More than a half-dozen local and state officials gathered on the Southwest Side Thursday to call for the Chicago Police Department’s Chicago Lawn District (8th) to be split in two to better serve the quarter-million residents of the area.
“To say we are overdue for more police support is an understatement,” Ald. Marty Quinn, 13th, told reporters and more than 50 area residents during a Thursday morning news conference at the Chicago Public Library’s Clearing Branch.
“The 8th District ranks number one for all crimes committed across the city of Chicago. The 8th District, the one we’re standing in today, is the biggest and busiest district in the city.”
Quinn also pointed to efforts to foster closer police-community relationships as another reason to create a new district.
“We show up, we volunteer, we come together, we build bridges with the police. We deserve this,” he added. “So if it’s gonna be a fight, then we’re gonna fight for it because it’s what we deserve.”
Joining him were aldermen Jeylu Gutierrez, 14th; Raymond Lopez, 15th; David Moore, 17th; Derrick Curtis, 18th; and Silvana Tabares, 23rd, as well as state Rep. Angelica Guerrero-Cuellar, 22nd, and State Sen. Mike Porfirio, 11th.
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“I’ve grown up in the 8th District, (and) I swear we’ve been having this conversation for 45 years now. It’s long overdue, because the Southwest Side isn’t just understaffed, it’s under-policed,” Lopez said. “We don’t have the resources to keep over a quarter of a million people safe on this side of town. That is unacceptable. It is a matter of equity, it is a matter of fairness, and it’s a matter of doing what’s right.”
Staffing challenges have plagued CPD for several years, often resulting in canceled days off and differing assignments for officers. In recent months, though, Chicago police Superintendent Larry Snelling has softened the department’s stance to give officers more notice before schedule changes.
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Asked if he believes the CPD has enough officers to support the creation of a new district, Quinn said, “I think part of the problem is that officers are being pulled from the 8th District. My hope is, in the most recent police contract, with the new incentives, that’s going to help recruit new officers.”
It’s unclear if Mayor Brandon Johnson supports the effort to create a new district, though Quinn said he briefly raised the idea with the mayor in August. A spokesperson for Johnson’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment, and a CPD spokesperson declined to comment.
The layout of the Chicago Lawn District hasn’t changed since the 1960s, Quinn said. The district’s boundaries are roughly Harlem Avenue to the west, the Stevenson Expressway to the north, 87th Street to the south and Bell Avenue to the east.
The western side of the district is home to scores of active and retired Chicago police officers, firefighters and other municipal employees.
The most recent update to the CPD’s patrol district boundaries came in 2012 under former superintendent Garry McCarthy. In what was billed at the time as a cost-saving measure that would free up additional officers, McCarthy consolidated the department’s then-25 districts to 22.