CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson is asking Attorney General Jeff Sessions for more federal prosecutors in the city devoted to prosecuting gun possession crimes, more federal agents to battle gun crimes and a federal ballistics lab.
Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi says Johnson made the pitch Thursday, during a meeting in Washington, D.C. he and other police chiefs had with Sessions. The attorney general has declined to commit to a federal consent decree with Chicago that would allow for court enforcement of suggested reforms of the police department. Suggested changes were outlined in a scathing Justice Department report of the department released shortly before President Donald Trump took office. Guglielmi says the issue didn’t come up during the meeting.
Thursday’s meeting comes as Johnson tries to reduce gun violence in a city that saw 762 homicides last year.
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