Chicago ex-top cop left because future too unclear

Former Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis says he stepped down because he didn't know how long he would be on the job after his contract ran out this week.

The embattled ex-top cop of the nation's third largest city spoke to The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday, a day after his resignation. He left the job even though Mayor Richard Daley had asked him to stay until Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel takes office in May and names a new superintendent.

Weis said he asked Daley for a written contract but was not given one. Without a contract, he said he could have been let go at any time without warning.

"No one could tell me how long I was supposed to stay," he said, adding that he wanted to be given a specific end date so he could plan the next phase in his career.

The 53-year-old's future might include working in the private sector in security, personnel or consulting.

He said another reason he chose to leave the superintendent position now was so he could devote all his energy to his job search.

"It would have been selfish of me to sit around drawing a paycheck while my focus is split," he said.

Terry Hillard, who ran the Police Department from 1998 to 2003, took over the superintendent job on an interim basis Wednesday.

Weis, who started in 2008, was criticized by many rank-and-file officers and the police union as an outsider who was bad for department morale. The career FBI agent and Florida native was given an ultimatum by Daley to clean up a department marred by embarrassing acts by several police officers, including beatings caught on tape.

But Weis and others have defended his work. Crime during his tenure fell to the lowest rates in decades, and he instituted several new technologies.

His leadership became a central issue on the mayoral campaign trail. All the candidates, including Emanuel, said they wouldn't renew Weis' contract, which expired at midnight Tuesday.

Weis said he was aware when he took the job that "everything in this city is affected by politics." He said if he had stayed for a few weeks or months more, he would have been considered an interim superintendent and might not have been able to run the department as he saw fit.

"Nobody came out and said that ... but I think when you are between administrations that freezes everything," he said. "During that transition period, it is very hard to get decisions in place and get things done (and) we probably shouldn't make critical decisions in the next 10 weeks that may not be in line with what Rahm wants.

Weis said stepping down in May when Daley leaves office wouldn't be a good move either. He said that's just before summer, when Chicago's crime rate typically rises and the superintendent has to "develop strategies instantaneously."

"If you are going to bring in someone new, bring them in now," he said.

Since winning the election, Emanuel has criticized Weis, saying he had added nine or 10 "significant positions in the central bureaucracy" at a time when not a single beat officer was put on the street.

Weis said he's not sure where Emanuel got his numbers.

"We had 400 (officers) doing administrative jobs and put them back on the street," he told the AP Wednesday.

During the mayoral campaign, Emanuel said he would increase the police force by 250 officers. But Weis said the earliest anyone would come out of the police academy is February or March of next year, with the city's tight budget and a process of hiring and training officers that takes several months.

"I'd be shocked and amazed if any new police officers are on the street in 2011," he said.

Weis again defended his leadership, reiterating that the department has made great progress in fighting crime since he took over three years ago. He pointed to the fact that violent crime is down, in some cases dramatically, and that the murder rate fell in 2010 to a number that the city hasn't seen since the 1960s.

He said the claim that department morale is down is overblown. For example, he said a protest last year outside his office might have drawn 200 or 300 officers at the most, not the thousands that union officials had predicted would attend.

Besides, he said, all the statistics that showed a steady decline in crime in the city suggested the department was doing something right.

"You could not have achieved those results with a demoralized unit," Weis said.

He was brought in by Daley to repair the reputation of a department tarnished by a string of incidents of police brutality and misconduct. Weis said his cleanup of the department played a role in some officers disliking him.

"I am an enemy of the status quo," Weis said. "Some didn't get that. They did not want to see change."