UKRAINIAN VILLAGE — Amid a surge of robberies citywide, some West Town and Humboldt Park neighbors will soon have the chance to let city officials know they want greater police presence in their neighborhoods.
36th Ward voters who live in precincts 14-27 — between Kostner Avenue and the ward’s eastern edge at Wood Street — will find a non-binding referendum question on their March 19 primary ballot asking if the city should reopen the long-shuttered 13th Police District, which once served the larger West Town area.
Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th) has pushed to relaunch the 13th District or open a satellite 12th District office in the neighborhood since he ran for reelection last year. His office gathered around 1,000 petition signatures in the fall to get the referendum question on the ballot, according to copies provided by the Chicago Board of Elections.
The 13th District operated for years at 937 N. Wood St. — now home to a Cook County Sheriff division — before it was closed in 2012 under Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration. West Town south of Division Street now sits in the Near West (12th) Police District, headquartered near Pilsen.
Villegas said in an interview last week he plans to use the results of the referendum to make the case at City Hall and to police department leaders that the eastern part of his ward desperately needs more officers and other resources to stem crime.
“Although it’s non-binding, what I intend to do with it is to bring it to the superintendent, the mayor’s attention, that here is a population that has been negatively impacted by a former administration’s decision to close a police station,” he said. “And then allow the mayor and the superintendent to provide strategies on what they’re going to do to combat the crime in the area.”
Robberies spiked dramatically citywide in 2023, with the larger West Town and Logan Square community areas getting hit particularly hard.
The 12th Police District, which runs from West Town to Pilsen, reported 985 robberies — a 113 percent increase since 2019 and a 54 percent spike since 2022.
The West Town community area, which includes West Town, Ukrainian Village, Wicker Park and East Humboldt Park and is split between the 12th and 14th districts, saw 502 robberies in 2023. That’s up from 239 in 2019 and 406 in 2022, according to the city’s data portal.
Some West Town neighbors have long been concerned they don’t receive adequate police attention because the 12th District’s station is located miles away at 1412 S. Blue Island Ave.
Villegas said he believes there’s a direct correlation between the station’s closure more than a decade ago and the uptick in robberies and other crime in the area, and called the decision to shutter the 13th District “short-sighted.”
While robberies have skyrocketed in West Town and across the city this year, shootings and homicides have declined since 2020.
The ballot referendum comes after Villegas and Alds. Daniel La Spata (1st) and Walter Burnett (27th) sent a letter to Supt. Larry Snelling in October requesting a satellite police station to be located at the city-owned Goldblatt’s Building, 1615 W. Chicago Ave. The building houses the offices of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability and other city departments.
The 13th District’s closure “has left our West Town community without a police station easily accessible to residents and/or by patrol vehicles,” the letter reads. “The residents are frustrated and extremely concerned with the current state of public safety in West Town.”
Villegas told Block Club he’s supportive of either reopening the 13th District or establishing the satellite office.
Leonardo Quintero, chair of the 12th District Police Council, agreed police presence can be lacking in the portions of West Town and Humboldt Park within the 12th District.
Speaking before a community meeting last week, he said slow 911 response times is “one of the biggest” complaints he and his two 12th District co-council members receive.
“If something is going on in the northwest side of our district, which is close to Humboldt Park or Ukrainian Village, and officers do need to be pulled from our southernmost part, which is Pilsen, it’s going to take them 27, 35 minutes to get there,” Quintero said.
A satellite district in West Town could bring more patrols to the neighborhood, Quintero said. But he said it would also be something of a Band-Aid, and he believes the city should look at redrawing its police districts every 10 or 20 years to accommodate population shifts and areas dealing with public safety challenges.
“There are some districts that genuinely need more attention than others, more resources than others,” he said. “I think that being able to remap them and then place the districts based on those characteristics would be beneficial.”
Spokespeople for the Chicago Police Department and Mayor Brandon Johnson did not reply to requests for comment about reopening the 13th District or establishing a 12th District satellite.
But during his confirmation hearing this fall, Snelling said he would consider redrawing police district and beat lines to better distribute resources — although he didn’t promise any specific changes.
“I know that some districts are much larger than other districts, and depending on the number of officers in that district, it could take them a pretty good time to get from one end of the district to another end of the district, to handle calls,” Snelling said. “So that’s something that we can look at, but we would actually have to be really, really strategic about getting that done. But, it’s worth a look.”
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