Emanuel’s police plan calls for every street cop to be equipped with Taser by summer

via the Chicago Tribune on 12.29.15

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is expected to announce changes in tactics and training for Chicago police on Wednesday, including a goal for every officer on street duty to be equipped with a Taser by summer.

A few details of the announcement were released late Tuesday night, and they seemed aimed at addressing several policing concerns that have been put under the microscope in the wake of last month’s release of dash-cam video showing a white Chicago police officer shoot and kill African American teen Laquan McDonald in 2014.

Emanuel also is expected to announce new training for the department that will emphasize teaching officers to try to de-escalate conflicts rather than to see every confrontation as a “shoot or don’t shoot” situation. It was unclear late Tuesday how the training that Chicago police officials described differs from current procedure.

The mayor will appear at a 2 p.m. Wednesday City Hall news conference, his first public appearance since cutting short a family vacation in Cuba after an officer last weekend shot a 19-year-old man and a 55-year-old mother of five while responding to a domestic disturbance call on the West Side.

Since the release of the McDonald video in late November, Emanuel has been forced to change course numerous times on high-profile police issues. He fired police Superintendent Garry McCarthy days after standing by him, and welcomed a U.S. Justice Department investigation after initially discounting it.

Training issues are expected to be a major focus of the federal probe, which is expected to take a year. Experts have said an eventual consent decree and federal court supervision may be the best way to fix the decades-old, systemic problems with the city’s Police Department.

Click here to view the full article online.