Crime & Law
Panel Names 3 Finalists in Search for Chicago’s Next Top Cop: Angel Novalez, Chris Papaioannou, Antoinette Ursitti
From left: Angel Novalez, Chris Papaioannou, Antoinette Ursitti (Chicago Police Department)
The commission charged with picking Chicago’s next top cop named three finalists Thursday, starting a 30-day countdown for Mayor Brandon Johnson to make a consequential decision about the future of the Chicago Police Department even as he runs for reelection.
The Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability recommended three veterans of the Chicago Police Department to lead CPD as the city’s homicide rate has dropped 4% this year after hitting a 60-year low in 2025 and violent crime fell an additional 6.7% since the start of 2026.
The finalists are three CPD veterans who have each served on the force for more than 25 years: Angel Novalez, the chief of the Office of Community Policing; Chris Papaioannou, the chief of the Bureau of Counterterrorism; and Antoinette Ursitti, the first deputy superintendent.
Remel Terry, the president of the commission better known as the CCPSA, said the fact that so many qualified candidates applied “required a lot of thoughtful discussion and deliberations” to select the three finalists.
Johnson’s pick to replace former Supt. Larry Snelling must be confirmed by the Chicago City Council.
While the last three CPD superintendents have been Black, two of the finalists selected by the commission are White and one is Latino. Former Chicago police Supt. Garry McCarthy was the last White man to be confirmed to lead the department.
The day before he announced his retirement, Snelling promoted Ursitti to be CPD’s second-highest ranking official. Ursitti had spent three years as the department’s chief of detectives after working her way up the ranks.
If tapped by Johnson, Ursitti would be the first woman to lead CPD. Female officers make up just a quarter of the department, according to a database published by the Office of the Inspector General.
Novalez, the department’s highest ranking Latino officer, was also selected by the CCPSA as a finalist for the top job in 2023. Johnson tapped Snelling.
If he gets the nod this time around, Novalez would be CPD’s second Latino superintendent and the first in nearly 20 years. Latino officers make up more than 36% of the department, records show. With the number of Latino officers increasing nearly 40% during the past decade, they are poised to become the largest ethnic group in CPD in the coming months, records show.
Papaioannou, the least well known of the three finalists, has served as the head of the Bureau of Counterterrorism since April. In 2021, Papaioannou faced a seven-day suspension after the Civilian Office of Police Accountability concluded he violated CPD policy while serving as the commander of the Town Hall (19th) Police District by failing to properly document officers’ use of force during the unrest that swept the city after the police murder of George Floyd in 2020, records show.
Johnson has promised to pick a new superintendent who shares his approach to violence reduction by focusing on the root causes of crime. Johnson credits much of the reduction in violence in Chicago since 2023 to the millions of dollars spent by the city since he took office in 2023 to fund youth employment programs and expand mental health services as well as violence prevention efforts.
Johnson has also vowed the city’s next top cop will continue implementing court-ordered reforms while making sure the changes stick — and put an end to the decades of scandals, misconduct and brutality that have defined CPD and cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
CPD had fully complied with 32% of the consent decree’s requirements, according to the most recent report from the court-appointed monitoring team charged with keeping track of efforts to comply with the federal court order prompted by a 2017 probe that found officers routinely violated the constitutional rights of Black and Latino Chicagoans.
Johnson can reject all three of the finalists chosen by the commission and start the search for a new permanent leader for CPD again. Forty-six people applied to lead CPD, according to a statement from the CCPSA.
Applicants included those who have held “high-ranking law enforcement leadership positions in major cities, including Chicago. The pool is also racially and ethnically diverse,” according to the commission.
The commission held six public meetings to gather feedback from Chicagoans about the qualities they want to see in the next police superintendent.
Chicagoans told commissioners they want the city’s top cop to display “strong leadership, accountability, community trust, officer support, public safety and continued progress on police reform,” according to the statement from the commission. “Residents have also emphasized the importance of a superintendent who understands Chicago’s communities and is willing to listen to both residents and officers.”
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
