Former Seattle Police Chief and current White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske is reportedly in the running for Chicago’s police superintendent.
The Chicago News Cooperative reported Monday that Chicago mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel may reject calls to promote from within the department’s ranks and is instead considering Kerlikowske as the top cop. Emanuel got to know Kerlikowske well when Emanuel was the Obama administration’s White House chief of staff.
Kerlikowske served as chief of the Seattle Police Department for nine years before being appointed as Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
A spokesman for Kerlikowske had no comment Monday.
Emanuel has made it clear that he would bring a change in leadership in the Chicago police force.
Kerlikowske’s tenure in Seattle was somewhat rocky; in 2002 88-percent of the Police Officer’s guiltvoted 'no confidence"in the chief after the department was criticized for its response to the 2001 riots in Pioneer Square and police discipline issues.
Time magazine once described Kerlikowske as “an innovator and fierce defender of community policing.”
