts with more than a dollar commitment

He asks about the effectiveness juvenile intervention support center (JISC). Migdalia Bulnes takes the question and says the JISC has undergone huge transition and changes and that they consider the Miami-Dade County program a model.

Ald. Cappleman points out mental health problems in his ward (the 46th). He asks if there’s CPD training for interacting with the public. Brendan Deenihan says that there isn’t

Ald. Villegas is asking for illegal car towing after accidents to be addressed by police, saying in some cases his constituents have to pay thousands to get their cars back. Chief McDermott says he can revisit the issue with officers

Villegas asks how much CPD is spending on tech. Frank Lindbloom doesn’t have an answer, and Boik says they will be assessing it soon

Ald. Taylor: “superintendent, who makes your schedule?” “I got a wonderful call when you wanted my vote, but I have not heard from you since.”

She asks how many officers were reprimanded for attacking protesters. Karen Konow says they’ll respond through the chair. Taylor also wants the clearance rate breakdown by ward

Taylor points out the CPD’s poor communication and how policing in Chicago isn’t working. “What are you doing in Chicago to make this work?”

Brown says he wants to improve diversity, change the culture and catch up from the first 2 periods when he wasn’t superintendent

Taylor asks if we’re using bonds to pay for settlements. Brown says he’ll send that through the chair

Ald. Hadden asks “What are we doing with that $7.7 million?” referring to the money going to the consent decree. Brown says most of it will go to training. Hadden points out that less officers will go through training

She asks why the committee rejected almost all of the committee’s recommendations for use of force. Brown says one third were redundant, another third was conflicting w the consent decree, and the last third weren’t applicable to CPD

Hadden says one of the rejected recommendations was banning chokeholds—a totally legal and feasible recommendation. “My constituents tell a different story”

She asks where the money for the JISC is going. Bulnes says it will transition to youth investigations, and involve in the community to provide for 22 districts.

Ald. Martin want to how CPD will look at staffing. Brown says they want around 40% of officers’ time reserved for interacting w the community. The current percentage varies by district, he says

“It feels convenient that [critical analysis to justify staffing] is going to be ready a month after we vote on this.”-Ald. Martin

Martin points out that the actual budget doesn’t reflect what Brown is saying today

Ald. La Spata asks for more on the 28 officers budgeted for working in research and development. “Policing requires a special set of expertise” says boik. He also says that they’re in transition, and this won’t be permanent

La Spata asks about social service workers and if juveniles are being handcuffed to stationary rails.

Bulnes says community service providers for JISC are volunteers. She says the handcuffing is “discretionary”

La Spata: “Can someone share how many domestic violence cases there are in 2020 and how many cases result in arrests?” Also asks about 340 domestic violence reports done by CPD officers

La Spata brings up how Sposato called the protesters at Grant Park “savages.” Sposato proudly declares “it was me. They are savages.”

La Spata asks why Brown didn’t respond. Brown needs to be urged to respond by Dowell (who has returned). Brown says “it is just not within my purview to correct an alderman.”

Ald. Burnett says he has a cousin currently on disability because he injured his arm when present at the Columbus statue protest

Moving on, Burnett voices concerns about uncoordinated CHA police concerning his constituents and being unhelpful to the community. 1st deputy carter says they are “security, not police” and say they aren’t directly under CPD control

Ald. Rodriguez Sanchez (33rd) asks what percent of calls were for violent crime. She points out that Chicago doesn’t make this kind of information public

Rodriguez: “I have clarity about [these statistics] for a lot of other cities, but not Chicago.”

She also asks for the co-responder model. Cmdr. Ursitti explains it as a 3-prong model that including mobilizing mental health professionals.

CPD apparently has not reached a planning stage

Now they’re talking about overtime. Brown is mostly restating what he’s already said today

Ald. Nugent (39th) asks about progress in using body cameras. Brown says that they have and that they got an addition 500 body camera for citywide teams. He says getting all officers body cameras is a cost issue but they’re near 40% for public-facing officers

Just came back from a 5 min break. Ald. Sigcho-Lopez is next

Sigcho-Lopez asks “what are other cities doing that Chicago is not?”

