CHICAGO—Even before President Donald Trump tweeted a threat to send “in the Feds” to curb Chicago’s gun violence, he was saying on the campaign trail that there was a simple solution to the bloodshed: police should get tougher. Chicago should follow the lead of New York City, Trump’s administration has said, and crack down on even the smallest offenses.
It turns out Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson visited the New York Police Department weeks before the Trump administration advice. But what he gleaned from a city that has achieved long term success in fighting crime was more nuanced than a Trump-inspired police crackdown.
Johnson came home with ideas aimed at increasing community trust by using technology to get Chicago police officers out of their squad cars, and putting new cadets in neighborhoods to walk the streets and talk to locals.
“We are only as strong as the faith the community has in us,” Johnson said.
Gaining that community trust will be a tall order in a city suffering from a toxic brew of rising violent crime in some of its poorest neighborhoods along with anger at police after the release in 2015 of a video showing a white police officer shooting black teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times.
