Chicago Police Officers Circle High-Crime 'Boxes'

Two Chicago police officers relaxed in their marked patrol car last week at a high-crime South Side corner, telling jokes, talking about their kids and swapping war stories about work to pass the time as they munched on sunflower seeds and drank iced coffee.

Every so often they drove slowly around the limited two-square-block area in West Englewood where they had been assigned, keeping an eye out for parking violators and suspicious passers-by. Then they settled into another parking spot for a while longer.

The process repeated itself over an eight-hour shift as the two officers and dozens of others earned time-and-a-half overtime pay on their day off.

Chicago police have targeted 20 of the city's most violent areas for the extra manpower in recent months, but those blocks have been so flooded with additional patrols that many veteran cops say their shifts have been largely uneventful. Yet the added police presence appears to be a key contributor to a significant drop in shootings and homicides this year, the officers said, though Mother Nature also has lent a helping hand with a colder winter and milder, wet spring.

However, as the past weekend showed with close to 50 people shot, nine of them fatally, the overtime initiative will face its true test during the dog days of summer and the increased violence that inevitably comes with the heat and humidity.

Police brass began offering overtime to about 200 officers last June as runaway violence brought unwanted national attention to Chicago in the first half of 2012. Most officers worked in violence-plagued sections on the South and West sides, while others were deployed to the Michigan Avenue corridor on weekends to ensure peace along the Magnificent Mile.

Facing mounting pressure after Chicago exceeded 500 homicides last year for only the second time in about the last decade, police Superintendent Garry McCarthy directed the added manpower in February to 20 "impact zones," deemed the city's most dangerous blocks based on a three-year study. A month later, the department doubled the number of officers on overtime to 400 a day and even brought in rookie cops to patrol on foot.

The impact zones make up 3 percent of the city's land mass but account for 20 percent of its violent crime, according to the department.

To increase the police presence, the zones are kept small, about five or six square blocks on average. Each is divided into several "boxes" of about one or two square blocks each. A single squad car patrols each box.

The result of so many officers flooding into these zones is that many of them report having little to do during their shifts, typically from about 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. every day.

One officer dubbed the initiative "special enjoyment," a satirical nod to the term "special employment" that the department has used for its off-and-on overtime efforts over the years.

"You're sitting around twiddling your thumbs because you're given (only) a two-block radius (to patrol)," said a beat officer normally assigned to the North Side who has regularly worked overtime on the South and West sides recently. "You just sit. You try to stay awake. There's just nothing going on."

Numerous officers of all ranks who have worked the overtime initiative spoke to the Tribune on the condition of anonymity because they did not have authorization from the department to talk to the news media.

Not surprisingly, they said their main motivation to take on the added work was the money. Officers, who usually work four consecutive days on 91/2-hour shifts, can make as much as $70 an hour at time-and-a-half pay depending on their rank and seniority.

"Nobody's doing it because it's a crusade to save the city," one veteran supervisor said. "They figure they can make $2,000 to $3,000 (extra) a month. They better get it while it's hot."

With costs rising, the department plans to scale back to 200 the number of officers allowed to work the overtime program later this summer. Additional rookie cops will take their place on foot patrols in the high-crime areas.

Since the number of officers on overtime was doubled in March, shootings have been infrequent in the 20 impact zones, but officers who work overtime acknowledge the potential for gun violence still exists once their shifts end early in the morning.

Deputy Chief Eddie Johnson, who oversees the overtime program on the South Side, said the initiative is freeing up regular beat cops in districts with impact zones to be more proactive.

"We don't want to be reactionary to everything," Johnson said in a telephone interview last week. "We want to stop things before they occur, and this (strategy) is helping us do that."

While regular beat officers typically strive to generate a sufficient amount of "activity" -- slang for writing parking and traffic tickets and making street stops and arrests -- overtime cops don't have to worry about that. And that's a good thing, because being proactive can be tough while limited to patrolling two square blocks for eight hours, officers said. The officers are generally barred from patrolling outside their assigned boxes unless a serious crime takes place nearby.

Yet one veteran supervisor stressed the importance of these overtime cops staying active despite the limitations because the criminal element quickly figures out the hardworking officers from the lazy ones.

"There's (officers) who do absolutely nothing," he said. "Their presence does mean something, but you have to have officers willing to (do work). ... Make it known you're not afraid to get out of the car."

But Johnson believes it's just another sign that the overtime strategy is working when those officers are taking it easy.

"When you see them not taking enforcement in those areas, the crime has decreased," he said. "But when they see the need to take enforcement action, they do it."

These high-crime areas have been so saturated with cops through the overtime program that officers sometimes hear shots fired before a dispatch call goes out over the radio, officers say.

"Nobody can fire a gun without a policeman hearing it," one supervisor said. "It is kind of unique."

Tribune reporter Peter Nickeas contributed.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service