Chicago's Former Police Superintendent Disagrees With New Emphasis On Beat Cops
CHICAGO (CBS) – Seven months after leaving the job, former Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis discusses his feelings about being moved out and how he thinks his replacement is doing.
Weis, now the deputy director of the Chicago Crime Commission, talked with CBS 2's Walter Jacobson.
He opened up about why he was not invited to stay when Mayor Rahm Emanuel took the reins from Weis's old boss, Richard Daley. Daley picked Weis from the FBI.
"Rahm and I have different philosophies," Weis told Jacobson. "Again, he's much more geared toward the beat, and I am more geared toward the specialized units."
"You have to have the superintendent and the mayor on the same sheet of music," Weis added. "And it would have been very hard for me to change my whole philosophy 180 degrees. People would have been asking, 'What's Jody all about? He's completely shifting gears. Is he getting just political?'"
Walking along 35th Street, he talked about current superintendent Garry McCarthy's move to disband the specialized units that Weis worked so hard to create, turning the specialized cops into beat cops.
One store manager told Jacobson he likes seeing cops on the beat.
"They're always around," he said.
Weis's three years weren't easy. Rank and file lined up outside City Hall protesting his leadership.
Why were some of them so hostile?
"At the end of the day, some folks just did not want, in my opinion, an FBI agent from the outside running the department," Weis said.
In that respect, McCarthy, the former chief of Newark, N.J., and a former New York cop, stands a "better opportunity to succeed," Weis says.
He has some advice for his successor.
"I would say take the time to learn the city and recognize the fact that there is another city besides New York," Weis says.
Weis is currently working on a commission report on the Chicago Police Department.
