Over decades, James O\u2019Grady worked his way up through the ranks of law enforcement, eventually leading the Chicago Police Department and later the Cook County Sheriff\u2019s Office. <\/p>\n
But no matter the title, he was always a cop first. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe was selfless for being a boss,\u201d Neil Sullivan, a former police commander and deputy sheriff under O\u2019Grady told the Sun-Times. \u201cHe always believed in the welfare of the men and women of the department, as he would call them, the troops. They were always preeminent in his mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Grady, who was with the police department from 1952 to 1984<\/a> followed by one-term as sheriff, died Monday.<\/a> He was 96 years old.<\/p>\n Though the end of his career was marred by controversy, O\u2019Grady was \u201cwell respected\u201d within the police department and a role model for future leaders, according to former CPD Supt. Phil Cline.<\/p>\n \u201cHe never forgot the cops on the street and what they needed to get the job done, and he was there to back them up,\u201d Cline said. \u201cHe set an example for those of us that came after him.\u201d<\/p>\n The son of Irish immigrants, O\u2019Grady was born Jan. 21, 1929, according to a death notice. His father, Thomas, was a Chicago police sergeant.<\/p>\n In 1952, O\u2019Grady himself joined the police department. He became a sergeant two years later, and continued to move up in the department. O\u2019Grady had a few close calls on the job. He was shot in 1971 while chasing after a purse snatcher in the Loop.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was a commander of a police district at the time… that was a really unusual situation in the fact that he went out, put his life out there, and ended up being shot,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t too big a person to do his job.\u201d<\/p>\n While recovering in the hospital, O\u2019Grady told reporters: \u201cThe first thing that flashed through my mind was my wife and children.\u201d <\/p>\n A fellow officer added: \u201cThis is typical of O\u2019Grady. He wasn\u2019t worried about himself. He was worried about his wife and five children and what it would be like for them if he was killed at Christmas time.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout his career, O\u2019Grady was known as a \u201ccop\u2019s cop,\u201d who liked picking up the tab for fellow officers on lunch at Manny\u2019s or the former Blue Angel, according to his death notice.<\/p>\n In 1978, he was appointed superintendent of the department but his tenure was short-lived. Former Mayor Jane Byrne campaigned on a promise of replacing him, accusing him of \u201cpoliticizing\u201d the job. <\/p>\n After she was elected in April 1979, O\u2019Grady walked into her office and resigned. Bryne would later walk back those claims when O\u2019Grady assumed the position of First Deputy Superintendent just years later.<\/p>\n O\u2019Grady officially resigned from the police department in 1984.<\/p>\n About a year later, the Republican party approached O\u2019Grady, a Democrat, about running for office. He switched parties and entered the race for Cook County sheriff.<\/p>\n Politics wasn\u2019t a natural choice for O\u2019Grady, according to Sulllivan. \u201cHe was kind of the reluctant warrior.\u201d<\/p>\n O\u2019Grady defeated 16-year incumbent Richard Elrod in Nov. 1986, after running on a vow to rid the office of corruption. It was the first time in a decade a Republican had won a county-wide seat.<\/p>\n But O\u2019Grady only served one-term, failing to win re-election in 1990 amid a series of corruption scandals. The feds launched an investigation into ghost payroll practices under O\u2019Grady\u2019s tenure. He was never indicted of any crimes but his undersheriff, James Dvorak, was sentenced to five years in prison for his role in the scheme.<\/p>\n O\u2019Grady was a graduate of DePaul University and a longtime parishioner of St. Mary of the Woods Parish, according to his death notice.<\/p>\n Outside of law enforcement, O\u2019Grady was an avid golfer who loved to sing old Irish tunes, according to Sullivan.<\/p>\n Joan, his wife of 67 years, preceded him in death. He leaves behind five children and dozens of grandchildren and great-children.<\/p>\n A visitation is planned for Saturday, Jan. 10, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. followed by a Mass at St. Mary of the Woods Church, 6955 N. Hiawatha Ave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over decades, James O\u2019Grady worked his way up through the ranks of law enforcement, eventually leading the Chicago…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":505356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818],"class_list":{"0":"post-505355","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-illinois"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115868978732276474","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}