It sounds like something right out of Vice President Kamala Harris's playbook: "Reimagine public safety."
Like all goofy liberal ideas, the latest blue city law enforcement debacle never seems to anticipate long-term consequences. What happens when liberals "reimagine the police" will be on full display in Chicago. And, as usual, it is the citizens that pay the price.
How’s that Sanctuary City thing working out?
— Catahoula Leopard Dog 🇺🇸 (@CatahoulaT) September 10, 2024
‘We are literally tapped out': Chicago city leaders react to hiring freeze in face of 2025 budget gap
https://t.co/wuAEWiJovW
On Monday, more stress was added to an already overstressed Chicago police department (CPD) as the city announced a hiring freeze on government workers.
Democrat Mayor Brandon Johnson is trying to make up for a whopping $982.4 million deficit in the projected 2025 city budget. The Chicago Fire Department is also included in the freeze. But like a lot of other Democrat-run cities that called for defunding the police in 2020 after the death of George Floyd, CPD has also been struggling with staffing shortages.
Brandon Johnson appears to be making good on his campaign promise not to defund police but to have "smart police," whatever that means. Although Johnson did say on a local radio show in 2020 that defunding the police was a "political goal," personnel shortages are nothing new in the Windy City. It was a concern back in May of this year. CPD Superintendent Larry Snelling stated that the department was down roughly 2,000 officers.
Johnson was elected in May of 2023 and, in his first year, slashed 833 street police positions for the 2024 budget.
As might be expected, the shortage is having a serious effect on officers in the form of overtime. Chicago's finest clocked in a staggering 4.5 million, up from 1.4 million in 2022. All that overtime pay cost Chicago taxpayers around $300 million. But the cost is not just in dollars and cents. It comes in the form of physically and mentally deficient cops and reports of cops being burnt out as early as 2022.
Former CPD Officer Amy Hurley said she knew she wanted to be a cop from a young age. Hurley said that when she first joined the department, her hours were pretty normal. She worked a straight shift and got her days off. But after George Floyd, things began to change. Her hours and her days off changed dramatically.
Hurley described it this way: "It was like Groundhog Day. You'd go to work, you'd be there 12-plus hours. You'd come home, you'd sleep, you'd eat, you'd do it again." She said exhaustion and lack of support that led to disillusionment were her main reasons for quitting what was her dream job.
Chicagoans need to wake up with the hiring freeze ,
— chicagolandscanner/news (@windycityscann) September 9, 2024
Public safety is short handed , CFD is running out of EMTS , It will continue to get short with retirements and nobody getting hired
There’s other ways to close the gap like quit spending on people who aren’t even citizens
So, what does crime look like in a city whose police force is overworked and understaffed? About like you might think.
In 2023, a mere 10.8 percent of violent crimes ended with an arrest. Those same violent crimes increased by 11.5 percent from 2022 to 2023. Robberies increased by 23 percent from 2022 to 2023, and motor vehicle theft by 37 percent. The homicide rate in Chicago was down by 14 percent compared with the 2022 rate, but there were still 45 percent more homicides than in the previous decade.
Manhattan Institute Public Safety Fellow Rafael Mangual said of Mayor Brandon Johnson:
“It’s very clear the Johnson administration has been hostile to the police. That was the center of his campaign. He has positioned himself as an antagonist of the police department, so it’s not at all surprising that he would take this step.”
What might get Johnson to warm up to law enforcement is that in an election year? Two-thirds of Chicago voters say they don't feel safe, and nine in 10 voters have considered moving out of Chicago. Black Pastor David Lowery has warned Chicago Democrats (including Johnson) who have run the city for decades that black residents have had enough and are considering leaving the Democrat Party. he stated,
“Black people have been with the Democratic Party for over 60 years and we have nothing. We don’t own anything in our community … All we have is crime and problems.”
Mayor Johnson might not like the police, but the people who would reelect him like them a lot.
The understaffed and overwhelmed CPD will not be getting more help. Chicago has been getting crushed by residents and businesses fleeing Chicago, in part because of crime. Do City leaders really not see the connection between crime and the State of its finances? pic.twitter.com/fnxSkaJrVf
— SafeSuburbsUSA (@SafeSuburbsUSA) September 10, 2024
