Charles Ramsey, who headed the Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia police departments during U.S. Justice Department investigations of those agencies, has been invited by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to consult on reforming the Chicago Police Department,reports the Chicago Sun-Times. Ramsey, a former deputy police superintendent in Chicago, said the city should embrace the recently launched Justice Department investigation of the Chicago Police Department's “patterns and practices.” Ramsey said federal investigators worked cooperatively with the Washington and Philadephia departments while he ran them and that the result was better training for officers and a drop in police-involved shootings in both cities.
“We will be just fine,” he said of the Chicago Police Department. Ramsey, 65, who retired this month as Philadelphia's police commissioner, said he hasn't signed a contract with the Emanuel administration but has an agreement to be a consultant. A South Side native, Ramsey is watching the current selection of Chicago's next police superintendent from the sidelines for a change. He applied for Chicago's top cop job in 1998, 2003 and in 2011, when Emanuel hired Garry McCarthy, who'd been chief of the Newark Police Department and a top official of the New York Police Department. Emanuel fired McCarthy on Dec. 1, saying he had become a “distraction” after the outcry over the release of a dashcam video showing Officer Jason Van Dyke fatally shooting Laquan McDonald in 2014.