A Chicago Police Department commander this week was reminded of a very important rule: Never get on the mayor’s bad side. The consequences for Commander of Narcotics Ronald Kimble have been swift and unmistakable.
CPD is famous — or perhaps infamous — for giving “soft landings” to connected leaders who go astray. Assigning the wayward executive to a do-nothing placeholder post is common.
But Kimble has taken an exceptionally hard landing.
He’s been demoted to lieutenant, moved to the midnight shift, and reassigned to the 24th District in Rogers Park — giving him a daily 23-mile cross-city commute from his home on the Far South Side, according to a CPD source.
The source said Kimble was one of 21 police department executives who joined a conference call Monday with Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Manpower at CPD’s Organized Crime Division, which includes Kimble’s former narcotics unit, is being slashed from over 900 cops to 187.
Kimble, the source said, went to bat for his unit, defending his performance and trying to justify runaway overtime expenses.
“He called her out,” the source said. “She launched him across the city.”
“He kept trying to tell everyone what narcotics had done,” according to the source. “It started getting loud.” Newly-appointed Police Supt. David Brown, who was on the call, “told him to shut up. It got out of hand.”
Officially, Brown yesterday would only confirm that he had made some personnel moves this week.
Kimble’s boss in narcotics, Deputy Chief William Bradley, has also been returned to the rank of lieutenant. He’ll now be reporting to work at a district station on the Northwest Side.
