Forest Park’s village council unanimously passed a resolution at its last meeting for an agreement with the Chicago Transit Authority that allows Forest Park police to have a CTA special detail.
While this may seem like a response to the four homicides on the Blue Line train on Labor Day, the public safety initiative is a continuation of the village’s intergovernmental agreement with the CTA since 2016.
“With the homicides that occurred last month, I know a lot of people are like, ‘Is there more security?’ But the reality is it’s always been there,” said Deputy Chief of Police Christopher Chin.
The CTA special detail allows Forest Park Police Department officers to voluntarily sign up and get paid to work during off-duty hours enforcing the law on CTA property.
When the detail agreement first started, Forest Park police spent a lot of overnight hours near 711 Des Plaines Ave., the end of the Blue Line, and the neighboring rail yard where trains were tagged with graffiti constantly, according to Chin.
With increased complaints from local L riders in recent years, police have shifted their CTA special detail’s attention to walking through train terminals, especially the one at 711 Des Plaines Ave.
“That entire property is in our jurisdiction,” Chin said. “If something happens there, it’s going to fall on us.”
But the detail also frequents the area around the Green Line station at Circle Avenue and Harlem Avenue. The Forest Park Police Department has jurisdiction over crimes that occur on the ground, while Oak Park police cover those on the platform.
Under the most recent three-year-long agreement passed Oct. 15, the Forest Park Police Department has the responsibility of assigning volunteer police officers daily to CTA stations and routes in Forest Park. Locations include 701 Harlem Ave., 711 Des Plaines Ave., 1 S. Harlem Ave., 7200 Circle Ave., and 7216 Circle Ave.
The CTA can recommend locations or routes for police to patrol. In the event of an emergency, the police department can reassign an officer who is working on CTA special detail.
The village is required to keep statistics of incidents on the CTA to send to the CTA at least once a month, and ideally weekly, according to the resolution. CTA representatives and village officials will speak on a regular basis to discuss the CTA special detail’s status.
The CTA will reimburse the Forest Park Police Department no more than $95,000 a year to pay the off-duty officers. The CTA will pay the police department an additional 10% of that flat rate for administrative overhead and medical benefits, in case an officer is injured during a CTA special detail assignment.
Chin said that, while the police department has had trouble in the past having enough officers to volunteer for the special detail, that is on its way to changing.
“Over the past few years, it’s been hard to fill that detail just from the staffing shortage,” Chin said.
The police department has been slightly understaffed for the past several years. Chin recalled a time when the department was down 12 officers and had a lot of patrol overtime.
“When officers are forced to do overtime, patrol takes priority,” Chin said. The CTA special detail isn’t mandatory, and officers must volunteer to fill those positions, although many don’t if they’re already working overtime.
But with six officers in the police academy or field training, overtime will soon be less of a factor.
“There’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” Chin said. The police department is projected to be fully staffed next year.
While Chin said there’s been several arrests for graffiti taggers since the police department started the CTA special detail, it’s difficult to tell how much the intergovernmental agreement has impacted crime in Forest Park over the last 8 years.
“One of those unknowns that’s hard to gauge is [that] police, in and of themselves, are an actual deterrent,” Chin said. The presence of a police officer often encourages those considering committing a crime to abstain, he added.
While it’s hard to tell how much the CTA special detail is reducing crime, Chin said he has heard from locals that police presence at 711 Des Plaines Ave., through regular patrols and the CTA special detail, is a positive thing.
“I know, hearing from residents, that they appreciate that they see us over there,” Chin said.