City Turf Familiar to Winnetka Top Cop

Supporters of Joseph DeLopez, one of three finalists for top cop in Chicago, say he firmly believed in community policing long before it became a law enforcement catchphrase.

“He’s interested in the community to a fault. He used to drive me crazy,” said Kenneth Kudulis, 62, who worked under DeLopez when he was commander in the Shakespeare and Marquette Districts.

“The old commanders, they were like: we’re the police. You’re the citizens. We’ll take your complaint, and then forget about it.”

DeLopez instinctively took a different approach, Kudulis said. “He’d go out and he’d want to talk to this guy, talk to that guy, solve this problem, solve that problem,” he said. “I’d say, I gotta get back to the office! It’s not 9-to-5 with him.”

DeLopez, 56, was on the Chicago police force for 31 years before being named Winnetka police chief last year.

Beginning as a patrol officer in 1971, he commanded three districts and the training division before being named deputy chief of the patrol division and then deputy superintendent for technical services under Supt. Terry Hillard, who retired last month.

The Chicago Police Board voted this month to send Mayor Richard Daley three choices to succeed Hillard: DeLopez, Acting Supt. Phil Cline and Garry McCarthy, a New York Police Department deputy commissioner. Daley interviewed the candidates last week and is expected to name a new police chief within days.

DeLopez’s North Shore post pays $105,000 a year, and leaving Chicago enabled him to begin collecting a $90,000-per-year Chicago police pension atop his salary.

Should Mayor Richard Daley tap DeLopez as the new superintendent, the job would likely entail a pay cut. Hillard’s annual salary was $150,000.

“Certainly economically it’s not advantageous for me,” DeLopez said. But boosting his income, he said, is not what this potential career move is about.

“It’s about coming back and doing something in a community I know very well, a community I grew up in and one that has a very long tradition in my family,” he said.

The tradition started with DeLopez’s father, who was born in Guanajuato, Mexico, grew up in East Chicago and joined the Chicago Police Department in 1957.

The elder DeLopez, who died several years ago, was a founding member and past president of the Chicago-based Latin American Police Association. In the 1960s, he took a leave of absence to work as a police adviser in Venezuela and Guatemala for the U.S. Agency for International Development, DeLopez said.

One of DeLopez’s five children, Daniel, became a Chicago police officer and is detailed to the public housing unit.

“Unfortunately my dad passed away before we could take a family photo together of all three generations in uniform,” DeLopez said. He described his father as brimming with pride for his son and grandson.

DeLopez and his son have found themselves in the news in job-related incidents. In 1999, a West Side drug dealer died of asphyxiation in a struggle with Daniel DeLopez and his partner during an arrest.

Neither officer was charged with wrongdoing related to the death, but the city paid $225,000 to settle a wrongful death lawsuit. DeLopez said his son and partner were disciplined for “ancillary rule violations” in connection with the incident.

When DeLopez was commander of training, an embarrassing episode hit the news in 1995 involving goof-off recruits shooting spitballs at each other–including projectiles some thought were directed at an FBI representative.

Then-Supt. Matt Rodriguez said 30 recruits were being held back for a “general lack of decorum” at the police training academy, and DeLopez was transferred a few months later.

His allies say DeLopez is known for straight talk and adroit politics, a trait he displayed in April 2001, when 44 pounds of cocaine was discovered missing from a Police Department evidence room.

At the time, DeLopez headed the bureau of technical services, which oversees the evidence and recovered property section. He made no attempt to minimize the loss, but subtly shifted attention from management of the evidence room to the malfeasance of an unknown thief. “This is a crime, and we will treat it as such,” he said.

A joint investigation by the FBI, IRS and Chicago police led to the arrest this year of a former police officer. He allegedly had managed to steal so much from evidence stores he was able to buy jewelry, furs, a huge house in the south suburbs and a Rolls-Royce.

DeLopez said a top priority would be bringing down the murder rate. With 646 murders in 2002, the city has the nation’s highest per capita among all U.S. cities of more than 1 million.

He said he opposes realigning beats, but favors improved technology to monitor crime trends, roving police forces to hit hot spots and stepped-up accountability for police officials. An equally important task is forging stronger ties with community leaders, he said, adding that the city’s community-based police program, CAPS, needs to be reinvigorated. The department needs allies to fight crime and to keep order in tense times such as after a police officer shoots a suspect.

“Starting out every assignment, the first thing I’d do is reach out to the entire community with open forums,” he said. “We needed to open those lines of communication. That’s No. 1.”

While commander of the Town Hall District, DeLopez was credited with recruiting gay and lesbian police officers and supporting late-night bike patrols that sharply reduced hate crimes in the district.

DeLopez said he focused on the group because “that’s a community that for a long time didn’t trust the police.” Police, he said, were seen as indifferent to issues such as hate crimes.

Rick Ingram, a lawyer, gay activist and past president of the Lakeview Action Coalition, said Hillard initially was cool to the late-night bike proposal.

DeLopez, he said, “was a behind-the-scenes guy who was supportive of the community” and helped get the program off the ground.

“The bottom line was people felt that he respected the diversity of the community,” Ingram said. “We felt he was a natural ally.”