Back to the Future

If the Sun-Times report today is right, police chief Jody Weis is revisiting two time-worn issues, one of which is much-talked about and the right thing to do but is in fact never done, and the other which is a disaster waiting to happen but far more likely to happen – perhaps even at the mayor’s behest.

The first issue is realigning beats to – hello! – put more police where more crime occurs. The rub here has always been that aldermen in low-crime wards don’t want to see officers taken away from them. There are two solutions: One is to tell them too bad. Their residents’ lives are not worth more than anyone else’s, and any accompanying rise in crime is likely to mean a few more bikes get stolen. The other is to maintain policing levels in those wards and just add more cops to the needy wards. In other words, hire more cops. Yes, that will cost money. Just take it out of the corruption fund.

The second issue is reconstituting SOS, the Special Operations Section disbanded in the wake of scandal. Daley loves these specialized units, but students of policing know they almost always become scandal-plagued rogue units. This is Chicago, chief; you think you can keep a handle on things?

Let’s see just how independent and adept you are.