Frustrated with Chicago's street violence, U.S. Senate candidate Tio Hardiman and other activists on Tuesday said they'll call for the resignation of police Supt. Garry McCarthy.
"It's time for a different approach in Chicago and you would think that a seasoned police official would look at the numbers and make the necessary adjustments," Hardiman, the former director of the anti-violence group CeaseFire wrote recently in his column in the Huffington Post.
Hardiman and a group of west side ministers called an 11 a.m. press conference outside Chicago Police Headquarters.
"We're being slaughtered out here and we're tired of our people being devalued and dehumanized by a label being tacked onto them," said Rev. Gregory Livingston. "If they're not from Lincoln Park or Lakeview then they're really considered to be nothing if they're from Englewood, Austin or Lawndale, but we're tired of that."
McCarthy has been Chicago's police superintendent since 2011 and, while clearly frustrated with violent crime in the city, maintains the department is adequately staffed and that progress is being made.
"McCarthy’s horrific track record tells me that we hired the wrong guy as the top cop," Rev. Maurice Gaiter of the Leaders Network said in a news release. "A person more knowledgeable of Chicago’s local gang culture would have been better suited to lead the police department. It’s time to get it right. McCarthy must go."
Earlier this month he said the city's homicide rate for the start of the year was the lowest it's been since 1963.
Hardiman, a Chicago Democrat who made a failed bid at nabbing his party's nomination in a bid to unseat Pat Quinn in the governor's race, later launched a campaign challenging Republican Mark Kirk for his spot in the United States Senate.
