Weis, whose contract expires in March, is continuing to roll out his anti-crime strategy despite opposition from the Fraternal Order of Police leadership and some rank-and-file officers. Last month, an FOP-backed march on police headquarters protested the city's shortage of officers. FOP President Mark Donahue called on Weis to resign, blasting the superintendent's reliance on roving units like the Mobile Strike Force. Donahue said 16 percent of beat cops have been given duties outside their districts.
The Mobile Strike Force was created in 2008 after Roussell returned from Iraq -- where he led a Marine Reserve unit that fought insurgents. He adopted a similar strategy in Chicago: suppress the most dangerous criminals and "leave Joe Sixpack alone."
Roussell commands four companies of Mobile Strike Force officers. Each company has 48 officers, six sergeants and a lieutenant. They work at night.
One of those four companies was temporary -- staffed with volunteers assigned to work for the unit during the summer until Oct. 13. Weis is making the fourth company permanent. And the superintendent is adding a fifth company that Roussell plans to use for daytime operations.
That means more than 100 officers and supervisors will permanently move to the Mobile Strike Force from other assignments, such as beat cars.
Roussell's officers have focused on the high-crime Englewood and the Harrison districts, but they're sent to other districts, too. On any given day, they typically go to three different parts of the city. Late-night house parties are one of the problems the Mobile Strike Force targets. The parties are crime incubators, so if a district commander learns there's one with hundreds of people on the street, he'll contact the unit. Roussell might send 40 officers to the party to break it up.
"You can't expect one beat car to break it up. In three minutes, we'll shut it down," Roussell said.
Last Friday night, his troops got a PowerPoint briefing on the top 10 violent criminals in the South Side and West Side areas they were targeting. They also got updates on brewing gang conflicts before they hit the street. Gang leaders are paying attention, Roussell said. He said crooks rarely pull guns on Mobile Strike Force members, some of whom are armed with military-style rifles. If they do, they'll get shot, Roussell promised.
Gang leaders have been secretly heard discussing the Mobile Strike Force and telling their street-corner drug dealers to shut business down while the officers are in their neighborhoods. The caravans of Mobile Strike Force vehicles are an imposing sight for gang members, Lt. Sean Loughran said.
"They'll say 'the 44s are coming,' " Loughran said, referring to the Mobile Strike Force's unit number painted on its vehicles. "They know we're not playing around." | 
department is planning to expand the citywide unit