Tracey Edwards (00:00.142)
At the time, west side of Chicago, growing up in the 80s and 90s, area was starting to turn a little bit different with the drugs that came into the system. And you know, I wanted to be what would help the community.
Mariam
This is Roll Call. I'm Mariam Sobh and along with Commander Joshua Wallace spoke with Captain Tracy Edwards of the second district on what got her into law enforcement and the importance of sharing the why. When this episode was recorded Captain Edwards was a tact lieutenant in the 007th District.
The 007th District can you give our listeners some insight into where that district is and what the work is like out there?
Tracey Edwards
Well, I've been there about a year now. I came over as their tactical lieutenant. Seventh district is Englewood. Englewood Rangers is off of 63rd and Loomis. it's borders and tails from the west side from 55th to 75th from the west side of the Dan Ryan to about Hamilton. So it's relatively not a huge, huge district, but lot of work in the district, but a beautiful district. is, it is a community.
I know you hear a lot of stuff about Englewood and we'll just be honest, violence, this is my first time working in that community. Love the community and the community wants the police there. They need us there. I've been on the job, God let me see it, July 30th. This year be 18 years I’ve been on the job.
Joshua (01:20.906)
What made you join the police department?
Tracey Edwards
I grew up in actually 10th and 11th district, little girl on Douglas and Homan. And what made me want to be a police is at the time, west side of Chicago growing up in the 80s and 90s, area was start to turn a little bit different with the drugs that came into the system. And I wanted to be what would help the community. Because I also saw officers, and that's just me, I'm just going to be real, mistreated.
our community. So I figured if I want to do something about that, I want to be a police officer. So I always kind of wanted to be a police officer, being that little girl, you know, and then of course watching New York undercover and all that growing up. And I was like, that's going to be me. So I went that way and pursued that way.
Mariam
The seventh district was the first district chosen to be part of the felony bypass program. How do you feel the response has been in regards to how the officers have handled the transition, getting accustomed to how the program works? What are you seeing? How are they feeling about it?
Tracey Edwards
Actually, I believe from what I'm getting, because I know being an attack lieutenant, my team, they get a lot of guns, but the officers on the watch get out there and get these guns off the streets as well. And they actually like it. Like I say, it's, shortens the time and it's when you have a basically, it's not a whole lot of factors in play. It's this person does not belong with this weapon and it's on them and they come to the sergeants and to the lieutenants. So they're actually grasping what this program is about and utilizing that and it's actually effective and the officers do like it. Especially the outside units too, they've been training and they like it as well.
Joshua
Who do you see within seven? Do you see more of your watch officers or do you see more of your tactical officers having the opportunity to utilize it?
Tracey Edwards
Definitely, you see it on the watch, but my tech officers utilize it more. Because, and I think that's just because of the range of the calls. You know, not saying the officer on the watch, yes, they're out there working, but they're actually tied, as we say to the radio, they're answering the calls for service. And the tactical team is more proactive, aggressive work as far as out there hitting our hotspot areas and getting these guns and doing the proactive traffic stops. So we see it more on tactical on the tact teams utilizing this program.
Mariam
It's still a very new program. And from what you've experienced so far, would you say it's something you could see expanding to the other districts? Maybe it's too soon to tell, but, yeah, what are your thoughts?
Tracey Edwards (04:08.17)
My thoughts with this is actually I love the program. I do. And I definitely can see this expanding to different districts. And I say that because even just being an officer, remember I was an officer on TAC and we would get the gun arrests, right? So of course you got to call felony review, the state's attorney office to get, go over everything with them. But because of, yes, we're in Chicago, yes, there's a lot of weapons and arrests for weapons being made. So now you're kind of like in a line to speak with the state's attorney because they're super busy, they're down there, okay, got to deal with this case, speak with this officer. So you can't in like a waiting hole. like, you know, if you go to the meat market, you got to pull a tab and say, okay, I'm number 32 in line and they're on five. Okay. So now you have our resources basically and our officers just sitting in the district waiting for a phone call and things, and so much can be going on outside. So with clear-cut cases, this is a, this is beautiful, I loved, I love the program. and I think it's gonna do well, and I believe it should expand.
