Mayor Rahm Emanuel taps high-profile officer to advise Chicago police

Emanuel said Sunday he picked Charles Ramsey, who recently retired as the Philadelphia Police Department commissioner and previously led the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department.

Ramsey is uniquely experienced to help guide the Chicago Police Department as it faces a Justice Department civil rights investigation that was launched last month, the mayor said. Ramsey led the Philadelphia and Washington police departments after similar federal probes were launched in those cities.

Before Ramsey left the Philadelphia police last month, the Justice Department praised the department for making quick progress in implementing changes recommended by the federal probe on deadly force by police in the City of Brotherly Love.

“Commissioner Ramsey is a not only a national leader in urban policing who has led two major police departments through civil rights reforms — he is also a native Chicagoan who knows our police department and our communities,” Emanuel said in a statement.

Ramsey will be paid $350 per hour in his role advising the police department “and will work essentially as a consultant for the forseeable future as CPD continues to rebuild trust in the department,” said Adam Collins, a spokesman for the mayor.

It was unclear if any ceiling was set on how much Ramsey will be paid under his agreement with the city.

“There is a sense of urgency,” Ramsey said in a phone interview Sunday. “They (the Emanuel administration) know there has got to be some positive movement now.”

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch had announced the civil rights investigation of Chicago police after the court-ordered release of police video that showed a police officer shoot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times. The release of the video, as well as anger over other police-involved shootings in Chicago, led to weeks of protests and calls for Emanuel to resign.

The mayor, who was re-elected to a four-year term last year, says he has no plans to resign. He did fire his police superintendent, Garry McCarthy, in the aftermath of the video’s release. Emanuel said McCarthy had become a “distraction.”