Lori Lightfoot told aldermen and other city powerbrokers assembled at her inauguration Monday as Chicago's first black woman mayor that she meant what she said on the campaign trail about top-to-bottom reforms in the nation's third largest city.
"For years, they've said Chicago ain't ready for reform," said Lightfoot, speaking minutes after her swearing-in at the Wintrust Arena. "Well, get ready, because reform is here."
Lightfoot isn't the first incoming Chicago mayor to have pledged to overhaul a department accused for decades of abuses. But with a court-monitored plan, or consent decree, recently approved by U.S. District Judge Robert Dow, she has the best chance of actually getting it done. "I believe she's a true reformer," said Phil Turner, who like Lightfoot, is a former federal prosecutor in Chicago. "But there's a difference between trying to reform police and reality. She is up against a lot of enrichened forces."
There's also no guarantee officers will fully comply with any new policies. Dow's ability to hold people in contempt if they don't adhere to reforms only goes so far, Turner said. Lightfoot is likely to fill top posts in her administration with people who support the changes. Her chief of staff, named Wednesday, is Maurice Classen, a former prosecutor in Seattle, where he lobbied for "systemic and deep reform" of city police. He later helped develop anti-violence and policing strategies in cities nationwide.
Lightfoot's campaign platform called for changes that go beyond the consent decree, including the adoption of a policy in place in New York requiring that newly hired officers spend two weeks meeting residents in the neighbourhood they will police.
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