You don't typically win a lot of points by getting into the whole New York-Chicago thing -- even in jest -- but that's exactly how police superintendent Garry McCarthy decided to kick off his speech to the City Club Monday.
The veteran of the New York and New Jersey police forces riffed on Chicago's accents, pizza and even baseball.
But jokes aside, McCarthy was there to talk about how he believes some of the approaches he used on the East Coast are paying dividends here.
He credits CompStat, an organizational management tool for police departments that maps crime and identifies problem areas, with lowering New York's murder rate, and said he's "very happy" with downward crime trends in Chicago since the program was implemented here.
As for his own agenda, McCarthy said the department is undergoing a "complete introspection and long-term change in philosophy."
He doesn't apologize for cracking down on certain neighborhoods, even though some of those residents criticize him for criminalizing those areas. He points out that murder by gunshot is the number one cause of death for black men as the reason for the scrutiny.
McCarthy definitively said he's against the increased calls to decriminalize marijuana in the city and promised an intensive new plan to fight narcotics trafficking that involves "marshaling resources in the community."
He's also proposing creating Safe Havens for curfew violators, possibly through churches, for those with parents who are unable to care for them.
