Crime & Law
CPD Now in Full Compliance With 32% of Consent Decree, But Snelling’s Retirement Poses ‘Test’: Monitors
Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling discusses plans for a rally and march down Michigan Avenue on Sunday, Aug. 18, 2024. (Heather Cherone / WTTW News)
The Chicago Police Department had fully complied with 32% of the court order that requires CPD to stop routinely violating Black and Latino residents’ constitutional rights by the end of June, according to the court-appointed monitoring team charged with keeping track of reform efforts.
The retirement of Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling poses “a test for the CPD to show that its reforms are now built into how it operates,” said Maggie Hickey, the attorney who leads the monitoring team that reports to U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer.
The monitors praised CPD for making “significant progress” between Jan. 1 and June 30 in its effort to comply with the consent decree, which has been in effect for seven and a half years. The last report from the monitors found that CPD had fully complied with 25% of the consent decree.
Snelling retired July 15.
As Mayor Brandon Johnson prepares to unveil what he hopes will be the final budget of his first term, Hickey warned that the city has yet to dedicate enough staff to the complicated reform push that has cost Chicago taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
“Staffing remains a critical challenge,” Hickey said in a statement. “Having the right personnel and resources is essential to ensuring sustainable improvements in daily policing practices.”
There are currently 609 paragraphs in the consent decree. The department has reached no level of compliance with 1% of the consent decree, is in preliminary compliance with approximately 25% of the consent decree’s requirements and secondary compliance with another 41% of the requirements, according to the 14th semiannual report from the monitors.
Preliminary compliance means officials have finalized written policies addressing failures.
Secondary compliance means a majority of officers have been trained on those new policies.
Full compliance means the department has demonstrated it can follow those rules over a period of time under the judge’s oversight.
The monitors praised CPD for publishing a long-awaited study required by the consent decree that found that CPD brass must change the way officers are assigned to patrol the areas of the city with the most crime and violence.
“We believe this study can fundamentally shift the way the CPD approaches resource allocation and potentially expedite Consent Decree compliance,” the monitors wrote.
Six months after that study was published, CPD is still developing a plan to implement the study’s findings, according to the monitors.
“We look forward to seeing how the city and the CPD address the findings of the workforce allocation study and implement the necessary staffing changes to achieve full-and-effective compliance with the consent decree,” the monitors wrote.
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
