BRONZEVILLE — Chicago police are considering taking cops off desk duty and assigning them to patrol CTA trains, buses and stations in response to recent violence on mass transit, Supt. David Brown said Monday.
The city’s top cop announced over the weekend more officers are being assigned to guard the CTA. During a press conference Monday, he also warned desk duty officers that they are likely to get sent out of headquarters and onto trains and platforms.
“The average resident would rather see an officer deployed in the field than at a desk if we can still make it work with administration work,” Brown said.
Brown declined to say how many officers will get moved, but he did confirm police have also taken officers away from narcotics and gang units to beef up CTA patrols.
“Perception of safety is as important as the actual safety,” he said. “If I don’t see officers then I don’t feel safer. But if I see officers, maybe I feel a little safer, perception wise.”
“… We are adding more and more resources, but not every train. That would not be practical,” Brown said. “We got a lot more work to do. This is not going to be an easy task, but we’re dedicated to ensuring that people who ride the CTA are safe. Whatever it takes to include, you know, redistributing desk duty officers to the trains. … Officers in uniform working desk duty, we’re going to try to find a way to get them and others on more field assignments.”
Brown also said officers are being shifted to Downtown beats and to high-crime beats around the city.
“We’re going to have to pivot more and more resources from administrative jobs to assignments like the CTA, to assignments like the 1st and 18th districts, to assignments at the districts obviously that drive our top 55 beats. As well as every neighborhood in this city needs more resources.”
Brown made the announcement Saturday about beefing up CTA patrols after a 29-year-old man was fatally shot on a Red Line train in Chatham.
The victim, whom Brown identified as Diuntel Moon, was on a train car around at the 79th Street and Dan Ryan stop 2 a.m. Saturday when an unknown person fired multiple shots, killing him, police said.
Brown called it a “senseless act of gun violence.”
CTA President Dorval Carter also said Saturday the agency would be bringing back its K-9 security teams to monitor trains and platforms within the next week.
“Violent crime is up, and that’s why we’re adding more and more resources to the CTA,” Brown said Saturday.
The killing on the Red Line was the latest in a recent string of violent attacks, including a 17-year-old boy fatally shot on a bus in West Garfield Park in June and an attempted robbery in Lincoln Park where four people were stabbed in July.