Embattled Chicago Police Supt. David Brown resigned Wednesday — one day after the defeat of his biggest backer, Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
“I will be stepping down as Chicago Police superintendent effective March 16 so the incoming mayor can begin the process as soon as possible to hire the next superintendent,” Brown wrote in a statement. He did not mention the interim civilian oversight commission charged with conducting the nationwide search.
All eight mayoral challengers vowed to fire Brown as their first order of business, including the two remaining candidates in the April 4 runoff, Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson.
“It has been an honor and a privilege to work alongside the brave men and women of the Chicago Police Department,” Brown said.
Lightfoot issued a statement commending Brown “for his accomplishments, not just for the department, but the entire city.”
Her statement continued: “First Deputy Eric Carter will be appointed as interim superintendent until the new Mayor is sworn into office. We ask the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability to immediately begin the search for a new Superintendent so that the new Mayor will be able to make a selection as soon as possible.”
The outgoing mayor ticked off a laundry list of accomplishments by the retired Dallas police chief she lured to Chicago.
They include: a “record number of illegal gun recoveries” for two straight years; a “double-digit reduction” in violent crime in 2022; “consistent progress” toward compliance with a federal consent decree and programs to improve officer wellness and confront a spike in police suicides.
Lightfoot also mentioned the hiring of a full-time recruiting team to stop the mass exodus of police officers that resulted in 950 new hires last year and promoting more women to the senior exempt ranks than in the history of the department.
In his message, Brown said he has “accepted a job opportunity” to serve as chief operating officer of Loncar Lyon Jenkins, a personal injury firm with seven offices in his native state of Texas.
“I will continue to pray that all officers return home to their families safe at the end of their shift,” Brown wrote. “May the Good Lord bless the city of Chicago and the men and women who serve and protect this great city.”
Vallas welcomed Brown’s resignation, calling his three-year tenure an “absolute failure.”
Brown “stripped police officers away from local districts. ... He really abandoned community policing,” Vallas told the Sun-Times.
He also demoralized the rank-and-file through his promotions, Vallas said, “which clearly were way too often friends and family. And the rank-and-file really felt that he failed to have their backs.”
Vallas also accused Brown of having “abused the rank-and-file with a punishing work schedule that, in combination with his promotion of many individuals with questionable qualifications in positions of leadership, really drove police officers to retire or transfer to other districts en masse.”
“Superintendent Brown failed to make our city safer, and his resignation is a positive step forward,” Vallas said. “When mayor, I will appoint a new superintendent and entirely different command staff from within CPD.”
Johnson issued a statement saying Chicago’s next superintendent “must be as fully committed to the health and safety of all Chicagoans as I am, and to immediately meeting all requirements of the federal consent decree while addressing the root causes of crime.”
While he would prefer to pick a new superintendent from within CPD, Johnson said, “most important is appointing the right person for the job — someone who is collaborative, competent and compassionate, and who truly cares about protecting and serving the people of our city,” Johnson was quoted as saying.
Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th), the former CPD officer now chairing the City Council’s Committe on Public Safety, said Brown gave it his all, but as an outsider, he was pretty much doomed from the start.
“I don’t think the rank-and-file took to Superintendent Brown from the very beginning,” Taliaferro said.
“As a police officer, it was hard to accept an outsider who didn’t come from the ranks. Go back to my time. Superintendent Jody Weis and Garry McCarthy. Both of them had a difficult time. This is a tough town. They knew how to run a department — but not the Chicago Police Department.”
Under Brown, “murders decreased, but crime increased in other areas,” Taliaferro said, adding, “He succeeded in some areas and failed in others — like his job of trying to get the morale better.”
Through it all, Lightfoot remained Brown’s biggest backer and only public champion while she refused to fire him.
Now that Lightfoot is a lame duck, leaving office in May, having Brown stick around for the bitter end made no sense.
The Sun-Times reported a few weeks ago that Brown had already instructed his top brass to prepare a list of his major accomplishments.
Brown’s announcement comes less than a month after news broke that Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan was leaving the police department to work for the tech giant Google. Insiders had pegged Deenihan as a potential replacement for the embattled Brown.
An internal memo circulated last week laid out a handful of changes to the command staff. Most notably, Deputy Chief Antoinette Ursitti will replace Deenihan in an interim capacity.
Contributing: Tom Schuba
