Mayor Richard M. Daley reached out to Philadelphia FBI agent Jody Weis as his new police chief last year in part to clean up a department tainted by scandal in the city's elite Special Operations Section. The rogue unit was disbanded amidst a federal investigation that continues to this day.
But stung by rising crime rates and low officer morale, Weis is re-forming the unit.
"The new 115-officer unit will be known as the Mobile Strike Force, but its mission will be nearly identical to SOS," reports the Tribune, which obtained a copy of an internal police memo explaining the move.
"Weis is even giving former SOS officers first crack at applying for the elite assignment," the paper notes.
In criminal justice annals, such units have a long history of quickly earning the adjective "rogue" - hence The Shield. Weis is promising greater supervision and accountability than was held over the old SOS, but the effectiveness of such a unit seems to depend in part on a certain amount of latitude in the way it goes about its business.
Still, when Daley disbanded SOS he also defended it at the same time, and the reformation of the unit isn't a surprise to critics. Now it's up to Weis to try to keep it under control.
Meanwhile, the Sun-Times reports that Weis will appoint a Marine Reserve intelligence officer who served in Iraq for three years "targeting insurgents" to lead the squad.
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