Like many of you, I really don't know what to believe anymore.  Last week, Supt. McCarthy tells us it would be unconscionable to hire more police, and this week he tells us he will hire them next year.  Was he telling the truth then, or telling the truth now?  Who knows?  I'm tired of the political dog and pony shows.   Tired of politicians making important decisions based on what's best for their political careers.  Tired of the mayor's incessant numbers games.

City to hire new police officers next year, Supt. McCarthy says - Chicago Sun-Times

City to hire new police officers next year, Supt. McCarthy says

BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter fspielman@suntimes.com October 6, 2011 2:02PM

Mayor Rahmn Emanuel and Chicago Police Dept. Supt. Garry McCarthy announced the redeployment of additional Chicago police officers to communities across Chicago Thursday, October 6, 2011. | Rich Hein~Sun-Times

Chicago will hire more police officers next year for the first time since September 2010, Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said Thursday, letting the cat out of the bag on Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s first budget.

Less than a week ago, McCarthy said it would be “unconscionable” to hire more officers until he has finished retooling the Chicago Police Department and maximizing the performance of the officers he already has.

On Thursday, he changed his tune.

“We are going to be hiring more. We’re putting that into the budget. The issue is, how many we can hire and when we can do it,” McCarthy said, refusing to reveal specifics.

McCarthy cut off the conversation when asked whether the 2012 budget the mayor will unveil Wednesday would save $93 million by eliminating 1,400 police vacancies.

The sketchy promise of more hirings was not enough to appease Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) President Mike Shields.

“How many and when? Is it after the NATO and G-8 [summits in May]? We’re not prepared for thousands of protesters coming into Chicago. We can’t absorb them if we can’t handle 14-year-olds getting murdered,” Shields said.

Emanuel campaigned on a promise to solve a severe manpower shortage by adding 1,000 officers not now on the street, 250 of them newly-hired with funds generated by tax-increment-financing (TIF) districts.

Asked Thursday whether he intends to hire more officers, the mayor would only say that he was “aware of what I said” during the campaign.

A two-year hiring slowdown has left the Chicago Police Department more than 2,300 officers-a-day short of authorized strength including vacancies and officers on medical leave and limited duty.

Former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s final budget called for hiring 200 additional officers — nowhere near enough to keep pace with attrition — but the officers were never hired.

McCarthy told the Chicago Sun-Times in late August that he had been asked to cut at least $190 million from the Police Department’s $1.3 billion budget and would get only half way there by eliminating vacancies.

Last week, he retreated from that position, saying, “I don’t want to eliminate positions. I want to hold on to them and not fill them,” then hire officers when economic conditions improve.

Budget Director Alex Holt subsequently told Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown that the 1,400 police vacancies would be placed “essentially in a reserve account.”

Even without new hirings, Emanuel claimed Thursday to have delivered on his campaign promise to put 1,000 more police officers on the street.

The 138 police officers that put the mayor over the top will be made available by hiring civilian detention aides to replace sworn officers and by closing police lock-ups in four police districts: Shakespeare, Albany Park, Town Hall and Rogers Park.

The civilian detention aides will be hired in mid-November at a cost of $4.4 million. The union representing 72 laid off Loop traffic control aides will get first dibs on those jobs, under a settlement with their union, SEIU Local 73.

Emanuel got mildly annoyed after being reminded that more than half of the 1,019 additional street officers he claims had already been working on the street in specialized units.

“I’m only 132 days into a four-year term. But, 1,019 officers have been applied from where they were before to the street,” he told a news conference at the Chicago Lawn district, where crime is down by 25 percent.

“There’s only one question that matters to me: It’s the question that matters to people in their neighborhood, at their kitchen table and when their kids are at school: ‘Is my community seeing the type of safety I need?’ “

Shields argued that the shift from specialized units to beat patrol has led to a reduction in pro-active policing.

“All they’re doing is answering 911 calls and doing a few traffic stops,” he said. “If I was a drug dealer, I would be doing cartwheels with this new crime strategy knowing there’s less of a chance I’m going to be stopped.”