After nearly 30 years as an employee in the River Forest Police Department — a long run that has included both distinguished service and contentious battles with now departed officials — Lieutenant Craig Rutz officially stepped up to the position of deputy chief on July 1.
Rutz began working in the River Forest department in 1982, and was promoted to lieutenant in 1997. He has since held positions as both administrative and operational lieutenant, and worked as acting chief in 1998. It was not until 2004 that what Rutz now calls the “bad years” began with a series of protracted lawsuits against the village. He survived those rocky political years and now with a longtime colleague, Greg Weiss, installed as permanent police chief, Rutz is on a new path to close out his career on a high note.
Over the years Rutz has worn a number of different hats, working as a patrol officer, field training officer, and the department’s first crime prevention officer, which included a stint as the local D.A.R.E. officer.
“He was always available … to whoever wanted him to come over and give a presentation of some sort,” said Gary Sullivan, a former member of the River Forest village board, remembering Rutz’ role in crime prevention education around the time when Sullivan’s children were young.
Sullivan was a board member in the late 1990s, when Rutz was in the running for chief of police. He said a more experienced candidate, Michael Holub, was eventually hired, but Rutz showed real promise in the department. “I always thought he was a very [good] representative, someone we’d want as a policeman in our community,” Sullivan said.
Controversy erupted in the department during Chief Holub’s tenure, after he chose younger, less-experienced officers as his deputy chiefs. This prompted Rutz, along with two other River Forest officers, to file gender and age discrimination lawsuits against the village in 2004. A short time later, they filed additional lawsuits that charged the village with retaliation for the earlier suits. One of the officers settled early on, but it was another four years before the village reached a settlement with Rutz and the third officer involved, for a reported total of $500,000.
Then, in the summer of 2008, Rutz was suspended by then Chief Nicholas Weiss for allegedly exercising poor judgment in a retail theft investigation. And though the River Forest board of fire and police commissioners unanimously upheld that suspension, less than one month after Weiss left the department in 2009, a circuit court judge overturned the decision and cleared Rutz’ record.
But the new deputy chief doesn’t seem to have held a grudge. Quite the contrary, in fact.
“I feel that police officers are part of the community, they need to support the community, respect the community, and that’s what I thought I was doing through all of the bad years,” said Rutz. “People can have mixed feelings about what they thought about what was going on here. My attitude was that I was trying to protect the village. And that’s still what I want to do.”
In his position as deputy chief, according to current Police Chief Gregory Weiss (no relation to Nicholas Weiss), Rutz will run the day-to-day operations of the department and assist the chief in his decision-making. He will also participate in collective bargaining issues, and stand in for the chief, when necessary, among other duties.
“I thought it would be a good fit for him,” said Weiss, of the deputy chief position. “Some of my decision was because of his history here,” Weiss said, of Rutz’ 29-year tenure in River Forest. “Craig and I have always worked well together,” he added.
“My goals are basically to support Greg Weiss, to help him to accomplish the things he wants to do in terms of setting a course for the department. We’ve gone through a lot of years of … shifting priorities,” Rutz said.
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Rutz admitted that despite the promotion, retirement is probably not too far off. But he said that played a large role in Weiss’ decision to appoint him deputy chief. “He did that intentionally, knowing that I will go and then he’ll bring somebody else up,” Rutz said. And the promotions will continue from there. “It just moves everybody up one step.”
The appointment of a deputy chief is Weiss’ decision, but he said he ran it by the village board first. “I did present it to them, and they agreed with my decision,” Weiss said.
“Craig has a lot of experience. He’s a longtime village employee,” said Village Administrator Eric Palm. “I think he brings a lot to the table.”
The village board has faith in Rutz, and he returns the feelings.
“I am really happy that the village board seems to be on a track to restore the kind of policing that I’ve always thought was valuable, which is relationship building and targeting problems and addressing them,” he said. “The way it was when I started is the way it is now, which is that the people that are running the village really care about the police officers, the firefighters, the public works workers and everybody else. They really seem to be interested in what motivates them and how to make their jobs into careers. And that’s what you want.”
And the department, too, has grown in recent years. Rutz said he’s working with some of the best colleagues of his career. He’d like to keep it that way.
“Now we have probably the best set of officers that have been here since I’ve been here. We have really outstanding officers,” Rutz said. “Greg’s goal, I think, is to try to make sure we keep those officers, and part of that involves keeping them interested, active, and giving them a variety of different assignments and opportunities, which we officers really haven’t had for a while. Basically my job is just to help Greg accomplish that kind of a goal.”