Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis is leaving his position at the end of Tuesday, March 1, 2011, when his $310,000-a-year contract expires. Weis said several factors led to his decision. He was “mainly guided by his commitment to the people of Chicago and the members of the Chicago Police Department.”
Terry Hillard who headed the Chicago police department from 1998 until 2003 will serve as interim police superintendent. After his previous retirement from the Chicago Police Department, Terry Hillard co-founded Hillard Heintze, a Chicago-based strategic security and corporate investigations consulting firm, with Arnette F. Heintze, a retired Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Secret Service’s Chicago Field Office, and an ex-Fortune 100 director of security.
“Serving as the superintendent of the Chicago Police Department has been an honor and a great privilege. I thank Mayor Daley, and the residents of Chicago, for this opportunity of a lifetime.”
— — Jody Weis
Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel has expressed that he will select a new leader after he is sworn in on May 16, 2011.
Weis was selected to serve as the 54th Superintendent of Police by Mayor Richard M. Daley on February 1, 2008. Weis’s previous experience included 22 years in the Federal Bureau of Investigation after graduating from the University of Tampa in 1979.
On April 6, 2010, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that the Independent Police Review Authority received a complaint charging Weis with “failure to take proper police action.” The complainant, retired Chicago Police Sergeant John Northen, called Weis a “coward” who “cut and run” from a shooting incident where a man was killed, instead of responding to assist and support his officers. Weis was holding an outdoor press conference at an intersection in the crime-ridden Englewood District on a recent 26 hour period of violence in Chicago where 41 people were shot with four dead. Four blocks from the shooting incident, Weis abruptly left the media event and reportedly returned to headquarters after the shots rang out.
SOURCE:
Spielman, Fran (April 6, 2010). “Retired cop says Weis ‘cut and run’ after shooting”. Chicago Sun-Times (Chicago: Sun-Times Media, LLC). Retrieved April 6, 2010. (link to the article is expired)