Joshua
I think it's important for the general public to understand the reason for the program and the wait that used to actually happen prior to this program. You know, and not in every case, but definitely waiting three to four hours for a felony review to call you back. And that's three or four hours, an officer could be on the street.
Tracey Edwards
Right, and certain arrests, okay, the arrest could be done in an hour and 15, 20 minutes. And then also now you have the arrestee now they're like, well, what's going on? If I'm gonna get arrested, why haven't been taken? Why I'm not fingerprinted? Now it's just because there's a time then you see officers, well, where the police at? They don't understand that it's a wait, it is.
Mariam (05:58.03)
As I've been learning more about this, just hearing all the different steps that go into things. And then, as you mentioned, the waiting period, I think we don't think about that. When we think of police, we think of everything like instantaneous, like wave a wand and, you know, that's done. And now you move on to the next thing.
Tracey Edwards
watching TV shows like I used to. Watching those shows but yeah it's definitely totally different you know but it's a I really like the program you know and like you say I believe the community they have a misconception about it so I believe I always believe in telling people why so big big ups to y'all for having this podcast so it can get explained you know.
Mariam
Have you found that most of the time a lot of ideas people have is due to lack of communication or not understanding and not having somebody explain to them what's going on?
Tracey Edwards
Of course, and I can say that being on both sides of both sides of the fence. I am a police officer, but yet some of the communities that have issues with this are from them communities. So I understand when, of course, police were doing our job or something rolls out. And of course, 99 % of the time we're doing it right. But the community don't see these papers or this meeting or our rules and directives or the reason for and sometimes you you know you get so caught up in coming to police I got to do this job I got to make sure this this this done right and then of course you got a community that's like why why why but explain your why I'm from that so I try to in a lot of situations on the street whether I was an officer sergeant or now lieutenant I try to say okay this this is why we do this this is why this is going on I don't mind explaining to you because sometimes and a lot of times I have diffused a lot of situations or deescalate some situations or a person to open up and let us see it from our view. Of course we still can do our job. My officers and sergeants are still doing their job. But if I can tell you why this is going on, it's sometimes bring them down. Well, why I had to be pulled out the car? Because of this. Now let you see what I'm saying. And sometimes that's bringing people down because a lot of times the community don't know why. And then the perception of police, they just, you know what saying? So. That's why I'm a big person and I do love explaining the why.
Mariam
I think there's a fear of the unknown. You know, when you don't know what's happening to you, you get more reactive and scared and somebody can just calmly tell you like when you go to the dentist, they're like, I'm about to drill right here. You're like, okay.
Tracey Edwards
Right. You can't not prepare yourself for it. know, even with the pretrial fairness act release, I saw the same thing when it rolled out, kind of with this program. I was a watch operation lieutenant 15 and everybody was like, well, how do these people just keep getting on stream? I was like, ma'am, this is something that's been talked about for a long time and you actually had to vote for this. So where were you at in all these meetings? And I wasn't trying to be a smart aleck or nothing, but sometimes you got to bring people. No, we asked for this. The community, the public, asked for this. So that's another part of explaining the why.
Joshua (09:08.224)
And they asked for it but didn't realize what it was gonna look like when it was actually implemented. So the felony bypass program obviously is in conjunction with the state's attorney's office. We had discussions with the state's attorney's office about the relationship now with the state's attorney's office. What are you seeing? Because I've never seen collaboration. with the state's attorney's office like we're seeing it now. What are you seeing?
Tracey Edwards
I agree with that. You know, it's kind of totally two different kind of separate entities. Police do their thing. States Attorney’s to do their thing. But even when they came out and trained us and walked us through this program and went over like kind of step by step like a law class, like, okay, we're going to break this down as a third grader can know what we're talking about. This is what this is the only things that are changing. This is what you can do. So the collaboration is great with them training us. Or even even if we're going to do a bypass, you still can call and run something by them. So it's not like, okay, you got the bypass now, leave us alone. It's still like, hey, what you guys need. So, I see more of a collaboration now than I have in the past with the state's attorney office. And I think it's working very well.
