Garry Francis McCarthy (born May 4, 1959) is the interim Chief of Police in Willow Springs, Illinois and previous Superintendent of the

Chicago Police Department The Chicago Police Department (CPD) is the municipal law enforcement agency of the U.S. city of Chicago, Illinois, under the jurisdiction of the City Council. It is the second-largest municipal police department in the United States, behind t ...

. He was a candidate for

Mayor of Chicago The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive of city government in Chicago, Illinois, the third-largest city in the United States. The mayor is responsible for the administration and management of various city departments, submits proposals and r ...

in the

2019 Chicago mayoral election The 2019 Chicago mayoral election was the 2019 edition of the quadrennial elections held to determine the Mayor of the City of Chicago, Illinois. The election was held on February 26, 2019. Since no candidate received a majority of votes, a run ...

Early life

McCarthy was born and raised in the Bronx. He attended Cardinal Spellman High School and graduated in 1977. In 1981, he graduated from SUNY Albany with a BA in History.

Law enforcement career

New York Police Department

McCarthy joined the

New York City Police Department The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...

in 1981 at age 22. He rose through the ranks and became Deputy Commissioner of Operations in 2000. McCarthy was in the middle of ground zero during the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

, working closely with then-Mayor

Rudy Giuliani Rudolph William Louis Giuliani (, ; born May 28, 1944) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 107th Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the United States Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 198 ...

to operate an emergency response command post. While with the NYPD, he held a variety of positions around the city, served as commander of several different precincts and eventually was in charge of the NYPD's

CompStat CompStat—or COMPSTAT, short for COMPuter STATistics, is a computerization and quantification program used by police departments. It was originally set up by the New York City Police Department in the 1990s. Variations of the program have since b ...

program.

Newark Police Department

In 2006, McCarthy left his position with the New York Police Department to take over the

Police Department The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and ...

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.Cory Booker, and appeared with Booker in addition to his daughter Kyla McCarthy in the documentary series '' Brick City''. McCarthy presided over a sharp reduction in crime during his tenure in Booker's administration in Newark with homicides declining 28 percent, shootings declining 46 percent, and overall crime declining 21 percent. (During the 2020 Democratic Primary debates, Vice-President Biden nick-named McCarthy as "Giuliani's guy" in an attack towards Senator Booker.)

Chicago Police Department

McCarthy was hired by Mayor

Rahm Emanuel Rahm Israel Emanuel (; born November 29, 1959) is an American politician and diplomat who is the current United States Ambassador to Japan. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served two terms as the 55th Mayor of Chicago from 2011 ...

to take over the

shortly after Emanuel's election in early 2011. McCarthy was the City of Chicago's highest paid public employee, earning an annual salary of over $260,000. The number of crimes and murders in Chicago declined during his tenure (with murders declining from 525 in 2011 to 505 in 2012 to 415 in 2013). In an investigative article by ''Chicago'' Magazine reporters David Bernstein and Noah Isackson, it was asserted that the decline was in part due to the unjustified re-categorization of murders as undetermined and then if it is later determined to be a murder, tallying the total to the prior years' statistics. McCarthy responded that the article is "patently false" and criticized its reliance on anonymous sources. A 2012 audit by the Chicago Inspector General determined that the Chicago Police Department had under-counted aggravated assault and aggravated battery victims by 25 percent by not following state guidelines by counting each incident rather than each victim. McCarthy attributed the error to the administration of the prior police superintendent,

Jody Weis Jody Peter "J.P." Weis is the former Superintendent of Police of the Chicago Police Department. Weis was selected to serve as the 54th Superintendent of Police by Mayor Richard M. Daley. Upon his resignation and retirement, he was replaced by In ...

Termination

On October 20, 2014, Laquan McDonald was murdered by Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke. Laquan McDonald, a young black boy, was 17 years old and was shot 16 times. A cover-up of this incident occurred, lasting 400 days, yet McCarthy had seen the video footage a few days after the murder occurred. When the video was released to the public following a court order, activists condemned police violence, the code of silence, and racism in the

and called on Mayor Emanuel, State's Attorney Anita Alvarez and Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy to resign. McCarthy did not resign, but was terminated by

Willow Springs Police Department

In April 2022, McCarthy was announced as the interim police chief of Willow Springs, Illinois, a town of 5,857 people near the Cook and DuPage county border.

2019 Chicago mayoral candidacy

On March 21, 2018, McCarthy announced he would officially run for

in the 2019 election, against incumbent Mayor Emanuel. At the time, he resided in Chicago with his three children, Kyla McCarthy, Kimberly, and Kiernan. July 2018 polling indicated that McCarthy was the leading challenger to the incumbent. In September 2018, Emanuel announced he would not be running for reelection. McCarthy eventually conceded the election to Lori Lightfoot. His campaign had been anticipated when Emanuel was still in the race, but the dynamics changed for McCarthy when Emanuel dropped out and was no longer a target for attacks. McCarthy alluded to how more than a dozen others ran for the office when Emanuel announced he wouldn’t seek a third term. Though he had often been in the public spotlight, the race was McCarthy's first bid for public office. He now heads his own security consulting firm. During his candidacy, when meeting with the

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...

editorial board unsuccessfully seeking their endorsement (which ultimately went to

Lori Lightfoot Lori Elaine Lightfoot (born August 4, 1962) is an American attorney and politician serving since 2019 as the 56th mayor of Chicago. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Before becoming mayor, Lightfoot worked in private legal practice as ...

), McCarthy made news for proposing, to address the issues of population loss and budgeting the city's pension obligations, that Chicago should

annex Annex or Annexe refers to a building joined to or associated with a main building, providing additional space or accommodations. It may also refer to: Places * The Annex, a neighbourhood in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada * The Annex (New H ...

nearby suburban communities such as Evergreen Park,

Norridge Norridge is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The population was 15,251 at the 2020 census. The village and its neighbor to the east, Harwood Heights, together form an enclave within the city of Chicago (i.e. they are surrounded ...

, Oak Lawn and Oak Park. The leaders of some of the suburbs balked at the notion.

Electoral history

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:McCarthy, Garry 1959 births Living people People from the Bronx People from Chicago New York City Police Department officers Superintendents of the Chicago Police Department Activists from New York (state) Activists from Illinois Illinois Democrats University at Albany, SUNY alumni