By John Dempsey, WLS-AM News
(CHICAGO) Former Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy is blasting the man who fired him, Mayor Rahm Emanuel. McCarthy told “The Big John and Ray Show” on WLS that police are not to blame for Chicago’s violent crime. “The problem in Chicago is not the police. It’s illegitimate government. It’s politics. It’s doing the same things that we’ve always done and expecting different results. Which I believe Einstein said is insanity. There’s a political strategy and a communication strategy which is unfortunately succeeding, and it’s taking away from the fact that the murder rate is up by about 100 percent from where we got it down to in 2013 and 2014.”
Emanuel fired McCarthy in late 2015 after the release of a police dash cam video of white police officer Jason VanDyke pumping 16 bullets into the body of black teenager LaQuan McDonald, in October of 2014. Emanuel’s administration had refused to release for video for a year, and was forced to do so by court order.
McCarthy appeared on WLS to react to the decision by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, to back away from the idea of federal oversight of major urban police departments such as Chicago. Sessions and President Donald Trump believe such consent decrees have the effect of handcuffing good officers in the fight against crime, while Trump critics say such consent decrees are needed to protect the rights of minorities from bad policing.
Sessions’ predecessor, President Barack Obama’s Attorney General Loretta Lynch, appeared to be moving in the direction of a Chicago consent decree when her department wrote a report blasting Chicago Police for violating the civil rights of minorities.
On WLS Wednesday morning, McCarthy denounced the Lynch report. “That report was completely politically motivated. As you know I was not interviewed, and the A-G lied on national television saying I wasn’t available, which is nonsense. And the person who led the investigation for the city, Corporation Counsel Steve Patton, was the individual who hid the (LaQuan McDonald) video. I mean, this is just absurd.”
McCarthy admitted he has been approached about running for Mayor against Emanuel in 2019.
“A lot of people are encouraging me to do that. Politics is not in my DNA. I’m not very good at that as you guys know, I’m very straightforward. But I can tell you this. I would support anybody who would start thinking about performance-based government, rather than politics. Because that’s what we need in Chicago. There’s no measurement. There’s nobody holding anybody accountable. It’s all about politics and communication strategy and I’m sorry, that just doesn’t work to get things done in a big city.”
McCarthy also talked about how much he misses his job as Police Superintendent, and says he would “do anything” to return if asked.
“I would do that job for free right now, because it’s that important. It’s more frustrating to think that I spent 35 years trying to stop people from getting murdered and this is the way it all ends up. Because I think I know how to do this. I’ve done it for years and years and years. And people are losing their lives. And I want……I would do anything to have my job back, let’s put it that way.”
@ 2017 WLS-AM News