Mariam
As far as the training that you've seen happening, do you think that's helped officers to kind of alleviate maybe some apprehensions that they've had?
Tracey Edwards
Chief Hein called everyone in from the 7th District, all the supervisors in, and we had the initial meeting, initial training with the state's attorney's office. Then they came to the districts during several roll calls, and I believe it was like an hour training with the officers, kind of going over everything again. So the training was there, and also what I like though is it's not just on the officers. And I think that's another thing the community or the perception they're not getting. That this still falls on the officer. You could say this is what I got but it's up to the sergeant say okay this is what they got and take that to the watch operations lieutenant so it's still not just on the officer say oh yeah I got a felony bypass yeah they can do the things to get that gun and believe they have it but the final say so still lies within that watch operations lieutenant so there are still checks and balances that I think people don't know that lies there it's not just the officer going on the street okay you got a gun I got a felony bypass we ain't gotta call nobody you going to jail see you later.
Mariam
What do you think of the idea of having community members that come to like beat meetings or whatever, getting that training or hearing that training as well?
Tracey Edwards
I'm all for it. I was actually a caps sergeant, so I would like to do certain things like that. Cause I remember one time I was in 19th district. And so what I did, a lot of people don't, like you just say, you think stuff just go like this once you, the police got it, but they didn't understand. Okay. Once the preliminary report is made, now you got to talk to a detective. So I had the detectives come in and talk with the community as of how cases are handled. What do they do next? How do they stay in touch with the victims or whatever. And it helped the community. So I feel like, yes, this should be spoken at our CAPS meetings. And I'm definitely going to make sure the commander knows so we can push this out. We're like, OK, even though there can be a town meeting, but this should be at every beat meeting. Like, this is a new law. That's not a new law, but a new program that's going on in the 7th district. And this is what this entails. So it puts it out there in the community. So like I say, the why. I'm big on people knowing the why.
Joshua
On that note, what is your why? Why are you continuing in this role as a law enforcement officer?
Tracey Edwards (12:46.486)
Why? Because it's fun. You know, we have our ups and downs. Don't get me wrong. Like I say, the 18 years you go through your different stages and cycles. But my part right now is I was always taught this, you send the elevator back down. My godmother taught me that. You always send the elevator back down. So God blessed me. I didn't come from a police family. I don't have people that were police, but I got on this job. I got in this career that I wanted to do, God blessed me to do this. And I'm a lieutenant and I know what people say, but I'm a lieutenant. if God don't do nothing else for me, he's done enough. I'm blessed. So I want to send an elevator back down for those who want to do what I wanted to do. Cause people did that for me. She want to do this? you want to be in our house? You want to be undercover? You should be a Sergeant. Do this. I had that push that kick out the nest. So I want to do that for somebody. And that's, you know, as well as not only on the job, but people who I see that's not on the job that I come across. You should be the police. Put that in, because I see people and they, oh, don't down yourself. Oh, I can't be the police. Yes, you can. Why not? During the 2020 protests, I used tell people all the time, you should do this. Just was at family dollar. The girl was in there fighting with the robber. I told her you should be the police.
You just imagine at Family Dollar, you was fighting with these shoplifters like that and he even indicated he had a gun. I said, baby, you need to come on and be police. That's what you need to do. Let me get you a recruiter. And I do, do that. So that's my why. That's my why. To help the community, help us, help us on this department. For at the end of the day, we can say, well done, good and faithful servant. That's how I look at it.
Joshua
Well, we truly appreciate you joining us on the podcast. We look forward to hearing about how successful this program is in the future.
Tracey Edwards (14:45.25)
Thank you for even asking me and I believe it's going to do very well. I see the outcome in it now.
Mariam
And that was Captain Tracey Edwards. Roll Call is a production of the Chicago Police Department's Bureau of Patrol. Find us wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe so you never miss an episode.