CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Mayor Lightfoot, Superintendent David Brown, and the Chicago Police Department announced Thursday the opening of two additional Operation Areas as part of a restructuring effort to move more officers and detectives closer to the communities they serve and improve neighborhood policing across the city.
The opening of the two new operation areas will expand the Chicago Police Department to five areas across the city, as they one were. Mayor Lightfoot said she does not know why it was ever changed.
"We had a three area system that literally divided up the large expanse of the city into three areas. It was too big," she said.
According to the Mayor's Office, the two new facilities are designed to streamline operations across the Chicago Police Department, give District commanders greater control over and access to resources to meet the public safety needs, and increase collaboration between detectives and patrol officers.
The openings will also provide community members across the city with more resources directly within their neighborhoods. With gang investigations and Area saturation teams now working out of Area 4 and Area 5, the Department is better positioned to mobilize and respond quickly to scenes, providing a more robust public safety presence in the communities that need it most, the Mayor's Office said. Increasing the number of Areas will also reduce the time it takes detectives to arrive on the scene of a shooting or homicide. As a result, detectives will be more likely to locate witnesses on-scene and lower the risk of contaminated evidence.
Police Superintendent David Brown said the area layout makes more sense now.
"The addition of Area 4 and Area 5 put police officers closer to every day Chicagoans. It makes it easier for witnesses and victims to interact with detectives, and put specialized police teams nearby and ready to respond," he said.
Brown said area detectives, gang investigative teams, saturation teams, and some narcotics investigation teams will each be led by a single deputy chief.
The announcement reverses a decision in 2013 to reduce the number of detectives area from five down to three.
“These two new areas are a testament to our ‘all-hands-on-deck’ strategy to maximize resources and expand services to touch every community and resident across Chicago,” Lightfoot said in a statement.
The two new detective areas will be equipped with Area Technology Centers, or ATCs, that utilize smart policing technology. Those new ATC are being funded by billionaire Ken Griffin, Lightfoot said.
“Today’s measures are just one more step in building a stronger, more unified and collaborative police department that puts resources and supports directly into the hands of our officers and detectives so they can keep our neighborhoods safe,” Lightfoot said in the statement.
Last October, Mayor Lightfoot announced the plan to restructure CPD's Operation Areas to provide better crime response, improved neighborhood public safety service, and build on the City’s all-hands-on-deck public safety strategy.