On Jan. 10, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced that Adam Gross will be the first-ever executive director of the newly created Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability.
"The establishment of a community-led Commission for oversight of the Chicago Police Department and its relevant agencies is a historic milestone for our city, and I am thrilled to announce that Adam Gross will serve as its first executive director," Lightfoot said in a statement. "Under Adam's leadership, the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability will become a critically important piece of our city's police accountability infrastructure and empower our communities to take the lead in this incredibly important work. I have the utmost confidence in Adam's experience and ability to support and guide this new commission, and look forward to working with him as we work to make Chicago a national leader in police reform."
Gross is an attorney and policy expert with more than 30 years of experience in developing, advocating for, and implementing structural reforms. Most recently, he was director of the Police Accountability Program for Business and Professional People for the Public Interest.
Since 2016, he has provided legal, policy and technical support to community-based coalitions working on the ordinance that creates the commission, including the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability and the Empowering Communities for Public Safety coalition. Gross also worked with Lightfoot on the Mayor's Police Accountability Task Force and helped develop the task force's key proposals for structural reform.
The City Council will nominate 14 people and the mayor will appoint seven of them to serve as interim commissioners until the first regular commission is appointed. The executive director and staff will help support these seven interim commissioners as well as future permanent commissioners.
