Chicago Racks Up Deadliest September in More Than a Decade

September was Chicago’s deadliest month since 2002, with 60 homicides.

Emanuel and a slew of other mayors and police officials attend a Justice Department Summit on violence and crime reduction in Washington D.C. on October 7.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Monday stood by his contention that Chicago police officers are becoming “fetal” out of concern they will get in trouble for actions during arrests, blaming officers second-guessing themselves in the wake of high-profile incidents for rising crime rates in Chicago and elsewhere.

‘We have allowed our police department to get fetal, and it is having a direct effect, ‘ Emanuel was quoted by the Washington Post as saying at the meeting. “They have pulled back from the ability to interdict … they don’t want to be a news story themselves, they don’t want their career ended early, and it’s having an impact”, Emanuel said in his remarks at the conference.

“There’s no doubt Ferguson, Baltimore, New York, Cleveland, in my view, have put the genie out of the bottle”, Emanuel said.

“If that happens, it’s going to have an impact [on police officers’ decisions] and we’re seeing it… that’s why every other police chief and mayor and USA attorney then applauded what I said”, said Emanuel, a former chief of staff to President Barack Obama. And officers will tell you that.

“Officers themselves were telling me about how the news over the last 15 months have impacted their instincts – do they stop, or do they keep driving?” According to police department statistics, homicides and shootings have skyrocketed 21 per cent compared to the same time the year before.

The nonpartisan budget watchdog group also said it remains concerned about potential landmines in the mayor’s plans: what happens to costs if courts strike down the city’s plan to phase out its retiree health subsidy, what if Gov. Bruce Rauner rejects legislation that would save the city even more money on police and fire pension obligations for the next few years, and what if reforms to two other pension funds are overturned by the Illinois Supreme Court? “When you’re seeing something like this all across the country and you see what happened in the a year ago, we have a challenge to continue to help our police officers be good police officers practicing community policing because it is having an impact on the safety we want to see”, the mayor said.