Fred Waller, a former chief in CPD, expected to be named interim superintendent this week

Fred Waller, the former chief of patrol for the Chicago Police Department, has agreed to return as the department’s interim superintendent after Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson is sworn in later this month, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Waller, 61, retired in August 2020 after spending 34 years in CPD, climbing the ranks from patrol officer to district commander to, ultimately, chief of patrol, the third-highest rank in the department.

Waller’s return could be announced as soon as Wednesday, according to the source. The terms of Waller’s agreement with the city were not immediately known and police did not immediately comment.

Waller did not respond to calls seeking comment.

Johnson’s expected selection of Waller comes less than two weeks after Eric Carter, the current interim CPD superintendent, announced plans to retire May 15, the day Johnson is to be sworn in. Carter previously was first deputy superintendent under David Brown.

The Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability — the body tasked with submitting three finalists for the superintendent job to Johnson by mid-July — has so far hosted three public forums where members of the public outlined for commissioners what they want to see in the next permanent CPD superintendent. Speakers at the forums have overwhelmingly supported the idea of a CPD veteran leading the department next.

Waller was a well-liked and respected member of the command staff before his retirement, and his return to the department will likely be well-received by CPD supervisors as well as rank-and-file officers.

Shortly before his retirement in 2020, Waller received a 28-day suspension for his use of the word “rape” during a meeting at CPD headquarters, according to police records. While discussing police deployment strategies, Waller said, “Grope me, don’t rape me.” He said he later apologized for the remark.

Representatives for Johnson’s transition team declined to comment on Waller’s selection as the department remains in a period of transition following the mayoral election and Brown’s exit. Johnson did not address the superintendent position while delivering remarks Tuesday morning at the swearing-in ceremony for the city’s 66 new police district members, held at the Harold Washington Cultural Center in the Bronzeville neighborhood.

The positions were created by city ordinance in 2021, but local activists have for decades pushed for greater community input in matters of policing. Each of the city’s 22 police districts now have three elected officials to serve as intermediaries between officers and residents.

“This has been an incredible journey, and we have work to do in the city of Chicago,” Johnson said. “We are here to ask one another — ‘What do you need?’ — because when we succeed, everyone in the city of Chicago succeeds.”

“I am eagerly anticipating the opportunity to work with these other elected officials because they have the expertise and they have the information at a hyperlocal level of what the community needs,” Johnson added. “And when they show up to the meetings and when they show up in the community, they get to come and look me in the face and say, ‘This is what we need.’ ”

Anthony Driver Jr., president of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, said the swearing-in of the district councilors was “the culmination of a 50-year struggle to provide a democratic voice to everyday Chicagoans when it comes to public safety.”

“Today marks the beginning of one of the final pieces of true community policing. The beginning of actually empowering communities to take a more active role in their own safety. The beginning of a new system of accountability. The beginning of change.”

Driver and Ald. Roderick Sawyer, 6th, each highlighted the decades of work by Frank Chapman, director of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.

“This is a great moment because now the people — the people — have a democratic option to say who polices their communities and how their communities are policed,” Chapman said. “That’s the first time in the history of this country that this has happened, here in Chicago. And the reason why it happened here in Chicago is because we have so many great challenges.”