http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/21/us/chicago-is-planning-to-add-hundreds-of-police-officers.html 2016-09-21 04:16:36 Chicago Is Planning to Add Hundreds of Police Officers Reeling from the rising toll of gun violence, the city is expected to announce plans to hire perhaps more than 500 new officers. === CHICAGO — This city, reeling from a rising toll of gun violence, may soon hire hundreds of additional police officers — more than 500 of them. Superintendent Chicago’s Police Department is the second-largest municipal force in the nation, with more than 12,000 officers, but Mayor Rahm Emanuel has faced intensifying criticism over the city’s handling of violence as Already this year, more than 500 people have been killed in Chicago — more than in all of last year in this city and more than Los Angeles and New York combined have experienced this year. The uptick in violence, particularly in neighborhoods on the city’s South and West Sides, has left many questioning the effectiveness of the Police Department in closing cases or slowing the violence. If approved as part of Chicago’s city budget, the hires would constitute the first major expansion in officers in recent years and a shift in the city’s approach to tackling the year’s increase in violence. In months past, as the number of shootings continued to rise, officials took other tacks, calling for a tightening of gun laws and sending hundreds of officers working administrative jobs back on to the streets. But the proposal, which The Associated Press On Tuesday, officials would not provide the anticipated cost for an expansion in officers, but Chicago is already wrestling with deep fiscal problems, from underfunded pension systems to a budget crisis in the public schools, and any proposal for new spending may face debate. The Police Department’s relations with African-American residents are the subject of intense scrutiny, complicating reactions to any proposal for a larger police force on the streets. The release last year of a video showing a white police officer shooting