Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey, who had been in talks with Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel about the top police job there, said Wednesday that he has decided to remain in Philadelphia after weeks of difficult contemplation about a possible return
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey, who had been in talks with Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel about the top police job there, said Wednesday that he has decided to remain in Philadelphia after weeks of difficult contemplation about a possible return to the city where he started his career and has deep personal roots. "This was a very, very tough decision," Ramsey said at a news conference at City Hall, where his words where drowned out by applause from police and city officials after he announced he was staying. "It’s just the right thing to do. … We’ve done a lot, but we’ve got an awful lot more to do." Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said Ramsey, 61, a third-generation Chicagoan who started his police career in the Windy City, did not make an issue of money, but the city will now raise his compensation from $195,000 a year to $255,000. Ramsey said he decided to stay in Philadelphia after extensive talks with his family. At recent department meetings, he said, he also looked around the room and saw the quality leaders he had in place, something that also helped persuade him ultimately not to apply for the Chicago job. The emotional connection to Philadelphia was also bolstered by the fact that he has become very close with the families of the five police officers killed in the line of duty since he took over in January 2008, Ramsey said. "We’ve been through some very tough times," he said. "You can’t just set that aside." Last month, Ramsey said that he had been in talks with Emanuel, the former White House chief of staff who won election in February, about taking command of that city’s police department. Ramsey began his career in Chicago, rising to deputy superintendent before leaving to be chief of police in Washington in 1998. He moved to Philadelphia in 2008. "The lure of Chicago was great and I was totally prepared to go," Ramsey said Wednesday, adding that Emanuel will be an outstanding mayor. "I love that organization." Speculation about Ramsey began swirling in March when Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis, the former head of the FBI field office in Philadelphia, resigned. A nine-member police board is searching for a successor to Weis and will offer up three candidates to Emanuel, who takes office in May. Nutter, a Democrat who is up for re-election in November, said he was ecstatic that Ramsey had decided to stay, citing decreases in crime since the commissioner arrived and reforms that Ramsey has helped make in the department. He said he understood the emotional pull of Chicago, and appreciated how difficult the decision was for him. "It has weighed on him," Nutter said. "It has weighed on all of us." In trying to persuade Ramsey to stay, Nutter said he gave him a plaque that read "Dear Commissioner Ramsey, what would Cliff Lee do?", a reference to the pitcher who spurned a more lucrative free-agent offer from the New York Yankees to return to the Philadelphia Phillies last year. Nutter also presented Ramsey with a baseball signed by all five of the Phillies starting pitchers. Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
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