Brown says it’s difficult to compare large cities, and that “the trust building is just getting started in Chicago.”

“How do we build trust?” asks Sigcho-Lopez. Brown says “you can’t just rely on the consent decree to build trust,” but that it is an important part.

“Lack of opportunity is the biggest predictor of violence.”-Sigcho Lopez.

He asks if there are places to move CPD budgeted money to provide opportunities for constituents

Ald. Raymond Lopez is next. He asks about the process of coding out 911 calls. Chief McDermott gives an answer: “most of the time, those calls are on Friday nights for noise disturbances”

Lopez says “It’s very frustrating for my neighborhood to have these calls ignored week after week.” He want to address the coded calls as a policy issue

Lopez asks about a $128,000 budget item. Brown says he will find an answer

He speaks about an upcoming “blind spot” Ald. Quinn spoke of earlier, voicing concerns about officers not burning out and receiving vacation time.

Lopez says there has been poor communication between him and CPD and that he will not!!! Have a round 2.

Ald. Cardona (31) has his turn now... but the livestream just went offline. Stay tuned

Okay wifi is back!

Cardona is asking about gun violence and illegal gun possession. Brown says they’ve ramped up tag team and citywide team efforts, and that their goal for next is likely going to be to recover 15,000 illegal firearms

Brown also says he wants to ramp up efforts to take on more gun violence cases

Ald. Gardiner asks if CPD has a plan for the days leading up to Election Day.

Brown say they do have a comprehensive plan that starts Oct 30 to include Halloween. He says CPD has Philadelphia on their radar

Brown says they’ve practiced during tabletop exercises and made training videos for a variety of scenarios including looting and active shooter situations

Gardiner are you doing to improve the relationship between officer and civilians, particularly with people of color.

Angel Novalez answers with info about DCOs and how they will do violent incident follow ups.

Gardiner then asks a out recruitment efforts within Chicago. Brown points to the CPS cadet feeder program. Gardiner says a drawback is that student athletes don’t have time for the program

Ald. Vasquez (40) is bringing up defunding, and asking if it would be correct to say there is a $25 million defunding in this budget. Brown seems uncomfortable with this, and says he defaults to the mayor’s comments on defunding

Vasquez asks how much is being spent on community policing. Frank Lindbloom takes the question and says it’s $4.6 million on personnel and $1.4 million on non-personnel

“None of the $ amounts you have will do anything help the hundreds of years of history of policing in Chicago.”-Vasquez

He brings up something Sposato said about people shopping with cops. Brown says this is during the holiday season. In response to a further question, he doesn’t believe taxpayers are paying for cops to dress up as Santa, but it’s not a waste of time because it improves relations

Ald. Beale is up next. He asks about a rumor that police during some protests were just ordered to stand by. Brown says that's not true

Beale says he was concerned about McDermott’s earlier comments about revenue coming from downtown and the need to protect that.

He asks about Brown’s position on police reallocation. Brown says he will follow the results of the UChicago study that Beale cited

He has another question about overtime. Brown says most of the overtime was used in May and June when the protests were first getting started

Beale is asking some rapid fire question—hard to keep up! He’s asking why his cop house is on hold and bringing up an incident with higher ups in the CPD

Ald. Ervin is back up, and asking about narcotics. Jose Tirado is in charge of the department, and says they’re running street corner operations and started a new initiative 90 days ago

Erwin is asking for a timeframe. He wants these drug issues taken care of. Tirado doesn’t have an answer, but says Erwin will see results

We’re in round 2 now

Ald. Michele Smith is asking about the JISC. Bulnes says how the program will actually expand CPD’s outreach toward juveniles and existing JISC programming to all districts, and is talking about their use of volunteers

Ald. Napolitano is back. He asks about overtime in 2020, which Lindbloom says is at $125 million. Based on that, Napolitano says they could put new officers in at a lower overtime pay rate

Alds. Hairston and King left. Ald. Thompson is up, and brings up drag racing concerns. He wants to know if they could use stop sticks. 1st deputy Carter says CPD is not currently authorized to use them

Brown is once again saying CPD is not over budget for overtime for 2020

Ald. Sposato is up. He’s “making places up” about where cops get money to go shopping with people as part of the CAPS program.

