Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced significant changes to Chicago police policies and practices on Wednesday. This comes after a series of violent incidents allegedly involving an excessive and unreasonable use of force by Chicago police officers.
As a part of the move to reform Chicago police, Emanuel announced that the force would be given additional units of Tasers for them to carry. Currently, Chicago police carry an estimated 700 Taser guns. The plan now is to double that number to roughly 1400 by June 2017. The objective is to ensure that every patrol car should have access to at least one Taser gun. The total number of people working in the Chicago police force is estimated to be 12,000, according to Fox News.
It has been estimated that the purchase of the additional Tasers would involve an additional expenditure of $700,000. It was not clear at this time how this additional expense would be covered.
Emanuel's policies are also trying to lay more emphasis on better training for the police officers. Emanuel has been repeatedly emphasizing that Chicago police need to be taught the difference between when a gun ought to be fired and simply when one can be fired, according to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
These changes have come in the wake of a series of recent incidents involving allegations of the use of excessive and unreasonable force by Chicago police during their operations. In particular, the recent killings of Laquan McDonald, Bettie Jones and Quintonio LeGrier have attracted a lot of attention as illustrative cases where Chicago police are alleged to have used excessive and unreasonable force and ended up killing the victims.
Indeed, it was the death of Jones and LeGreier over last weekend that has prompted this latest move on Emanuel's part. Emanuel was vacationing with his family in Cuba when he heard of the deaths of the two people. He immediately cut his holiday short and returned to Chicago to take stock of the situation there, according to CNN.
