As the third Chicago Police Department officer to commit suicide in less than a month was laid to rest this past weekend, arguments and anger over the city’s overtaxed police force took on a new sense of urgency.
The deaths understandably have inflamed long-simmering condemnation of the department’s increasingly routine and, in many eyes, inhumane practice of canceling days off at short notice because of deep staffing shortages, made worse of late by shortfalls in recruitment and retention.
It has become increasingly routine for police Supt. David Brown to increase officers’ shifts to 12-hour days and nix days off as violent crime rates have soared, along with such other relevant factors as the ongoing pandemic, street protests and the continuing dramatic shortfalls in police recruitment and retention.
