Charles H. Ramsey has been appointed by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to try to ease tensions and improve relations between the beleaguered Chicago Police Department and its citizens — especially minorities. Ramsey, named to an adviser position, previously served the CPD as deputy superintendent. He left his native Chicago in 1998 for Washington DC, when that city was so riven by violence it changed the name of its professional basketball team from the Bullets to the Wizards, because the Bullets name hit too close to home. Ramsey was effective as top cop in DC, and later moved on to Philadelphia as its police commissioner. He left that job just this month.
Ramsey joined the Chicago Police force back in 1968, like today a moment of great racial tension and divide in the nation and on major city streets. Ramsey, an African American, is 65.
Here’s Ramsey speaking about MLK in an interview from 2014: