CHICAGO POLICE OFFICERS RETURNED TO THE STREETS

200 Back On Beat; New Superintendent Targets Drug Sales

CHICAGO -- Officer Bernadette Foley jammed her hands into the pockets of
her jacket, its collar turned up against the brisk Chicago morning. It's
been more than three years since she last walked a beat. Her eyes carefully
combed the neighborhood, and she shivered in the cold.

Until the first week of December, the 38-year-old spent her days working at
headquarters, opening mail and attending to details for Superintendent
Philip Cline. A steaming cup of coffee was always nearby.

But that was before the initiation of what Chicago police now refer to as
the "big project."

Foley, a 12-year department veteran, is one of 200 Chicago police officers
who have been pulled from their desk jobs and returned to the streets to
help disrupt drug sales in the city's highest crime areas. An estimated
1,000 officers will be back on the streets over a 10-week period in the
program instituted by Cline, who was sworn in Nov. 5.

One of Cline's priorities was to combat drug sales on city streets. To
accomplish the task, Cline said he would need more officers. The extra
staffing, he decided, would be filled by police who work indoors. Staff was
pulled from such departments as internal affairs, records, research and
development, and community outreach, said Lieutenant Jonathan Lewin, a
logistics coordinator for the program.

Cline and his assistants chose the 80 busiest drug-sales locations and
placed officers there. Lewin said the police presence immediately halted
sales. "The minute the peddlers saw a [police] car, they would turn on foot
and head in another direction," Lewin said.

Chief Jim Maurer, who heads patrols for the Chicago Police Department, said
the top 20 sites chosen had a total of 13,000 calls for drug sales, as
reported by residents during a six-month period earlier this year.

Now in its third week, the crackdown has had the largest impact on the
city's West Side, where gangs operate. During the program's first week,
police put into effect Operation Double Play, which works this way: Once a
sale takes place, an officer replaces the dealer, and that catches would-be
customers off-guard.

Lewin said that when Double Play was operating, 200 arrests were made, and
100 cars were impounded after the drivers were caught trying to buy drugs
or police found drugs in the vehicle. Lewin said the impounding carried a
$600 fine.

Lewin said Cline first discussed in mid-November transferring inside staff
to the streets. By Nov. 20, Lewin was told to prepare a blueprint. For 14
days, he said, he clocked 15-hour shifts to design the deployment model.

Here is the plan: Each officer spends one of every five weeks on the
street, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Narcotics activity is then at its highest,
spurred by suburbanites coming into the city in search of drugs. Once each
of the 1,000 officers serves a rotation, the cycle is expected to be repeated.

Lewin said that in the future, the project will expand, placing police on
the streets from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.

The temporary job shifts among the police, who range in age from their late
20s to early 60s, met initial resistance, Lewin said.

"The mood at first was not positive," Lewin said. "Some of the officers had
spent 25 years on a beat, and they felt their career was now coming full
circle."

No one was allowed to refuse the assignment, and at the first roll call,
Lewin thanked all of the officers for volunteering. "The little bit of
humor broke the ice," he said.

Foley, whose post is in the near North Side Chicago neighborhood of Rogers
Park, admitted she had a great deal of "apprehension" after learning she
had a new detail.

"I had been a beat cop and dealt with the public, and I took a desk job for
a reason. I liked the change," she said. "So when I found out I'd be going
back out again, I wasn't very happy."

But like many of her peers, Foley says that now that she has hit the
street, the old rush of why she went into police work in the first place
has resurfaced.

Officers Cornelius Downey, 42, and Barry Hager, 32, write computer programs
for the department. With such programs, Chicago police can gain access to
arrest records and personal data on thousands of criminals from computers
in their cars.

But the two men were put in a patrol car a few blocks from Lake Michigan,
in a Rogers Park address known as a hub for crack and heroin sales.
Printouts full of crime statistics as well as photos of the local gang
members and their cars line their dashboard.

A 17-year veteran of the force, Downey previously patrolled the city's
low-income housing. He requested an assignment indoors five years ago. He
said he has adjusted.

"Part of me has never left the streets," Downey said. "I didn't know if I'd
like this again, but I just fell right back into the routine."

Hager's time away has been much shorter, and he has welcomed the
opportunity to be back on the street as a way to design better computer
programs. "We are already seeing results," he said. "Corn and I sit here
and watch the expression on the dealers' faces when they spot the squad.
Neighborhood residents stick their heads in the windows and give us leads.
It seems to be working."

Each morning of their five-day street shift, the 200 facing duty meet at an
undisclosed area station, hear a motivational talk, and disperse to their
squads.

"There really is something kind of exciting about it," Foley said. "I'm
beginning to feel like I was never away from the people and the hectic pace
of Chicago's streets."