A columnist’s memories of top Chicago cops over more than half a century

It was quite a speech. Stunning. 

“In order for our [police] officers to love someone else, we have to love them,” said Larry Snelling, 54, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s pick as the city’s new top cop.

“Empathy. Problem solving. Transparency. Telling the truth,” Snelling promised the city at his introductory news conference last Monday, pumping his lectern like a loaded rifle, pledging to tackle violent crime as his top priority.

 “Safety has to be a collective effort,” the son of Englewood cautioned. “We can’t do it without every member of the city being a shareholder.”

How about them apples! 

 It was new cop lingo in the nation’s third largest city, a city overwhelmed with guns, drugs, street crime, angry citizens, and a beleaguered police force of roughly 12,000.

His appointment prompted a peek into this reporter’s aging notepad; a flashback to 14 or so former Chicago top cops I’ve known or covered since 1967, when legendary Chicago Police Supt. O.W. Wilson (1960-1967) was just retiring. 

Mayor Richard J. Daley had tapped Orlando W. Wilson, the highly respected dean of criminology at the University of California’s Berkeley campus, as the first civilian in modern history to head (and clean-up) the tarnished department. Lauded for years as Chicago’s best top cop, Wilson netted a magnum opus obit in the New York Times in 1972.

 But it was Wilson’s successor, Supt. James Conlisk, Jr., who landed in my first top cop notebook, during the city’s 1968 Democratic Convention riots. Bloody police batons, disgruntled officers called “pigs;” and angry anti-Vietnam War protesters dominated the violent Chicago headlines.

 (This street reporter was assigned to bail out Chicago Tribune reporters arrested during the melee … and take notes on the way. It was wild.)

 So, from my dog-eared notebooks, here’s some memories of a few of those top cops.

• Supt. James O’Grady (1978-79) suddenly “resigned” after Jane Byrne beat Mayor Michael J. Bilandic. Mayor Byrne replaced O’Grady with Comdr. Joe DiLeonardi. “Joe D” was popular with reporters because he liked talking to us.

Taking a short hiatus from the Trib, I was briefly Bryne’s press secretary during Joe D’s tenure. Sadly, DiLeonardi’s deputy superintendent, Jim Riordan, was shot and killed while trying to stop a gunman threatening patrons of a bar in June of 1979, becoming the highest-ranking Chicago police officer killed in the line of duty. 

Riordan was killed by a drunk former Iowa policeman named Leon Washington, who was threatening patrons with his gun at the popular Marina City bar. Off duty at the time, Riordan saw the rampage, tried to escort Washington out and was shot three times. He died hours later at a hospital with Byrne at his side.

 Sentenced to 35 years in prison, Washington was excoriated by a Chicago judge who cited the case “as the dangerous result of widespread ownership of arms.” 

Sound familiar?

• Supt. Richard Brzeczek, 1980-1983, suffered a career marred publicly at times by drinking and womanizing — even cheating on his mistress — before winning final redemption as a public advocate for marital counseling along with his wife, Liz, who remained his partner for life.

• Fred Rice, Jr., (1983-1987) became the city’s first Black superintendent, when Mayor Harold Washington appointed him to succeed Brzeczek. Rice was a low-key guy whose tenure sadly saw the department’s first woman killed in the line of duty, Officer Dorelle Brandon.

• From 1992 to 1997, Matt Rodriquez served as the city’s first Hispanic top cop, introducing the city to community policing. He had an unfortunate habit of dining with a restaurant owner with alleged ties to the mob, eventually putting a sad period to his police career. (The Old Town eatery quickly became hangout for “hungry” reporters.) 

• From 1998 to 2003, Terry Hillard, a former police bodyguard for Byrne, held sway as a top cop for all the right reasons. A respected, highly innovative leader, he built successful community relationships, adopted a new police star, renamed “patrolmen” police officers and talked incessantly about his grandchildren — all with a Carolina accent.

• From 2003 to 2007, the legendary Phil Cline, known amongst his brethren as a highly respected cop’s cop, introduced programs — some controversial — that accompanied a remarkable drop in the city’s crime rate. Known as a guy who gave straight answers and got the job done, Cline continues to honor the 600 Chicago police officers killed in the line of duty as head of the Gold Star Families and Chicago Police Memorial Foundation. 

• Former FBI agent Jody Weiss’s selection as superintendent (2008-2011) was startling because cops and feds are not necessarily coosome twosomes. But Weiss was considered fair, returned phone calls, actually seemed to like the media, and frequently participated in anti-gun neighborhood marches with Father Michael Pfleger.

• It was hard not to like Garry McCarthy (2011-2015), a sharp guy despite his massive ego and constant references to his New York cop roots. The New York talk lessened with his marriage to Chicago attorney Kristin Barnette McCarthy — whom he nicknamed “The Viking.” Despite the New Yawk accent, McCarthy was a strong Chicago police presence and innovator until Mayor Rahm Emanuel fired him amidst the uproar over the death of young Laquan McDonald, killed by 16 police bullets. 

• Finally, Eddie Johnson (2016-2019), Rahm’s favorite police superintendent, who served until Rahm’s successor, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, fired him over a drinking and driving incident. Before his public downfall, Eddie Johnson achieved almost heroic status defying Gov. Bruce Rauner’s edict to stop an anti-gun march down the Dan Ryan Expressway with Father Pfleger. Instead, the city’s top cop chose to join hands with with activist priest. 

  Best of luck, incoming Police Supt. Larry Snelling, who has daughters named Hermione and Jasmine.

  I love their magical names ... and the new Larry lingo.  

Saturday birthdays: actor John Stamos, 60; actress Krya Sedgwick, 58; singer Lee Ann Womack, 56; actor Matthew Perry, 54...Sunday birthdays: weatherman Al Roker, 69; actor Andrew Garfield, 40; singer Demi Lovato, 31; Connie Chung, 77.