Charlie Beck appears on "Chicago Tonight" on May 9, 2023. (WTTW News)

Charlie Beck previously served as Los Angeles’ police chief and Chicago’s interim police superintendent. He said Chicago’s next top cop will need to make some big changes.

A collage of recent top cops in Chicago. Top row, from left: David Brown, Eddie Johnson, Garry McCarthy, Jody Weis. Bottom row, from left: Phil Cline, Terry Hillard, Matt Rodriguez and most recent interim Superintendent Charlie Beck. (WTTW News photos)

Chicago has seen more police chiefs than mayors in its nearly 200-year history. Occupants of the powerful, high-profile position walk a political tightrope, and have suffered some epic falls. Here’s a look at the legacy of the city’s most recent superintendents. 

Left: Interim Chicago Police Superintendent Charlie Beck speaks with “Chicago Tonight” on April 8, 2020. Right: Dallas Police Chief David Brown briefs the media on June 15, 2015 about a shooting at Dallas Police headquarters in Dallas. (AP Photo / Tony Gutierrez, File)

Twenty weeks after he took over as the Chicago Police Department’s interim superintendent, Charlie Beck officially stepped down from his post Wednesday, handing over a badge to the city’s new top cop David Brown.

Sgt. Clifford Martin (Chicago Police Department)
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Interim Superintendent Beck: Coronavirus a ‘difficult murderer to trace’

CPD Sgt. Clifford Martin, a father of three, died this week. He first experienced symptoms on March 20, stopped working on March 22, and that he’d then been hospitalized for two weeks.

Interim Chicago Police Superintendent Charlie Beck speaks with “Chicago Tonight” on Wednesday, April 8, 2020. (WTTW News)

Interim Chicago Police Superintendent Charlie Beck is winding down his brief tenure at the helm of the Chicago Police Department. We ask him about protecting officers during the pandemic, his efforts to restructure the department, gun violence and more.

(WTTW News)
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Mayor Lori Lightfoot says the city will begin enforcing a curfew on the sale of liquor in order to prevent “congregate activity” that’s been seen across the city near stores that sell alcohol.

(WTTW News)

Citywide crime was down in March compared to last year, but Chicago is currently on pace for more shootings and homicides in 2020.

A scene along Chicago’s lakefront on Thursday, March 26, 2020. (WTTW News)

The Chicago Police Department on Wednesday issued warnings to 56 separate groups of people and made one arrest for failing to abide by the governor’s order to stay home.

Now is not the time for a long stroll or ride along the lakefront, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said. (Eric Allix Rogers / Flickr)

Chicago’s mayor says too many people are flouting the governor’s order to stay home and maintain social distance, particularly along the lakefront and at playgrounds. “This situation is deadly serious,” she said Wednesday.

This Friday, Feb. 28, 2020 image from cellphone video shows Chicago police officers trying to apprehend a suspect inside a downtown Chicago train station. After a struggle with police, the suspect was shot as he fled up the escalator with the officers in pursuit. (Michael McDunnah via AP)

Lawyers for a short-order cook shot by Chicago police trying to arrest him for using a subway train’s gangway doors filed a lawsuit Wednesday alleging officers used excessive force in violation of policies laid out in court-monitored police reforms.

This Friday, Feb. 28, 2020 image from cellphone video shows Chicago police officers trying to apprehend a suspect inside a downtown Chicago train station. After a struggle with police, the suspect was shot as he fled up the escalator with the officers in pursuit. (Michael McDunnah via AP)

Chicago’s interim police superintendent stripped two officers of their police powers pending the outcome of the investigation into their roles in the non-fatal shooting of an unarmed suspect inside a Red Line L station last week.

This Friday, Feb. 28, 2020 image from cellphone video shows Chicago police officers trying to apprehend a suspect inside a downtown Chicago train station. After a struggle with police, the suspect was shot as he fled up the escalator with the officers in pursuit. (Michael McDunnah via AP)

Chicago’s mayor said video footage of police shooting and wounding a suspect inside a Red Line L station is “extremely disturbing” and that she supports the interim police superintendent’s request for prosecutors to be sent directly to the scene.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, CTA President Dorval R. Carter Jr., center, and CPD interim Supt. Charlie Beck, right, address the media Friday morning inside the Roosevelt Red Line CTA station. (Matt Masterson / WTTW News)

A new transit safety plan calls for dozens of police officers on CTA lines and a dedicated support center that will focus on solving crimes committed on the city’s trains and buses.

Patrick Waldon (Chicago Police Department)

The arrest came in large part, police said, due to surveillance footage captured by the CTA and witnesses who identified the suspect in photo arrays.

(WTTW News)

Interim Superintendent Beck calls increases “alarming”

Chicago saw a notable uptick in shootings and homicides in the first month of 2020, but police say that overall, violent crime incidents in Chicago actually decreased in comparison to January 2019.

A guilty plea has reverberations throughout the state. Coronavirus concerns spread in Chicago. A massive restructuring of the Chicago Police Department. And Catholic schools get a financial lifeline.