A career FBI agent stepped gingerly into his new role as Chicago’s top cop Thursday, pledging to rebuild public trust in a department tainted by brutality and corruption while assuring street cops that he has their back.
Mayor Richard Daley on Thursday tapped J.P. “Jody” Weis, the first outside superintendent in almost five decades, as he acknowledged that his police force has suffered from diminished public confidence.
Weis, 49, who climbed the ranks of the FBI, will face the delicate balancing act of having his officers fight violent street crime aggressively while demonstrating sensitivity to minority communities that view some officers as overly forceful and abusive.
“There are still too many neighborhoods in our city that are plagued by gangs, guns and drugs and where violence must be fought pro-actively day by day and block by block,” Daley said at a City Hall news conference. “At the same time, because some officers have fundamentally abused their trust with the people of Chicago, public confidence in the Police Department has eroded. If we’re doing all we can to lower crime in Chicago, people must have confidence that the Police Department is doing its job to ‘protect and serve’ them.”
As he introduced himself to the city, Weis sought to balance his two imperatives of soothing a beleaguered police force and gaining the confidence of residents who distrust police.
Weis vowed to reach out to city neighborhoods and said he “will begin with those communities where we sense the widest gulf between the police and our residents.”
“I will begin a dialogue that will be continuous,” he said.
At the same time, he said he does not want officers “to shy away from assertive, quality, good policing, and assertive policing oftentimes will lead to complaints.”
Depending on the nature of the offense, cops guilty of wrongdoing will face everything from retraining to prosecution, Weis said.
But “I think all too often we rush to judgment when we don’t know all the facts,” he said. For officers who “are doing their job and they are working within the framework of the law and the policies of this department, I will have their back 100 percent.”
Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th), who has been a critic of police abuses, was wary of the choice but said she was willing to give Weis a chance. She said he has “got to make it clear that he is not going to tolerate the abuse of citizens.”
There is a difference between aggressive and rogue behavior “and he has to make it clear he understands that distinction,” she said.
A minority candidate probably would have been “more attentive” to the need for a diversified command in the department’s top ranks, Preckwinkle said. “But I will give the guy a break and see how he does.”
Assuming City Council approval, Weis would be the first outsider to head the department in nearly five decades. He would be the highest-paid official on the city’s payroll, with a $300,000-a-year salary that far exceeds the mayor’s $216,210.
The last non-Chicagoan to run the department was O.W. Wilson, a respected criminologist from the University of California at Berkeley. That was in 1960, and the selection was by the mayor’s father, the late Mayor Richard J. Daley. Like his son, the elder Daley was faced with scandal. Eight officers from the old Summerdale police district were caught operating a burglary ring.
Mark Donahue, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said the rank and file would have preferred someone from inside the department.
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“It’s sort of an affront to the ambitions of the members of the department,” he said. “I think there may be some changes at the top among those [officers]. I think you may see some of those … looking at other careers.”
Ald. Isaac Carothers (29th), chairman of the City Council’s Police and Fire Committee, said he knows rank-and-file officers will not be happy with an outsider. But “there’s no doubt we have had some challenging years for the Police Department. I think the mayor wanted someone who would give it a fresh look, someone who knows no one and owes no one.”
Daley credited former U.S. Atty. Thomas Sullivan and Abner Mikva, a former federal judge, with advising him.
Sharing a concern about the quality of the Police Department, “We agreed we would go to see him and speak with him about his selection process and the kind of person he would select,” Sullivan said.
Meeting with Daley on June 4, “We urged him to appoint someone who was not part of the usual group,” he said. “It didn’t mean he had to go outside the department, but to really make a sincere effort to get a leader in there .. someone with impeccable credentials, leadership abilities … who really could restore confidence in the department.”
Based on Weis’ credentials, “it looks to me like he is a marvelous appointment,” Sullivan said.
After Daley’s news conference, mayoral press secretary Jacquelyn Heard justified Weis’ salary by disclosing that, besides becoming police superintendent, he will fill the job of chief emergency officer that has been vacant since Cortez Trotter retired this year.
When Daley created the position in 2006, he contended it was important to designate one person for citywide emergency and disaster planning as well as coordination among multiple agencies and city departments, including police, fire, aviation and health.
Heard said some prospective candidates for police superintendent had bowed out because they already earned more than the job’s salary of $185,652. Weis is paid more in his current position as head of the FBI’s Philadelphia field office, she said.
Weis (pronounced WEESE) is a 22-year FBI veteran. He served in Chicago as assistant special agent in charge from 2000 to 2003 and has worked in offices in Houston, Los Angeles and Phoenix.
Controversy came in 2003 during a posting to FBI headquarters in Washington, where he was second in command in the Office of Professional Responsibility. The office opened an internal investigation of Robert Wright Jr., an agent based in Chicago who publicly charged that the agency mishandled terrorism investigations, according to a memo subsequently obtained by the Tribune.
Written by a subordinate in Weis’ office, the memo quoted him and another top official as saying they would “take him out” after Wright appeared on television to air his criticism.
Asked Thursday about the allegation, Weis said it was investigated by the Justice Department and found to be “unsubstantiated.”
A Justice Department spokesman in Washington declined to comment, saying such employee investigations are covered by the Privacy Act.
Wright declined to comment Thursday on Weis’ appointment. But one of his lawyers, Paul Orfanades of the public interest group Judicial Watch, said the selection left him scratching his head.
“He’s a curious choice if the intent is to clean up corruption and to address institutional problems in the Chicago Police Department,” Orfanades said. “He has protected the one institution he worked for and retaliated against the whistle-blower.”
U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald had a different view based on Weis’ time in the Chicago FBI office.
“I was impressed with him,” he said. “I think he’s an excellent choice.”
By city ordinance, the Chicago Police Board is responsible for vetting applicants for the police superintendent’s job and submitting the names of three finalists. The mayor then selects one or rejects all three and asks for more candidates.
But Daley acknowledged Thursday that as the board did its work this time, he conducted a search of his own.
“I interviewed many people,” he said. “I went out and reached [out] and talked to people all over this country. … I looked at every resume that was submitted to the Police Board and even submitted to me.”
Weis was recommended by Robert Grant, head of the Chicago FBI office, Daley said.
Though she didn’t have other names, Heard reported later that “more than one person” put Weis’ name forward.
With what amounted to Daley’s pre-endorsement, Weis was among the three finalists whose names were submitted to him by the board, the mayor said.
Departing from past practice, Daley said he kept the names secret to prevent embarrassment and problems with their current employers.
“All of a sudden, someone says, ‘Are you unhappy with this position? Is there something wrong with you?'”
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