Many of Chicago’s top leaders are facing strong headwinds.
Mayor Brandon Johnson has suffered embarrassing defeats, and he’s now trying to force out his public schools chief.
The heads of the city’s transit and housing agencies have both faced calls to resign. And the police oversight boss is at the center of lawsuits alleging bias and whistleblower retaliation.
Larry Snelling, meanwhile, has established himself as a steady hand over his first year as the city’s top cop, leading a historically scandal-plagued department out of a tumultuous stretch. During the Democratic National Convention — Snelling’s first big test — he emerged as the calm face of the city.
While the world watched and some trolls wished openly that Chicago would devolve into chaos, Snelling stood on the front lines of protests every day to ensure things ran smoothly. Every morning, he faced the local and national press, explaining his department’s actions and standing by his officers.
It wasn’t until the day after the convention ended — as city officials took a victory lap — that Snelling was joined by the mayor. As Johnson jockeyed for the spotlight, he declared that the city had “displayed some of the best policing in the history of America.”
When the City Council passed a resolution earlier this month commemorating the success of the convention, many alderpersons singled out Snelling. “It all starts at the top,” Ald. Matt O’Shea (19th) said to Snelling, who was seated in the Council chambers. “You led from the front.”
Sitting in the catbird seat during an interview last week at police headquarters, Snelling said his biggest accomplishment as superintendent has been restoring the morale that tanked under his predecessor, David Brown. Looking forward, he said he wants to push forward with a court-ordered reform process and develop “a department that the entire city can be proud of.”
“I love this city,” the Englewood native told the Chicago Sun-Times. “And I just want to make sure that … people are feeling safer, the city grows, our department grows and the relationship between the police department and our citizens continues to grow.”
Police shooting loomed over Snelling’s first year
Snelling’s short tenure has also faced turbulence. The fatal police shooting of Dexter Reed in March sent shockwaves through the city, made national news and put Snelling firmly on the defensive.
Reed shot and wounded an officer when a tactical team pulled him over on a residential street in Humboldt Park, prompting four other cops to fire 96 rounds at Reed in just 41 seconds, according to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
The release of body camera footage of the deadly exchange led to calls to fire the officers and disband all tactical teams, the plainclothes units that rove the city in unmarked vehicles in search of guns and drugs.
The shooting put a spotlight on the department’s reliance on traffic stops as a crime-fighting tool — a practice that grew common after a lawsuit settlement forced the department to dramatically curtail its use of pedestrian stops.
Activists and community members are now pushing city officials to change course and bar pretextual stops aimed at conducting searches of vehicles.
Snelling has said he wants to overhaul traffic stops under a slow-moving consent decree mandating sweeping police reforms. He told the Sun-Times that his officers still need to make stops to enforce traffic laws and address crime trends.
“When we look at the number of stolen vehicles [and] vehicles that are taken in vehicular hijackings, we have be very careful about what we say or what we’re not going to do,” Snelling said. “Because we can see an increase in crimes.”
But Ed Yohnka, spokesperson for the ACLU of Illinois, said stops for traffic violations and minor infractions stretch police resources and don’t bolster public safety. The ACLU has sued the city over CPD’s allegedly “discriminatory traffic stop program” after fighting for the stop-and-frisk settlement.
“It’s just not a very effective tool that really does create this tension in the community, and frankly doesn’t do anything in terms of building the kind of confidence between the police and the community that’s gonna lead to every neighborhood being safe,” Yohnka said of traffic stops.
Struggle with oversight agency comes to a head
Reed’s death also exposed a rift between Snelling and Andrea Kersten, his counterpart at COPA, the city agency that investigates police shootings and other serious allegations of misconduct.
Snelling was miffed that Kersten questioned whether the officers involved in the shooting had lied about the reason for the stop. During a fiery speech during a meeting of the Chicago Police Board earlier this year, he admonished Kersten and said he had avoided making public comments about the shooting because he didn’t want to “poison the well.”
“Let’s make sure that the investigation is being carried out fairly and we’re reporting the facts, not opinion-based information,” he said in the recent interview. “And not anything that could come off as bias.”
Allegations of anti-police bias within COPA have recently roiled the agency. Two high-ranking officials who were summarily fired have filed whistleblower lawsuits hinging on such claims, which were also central to another suit brought by Chicago’s largest police union.
Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) Chief Administrator Andrea Kersten reacts during a press conference at COPA’s headquarters in the West Town neighborhood in July 2023, where she provided an update about the ongoing investigation of Chicago police officers who allegedly had engaged in sexual misconduct with asylum seekers who were temporarily staying in the 10th District Ogden police station.
Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
Snelling said he believes the imperiled agency can “get back on track with the right leadership.”
“There’s also a silver lining, knowing that there are people over there who have concerns about the way investigations are being handled,” Snelling said. “And they have a level of integrity that won’t allow them to continue to go down that path.”
Crime is falling under Snelling’s watch
So far this year, Snelling’s first full year as superintendent, overall crime has dropped by 10%, according to data maintained by the police department. Homicides have dropped 8% and shootings have fallen 5%, continuing a downward trend.
Still, violence remains an intractable problem and some crimes have risen, such as batteries and burglaries. Snelling said some of his key goals moving forward are to “develop the department” and “set the example of what policing can be.”
While he was slow to make high-level staffing changes, he quickly gave commanders more autonomy and control over their districts. The decision mirrored a move made by Charlie Beck, the former longtime chief of the Los Angeles Police Department who briefly served as interim superintendent before Brown took the reins.
Snelling also pulled back on a controversial practice Brown leaned into — routinely canceling officers’ regular days off and extending shifts to address staffing issues. He vowed to continue supporting rank-and-file members of the department that he said are often unfairly maligned.
“These are human beings that I know, and a lot of them I’ve trained, and they want to do great things,” he said. “But we have to put them in a position to win, and that’s my job.”
Snelling said he “wasn’t even looking for the job” as top cop, but he’s settled into the position. He said he often brings his work home with him, but tries to find ways to relax. He listens to classical music on his way to the office, watches Animal Planet and the History Channel and even binged a series recently — the San Francisco-based crime drama “Warrior.”
Asked if he has any ambitions beyond policing, Snelling smiled and said, “My aspiration is to find some rest and go fishing.”
“If you’re talking about politics,” he added, “absolutely not.”