Ald. Dowell is using her 10 minutes. She asks about the allocation of officers in the 1st district and says she’s interested to see a breakdown of a $55 million subset of overtime costs through the chair

She wants to know the criteria for drug missions. Tirado says they look at violence, intel, district tiers and commanders’ requests. Brown then steps in to say their 1st priority is getting people into jail. “We want to have the most significant consequence that the law allows.”

Ald. Rosa brings up the $82 million for police misconduct in the 2021 budget and asks how we’re covering these costs. Lindbloom says it’s part of the corporate budget. Rosa is saying how costly and ineffective settlements have been in the past.

Ald. Micheal Rodriguez asks about planning for the JISC and voices concerns.

Bulnes says they are working with the mayor’s office and Miami-Dade, among others. She says implementation will begin in Nov., and paid social service workers will be employed.

Ald. Taylor asks what the CPD is paying the Chicago historical society for training.

Director Brooks says the society isn’t getting paid and volunteered their space, but that CPD paid for some of their own food.

Taylor asks if they’ve found the officer who used a baton on Miracle Boyd’s teeth. Brown says COPA is looking into it

Ald. Hadden is looking for staffing studies. She also asks about the mayor’s plan for extra traffic citations.

Brown says their focus is on safety and traffic safety. 1st deputy Carter talks about various specific CPD traffic missions

Ald. Martin asks “why not reduce overtime budget?” in light of being under budget this year. Brown answers that if a vaccine comes out, there will be a need for CPD presence at events. Potential spikes of violence are another reason

In response to a question, Brown says he’ll be disappointed if he doesn’t meet 100% compliance rate for the consent decree

Martin asks about Brown’s benchmarks of success for violence outreach programs, and about emergency responses by non-police officers.

Brown will submit answers to these questions through the chair

Ald. Rossana Rodríguez asks about the number of officers redirected to neighborhood and returning officers to the street. She also voices concerns about spike in shooting in her ward.

Rodríguez says there has to be more clarity for the public in terms of how CPD resources are allocated and how those resources work for them.

Ald. Sigcho Lopez asks about the percentage of body cameras. Brown says SWAT team members are the “only group that doesn’t have body cameras.”

He has a question about police oversight and accountability, asking “What is your position about civilian oversight?” Brown says he supports it, and will support whatever the mayor wants in terms of that

Gardiner speaks about a concern about retirements after working as an officer for 20 years or so and asks what Brown is doing to prepare for more.

Brown says they have a larger cohort from 20-25 years ago. He says they’re currently focused on recruitment

Ald. Beale is back. He has a question about how much money they’re getting from the CARES act.

Lindbloom says they’re eligible for up to $162 million for efforts toward street time for Covid. Beale wants more information about where that money will go

Ahead of Halloween, Brown says CPD is cancelling days off and pre-deploying officers.

Beale asks why Columbus statue protest police weren’t in riot gear, and Brown replied that they simply weren’t prepared

Vasquez asks to be added to the list JISC updates. He also asks how CPD has held itself accountable to assessments, and then asks who is responsible for communication to the public

Brown names the communications point people

He speaks about data analytics numbers and asks who the chief data person and why it’s such a small number ($787,000). Boik says all IT operations is transitioning to PSA but data analytics is staying in house

Ald. Dowell thanks Superintendent Brown and ends the meeting at 6:46 p.m.

This concludes my coverage for @CHIdocumenters