Chicago — On his website former Chicago Police Superintendent, Garry McCarthy announced he will run for Mayor of Chicago, against the very man who brought him to Chicago to run the police department in 2011, Rahm Emanuel.
Four years after hiring McCarthy, Mayor Emanuel fired him, in the wake of the Laquan McDonald shooting by a Chicago police officer.
On his website Wednesday night McCarthy said he had been encouraged by friends for months to run for mayor. It’s certainly been rumored he would run since last summer. The election is set for February 2019.
In the announcement, McCarthy said of Mayor Emanuel “This administration has brought us our failed education system, the overwhelming tax burden on hard-working people, and the violent crime that plagues the entire city. Over the past year, thousands of Chicagoans have approached and encouraged me to run for mayor to fix these problems.”
He says in a video, that Chicago City government “Has lost our trust because of failed policies and endless politics of bluster and bullying. I’m running for mayor to change that. This is one of the greatest cities in the world.”
In the video on his website, Mayor Emanuel’s photo is shown as McCarthy says,”Under this mayor, we’re awash in higher taxes, corruption, school closings, and violent crime. Then in a close-up, McCarthy says, “We don’t have to live like this.. Chicago does not have to live like this.”
McCarthy was born in the Bronx portion of the NYC area, and spent his entire career as a police officer, first in New York and then in Newark, NJ where during his tenure, there was a sharp decline in homicides, shootings and overall crime declining by 21-percent.
In the wake of that decline, McCarthy was hired to head the Chicago Police Department, where he also brought a decline in the number of homicides after his first year on the job.
Since his 2015 firing, McCarthy started a consulting firm and given speeches on policing. In the wake of many police shootings across the nation, he’s been critical of some of the shootings he felt were unjustified Yet McCarthy is also critical of many of the critics of police and the media’s characterization of a number of the high profile police shootings, which he has said had lead to an environment where respect for the law and police officers is being undercut — leading to further lawlessness.
