McCarthy Nears Decision On Mayoral Bid
(CBS) -- For years, they stood side by side, fighting crime in Chicago.
Then, Mayor Rahm Emanuel fired his police superintendent, Garry McCarthy.
Now, McCarthy, a security consultant, is mulling a mayoral run against his old boss.
CBS 2 Political Reporter Derrick Blakley sat down with the former top cop.
"I'm thinking about what I can do to make a difference. This has nothing to do with Rahm Emanuel. It just has to do with what's happening in the city of Chicago," McCarthy says.
"So, it's not a revenge run to get back at the guy who took your job away?" Blakley asks.
"Absolutely not," McCarthy responds.
More than anything, says McCarthy, it's about his concern over the increased murder rate since his firing.
"Overall, crime was down 40 percent. And now, there's not a safe part of this city. There were carjackings on my block in River North. This has had a huge impact. And hundreds more people have died in Chicago. In the two years since I was fired, from Dec. 1, 2015 to Dec. 1, 2017, there were 1,401 Chicagoans killed, or people killed in Chicago."
McCarthy was fired in the firestorm that followed release of the Laquan McDonald police shooting video. McCarthy insists the investigation was out of his hands, that he could only place Officer Jason Van Dyke, since charged with murder, on desk duty.
McCarthy believes he wouldn't have trouble winning African-American votes.
"I would do a lot better in the African-American community than many people think, because they know how hard I was working to prevent them from getting murdered," he says.
McCarthy says his backers have raised money to conduct detailed polling next month. He's had initial talks with the consultant who advised Doug Jones in his upset win in the U.S. Senate race in Alabama.
After reviewing the polling and consulting with his wife, McCarthy says he'll have a decision on whether to run around the end of January.