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With low numbers coming in and out of the academy – as well as all the officers retiring and leaving – how can the City handle this crisis?
the Department relentlessly pushing the limits.
“You still see the good mood amongst the officers, but if you ask them sepa- rately about where they think the De- partment is at, I think you’re going to get a good majority of them saying that it’s horrible,” Sanchez comments. “It’s not just the complaints that we have a man- power shortage. It’s that it all goes on deaf ears.”
Officers are indeed fed up with being subjected to so much oversight. They don’t want to risk getting vilified for a response without being able to tell their side of the story and having their reputa- tions flushed. That crucifying from those in the high pay grade and beyond is as much to blame for rendering the Depart- ment manpowerless as anything.
Andrasco illustrates the fallout by sharing that he hasn’t engaged in a foot chase of a suspect since the Department instituted the policy about making sure it’s a 1A misdemeanor before pursuit.
“People in the public are standing there, and none of them knew that,” he adds. “I was like, ‘This is what your may- or instituted.’”
I don’t want to be the police
Where do we go from here? Members would like more from leadership. They
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standably, nobody is applying. So it defi- nitely feels bleak,” Kilponen continues. “And then you think about your pension and working for that pension, but if no- body’s coming on, are you even going to have a pension at the end of the day?”
With the way unit and watch reps are plugged in to the members, they can provide a fairly comprehensive read on
what officers are feeling. Evidence of how bad the job has become, how hard it has become, how nobody wants to be on the job, has piled up with the emotion of working consecutive 12-hour days.
Sanchez notes that it’s all an officer can do to handle a call where there is a victim and an offender and the victim wants to proceed. The job is doing that and getting home safe. PCIs, boosting arrests and anything outside the call are
38 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ FEBRUARY 2022