Former Police Commissioner Ramsey to advise Chicago police
Former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey will return to his roots to advise the Chicago Police Department and help guide civil rights reforms in the recently embattled department.
Former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey will return to his roots to advise the Chicago Police Department and help guide civil rights reforms in the recently embattled department.
It's the third position Ramsey has taken on since retiring from the Philadelphia Police Department in December.
Ramsey is also a consultant with the Wilmington police department and, as of Jan. 25, took on a two-year appointment at Drexel as a guest lecturer and adviser to the school's criminal justice department.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Ramsey's addition to the Chicago department Sunday in a statement saying, "Commissioner Ramsey is not only a national leader in urban policing who has led two major police departments through civil rights reforms - he is also a native Chicagoan who knows our police department and our communities."
In January 2015, President Obama named Ramsey cochair of the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing, a group created to identify strategies to help strengthen police community relations across the country. He also serves on the International Association of Chiefs of Police Executive Committee.
Ramsey will be paid $350 an hour as a consultant, said Emanuel spokesman Adam Collins. Collins said Ramsey will stay on "for the foreseeable future as the Chicago Police Department continues to rebuild trust in the department."
Ramsey, 65, was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, went on to work as a deputy police superintendent, and applied for the Chicago police chief job three times throughout his career. He was passed over each time, then went on to head the Washington and Philadelphia Police Departments. In both cities he requested federal input from the U.S. Justice Department on police practices and reforms.
When he retired from the Philadelphia department last year, he said that he was not considering the open top job in Chicago.
He returns to Chicago shortly after the Justice Department announced a civil rights investigation into the department's practices and patterns following the release of a dashcam video showing Officer Jason Van Dyke, who is white, fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who is African American, in 2014. Van Dyke was charged with murder more than a year after the shooting, a delay that provoked unrest in the black community and criticism of Emanuel and his department.
When the video showing the McDonald shooting was finally released, protest and outrage intensified and Emanuel fired his police chief. A federal civil rights investigation, similar to those initiated in Ferguson and Baltimore for the deaths of unarmed black men was announced by U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
Ramsey will advise the Chicago Police Department and city leaders on policies, training, and internal management and accountability systems for issues like the use of force, interactions with people suffering from mental illness, early intervention with police officers, and community policing.
In the Emanuel statement, Ramsey said the Justice Department review will greatly help the department.
"The situation in Chicago is not unlike many in cities across the country," Ramsey said. "But the people of Chicago should know that their leaders are working hard to restore trust where it has been lost. Progress won't happen overnight, but a sustained and continued effort will put Chicago on a path forward."
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