Chicago police chief walks on last day of contract

[March 02, 2011]  CHICAGO (AP) -- From the day he arrived in 2008 until Tuesday when he quit, Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis remained an outsider.

A former FBI agent and Florida native, Weis had -- and many say fulfilled -- a mandate from Mayor Richard Daley to clean up the department's scandal-stained image. That mandate certainly made his force nervous.

Hours before his contract expired Tuesday, Weis left his job rather than wait to be ousted by Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel, who made it clear he wouldn't renew Weis' contract.

"Serving as the Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department has been an honor and a great privilege," Weis said in a brief written statement. He declined to elaborate on the timing of his departure, which came a day after Daley publicly expressed hope that Weis would stay on the job until he left the mayor's office in May.

Weis will be replaced on an interim basis by former Superintendent Terry Hillard, who headed the department from 1998 until 2003, said Chicago Alderman Anthony Beale. Attempts to reach Hillard, who starts Wednesday, were unsuccessful.

Weis had known for months that he would be replaced once a new mayor took office -- none of the major mayoral candidates planned to extend his contract, which was expire at midnight Tuesday.

Daley issued a written statement praising Weis' accomplishments as commissioner.

"He has been successful at both implementing new strategies in our fight against crime and assuring that the conduct of our police officers meets the highest standards so that our residents have confidence that the Police Department is protecting and serving them," the mayor said.

Emanuel, who has criticized Weis for adding administrative staffers but not hiring more officers to patrol the streets, praised the outgoing superintendent in a statement.

"We owe him a debt of gratitude for returning when our police department and city need him. Jody Weis also deserves our thanks for his service and for reducing violent crime during his tenure," the mayor-elect said.

Weis was the first outsider hired to run the department in more than 40 years, and he quickly ran afoul of many rank-and-file officers and the police union. They have blamed him for hurting department morale, and said he didn't support them as well as his predecessors had.

Within weeks of his arrival, Weis showed how seriously he took Daley's mandate to shake up the department, replacing 21 of the department's 25 district commanders, reassigning desk jockeys to the streets and telling overweight officers to lose their beer guts. But it was his handling of a police brutality case soon after he arrived in Chicago that many officers found most egregious.

Before Weis took the job, William Cozzi, an officer, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor battery charge after being videotaped beating a man handcuffed to a wheelchair. Set to return to work after serving a two-year sentence shortly after Weis arrived, he instead was charged by federal prosecutors with a civil rights violation after Weis directed the FBI to video of the incident.

Cozzi pleaded guilty and received a federal prison sentence, which the police union said smacked of double jeopardy. Weis defended his actions, saying they signaled to the department that brutality and misconduct would not be tolerated.

Weis also angered some officers because he wore a police uniform at department functions, and they didn't feel he deserved to because he didn't come up through the ranks.

"I'm from the great evil, the FBI," Weis joked last month during an Associated Press interview.

While many rank-and-file officers resented Weis, he won praise from some politicians and newspaper editorial boards for some successful initiatives he undertook, such as the expanded use of new technology, including a computerized mapping program that allowed the department identify the most crime-ridden streets and areas and to shift officers there.

During Weis' tenure, Chicago's violent crime rate fell steadily and sometimes dramatically. For example, in 2010, the city saw the lowest number of murders since the mid-1960s.

During a recent interview, Weis pointed out that there hadn't been any major police scandals since he took over. That wasn't the case under Weis' predecessor, Phil Cline, under whose watch there were several, most notably the videotaped beating of a female bartender by an off-duty officer.

[Associated Press; By DON BABWIN and SOPHIA TAREEN]

Associated Press writer Karen Hawkins contributed to this report.

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