The recent awarding of a nearly $4.5 million contract for body removal services to Wallace Harrison Funeral Home has stirred controversy in Chicago.
This contract comes 25 years after the city’s police officers were relieved of the responsibility of transporting deceased individuals to the medical examiner’s office.
Initially, Cook County took over this grim duty, only to later transfer it to various private contractors, which have faced criticism and scandals in the past.
Now, the decision to hand this important task to a single funeral home has sparked questions regarding whether it is capable of managing the city’s demands effectively.
A police supervisor has expressed skepticism, questioning, “Is a funeral home equipped to handle the city’s volume?”
Wallace Harrison Funeral Home secured the contract by submitting the lowest bid among three contenders.
The former contractor, Chicago-based Allied Services Group, which had been awarded over $16 million since 2011, submitted a bid of $10.56 million — significantly higher than the winning offer.
Meanwhile, First Call Mortuary of Frankfort presented a bid of nearly $7.4 million.
Nakia Wallace-Harrison, president of Wallace Harrison Funeral Home, asserted her firm’s capability to handle large-scale body removals, reassuring the public with hypotheticals about mass casualty incidents and pandemic scenarios.
“We will be there to remove those bodies,” she claimed confidently.
Wallace-Harrison mentioned that her funeral home is equipped with 20 transport vehicles and employs 20 staff members.
However, an affidavit submitted last fall indicates that she only has five full-time employees, including herself, raising further questions about the funeral home’s resources.
The affidavit only names one employee, Nakia Wallace-Harrison, with a second manager listed anonymously, while three others remain as “TBD.”
Current and former police personnel have raised doubts about the feasibility of one funeral home handling the city’s needs.
Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41st), who has experience serving as both a police officer and firefighter, expressed uncertainty regarding the situation.
He questioned how a funeral home based on the Northwest Side could manage timely responses throughout the city, saying, “How do you do that in traffic in the city of Chicago, as far as time constraints for that removal? I just don’t know how that’s possible.”
The new contract also includes strict penalties for delays in body transport.
If Wallace Harrison Funeral Home fails to arrive at a scene within 75 minutes of a 911 dispatch call, the fee of $172 per body is halved.
If delays force police officers to step in for body removal, the funeral home must reimburse the city for the costs incurred.
This provision came as a result of a police union grievance raised in response to concerns over accountability.
Napolitano, who previously dealt with body removals when they were under police responsibility, recalled the intense demands during summers, especially during drug crises that led to high casualties.
“In some summers — especially when you got some really bad, tainted drugs out there — it was nonstop transporting. So I don’t know how one place can do this,” he stated.
He also shared experiences from when police officers were under-equipped to handle such grim tasks.
“It was brutal,” he stated, recalling how they would wear mere gloves and use makeshift solutions to shield themselves from the distressing odor.
The question of who should manage body removals in Chicago isn’t new, as past contractors have found themselves embroiled in controversies.
In 2005, two families in Chicago faced heart-wrenching grief due to a mix-up, where wrong bodies were sent to their respective funeral homes.
The blame fell between the Cook County medical examiner’s office and the contractor at that time, Ohio-based GSSP Enterprise Inc., leading to lawsuits that were ultimately settled out of court.
The president of GSSP, Brian Higgins, recently faced his own legal troubles and was sentenced to prison for mail fraud and witness tampering related to a federal corruption investigation in Ohio.
Previously, GSSP charged the city a remarkable fee of $915 per body, which was the highest removal fee of any major U.S. city.
In contrast, the agreement with Wallace Harrison Funeral Home brings down the fee to a more manageable $172 per body, but whether the firm can meet the challenges ahead remains a pressing concern.
image source from：chicago
