32 Comments - Downstate - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 11:18 am: Here’s an example of where VOLUNTEER video cameras in resident’s homes would make the perps at least think twice before pulling a trigger. And it’s not so much that every home has to have a camera. It’s simply creating the idea that they might to dissuade the criminals. - Anonymouth - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 11:20 am: This is the defining issue facing the City of Chicago right now. People have historically shrugged their shoulders and looked the other way on run related violent crime because it did not impact their neighborhoods. Not only are these horrific crimes being committed in overwhelmingly black West and South side neighborhoods, they are spilling into neighborhoods where gun-related violent crime previously did not exist. People can’t keep their heads in the sane about this issue any longer. This is the number one issue jeopardizing the future of the City. Something needs to be done. - Joe Schmoe - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 11:32 am: Take a look at this trailer for a new BBC program on Chicago gun violence. I’m sure city officials will be touting this one, as will the Chicago Convention & Visitors Bureau. https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews/videos/10153892619807217/ - Huh? - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 11:40 am: “This is the defining issue facing the City of Chicago right now.” I must disagree that this is the defining issue for Chicago. Violent crime has an issue in Chicago for as long as I can remember. People are reacting to the summer of violence as though it is a new phenomenon. Throughout the 1970’s and 1990’s more that 750 people per year were murdered in Chicago. In 1974, there was a peak of 970 murders, 1992 came close with 943 murders. What happened in the last year or so to cause the number murders to increase is anyone’s guess. But it is not new, nor a defining issue. - Angry Republican - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 11:40 am: Don’t forget about all the drug overdose deaths in Chicago and Cook County. 2016 is likely to end with well over 1000 gun and drug deaths. - Hit or Miss - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 11:53 am: The large number of murders may be related to the fact that the Chicago police recover more illegal guns than any other U.S. city. Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson says he’s extremely frustrated with the current gun laws and wants them tightened. http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2016/08/01/frustrated-top-cop-calls-tougher-gun-laws - The Captain - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 11:54 am: Murder is cheap but it’s not free. In our poorest neighborhoods they are paid for with drug sale proceeds. We keep supporting candidates who promise to run our government like a business but who implement drug policies that clearly don’t understand supply and demand. Our drug policy has been that so long as we outlaw the supply the demand will go away, an idea that has clearly failed. We then compound the error by assuming that we can reduce these drug murders by restricting the availability of guns. Since we rarely pass any new gun restrictions it’s hard to say for sure that those in demand wouldn’t be able to find a supply if those policies were ever passed but we’re clearly not seeing a reduction in demand for weapons (legal or illegal) from Chicago’s criminals. In the 80’s we made our choice on a hard-line drug policy and with the exception of easing some marijuana restrictions there hasn’t been a broad, popular push to change much else. We continue to believe that if we keep fighting against the supply one day the appetite for drugs will magically disappear and also the crime that comes with it. In the meantime we tacitly accept the underground narcotics economy and the murder rate that comes with it. I don’t expect we’ll have large changes in drug policy any time soon but I’d consider it a success if we at least we’re honest about the policy we do have and accept that these are the consequences that come with it. - RNUG - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 12:02 pm: == The large number of murders may be related to the fact that the Chicago police recover more illegal guns than any other U.S. city. == Then the legal system bargains away or reduces the charges … - Big Muddy - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 12:10 pm: All the blame for this lies at the availability of guns… not extreme poverty, no jobs, broken families, poor education or anything of that sort. It’s those damn guns. /s Yes, guns play a part but this is a multi-level, multigenerational problem. Look at the available warehouse/mfg space on the west side and along the rail lines in Chicago. All those middle-class building union jobs that used to exist there have disappeared and have been replaced with SNAP “jobs.” Blame guns all you want but make them 100% disappear and you still have major issues in the poorest areas of Chicagoland. - Just Me - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 12:12 pm: CNN is running an interesting story today on the relationship between mistrust in the Chicago Police Department and the city’s murder rate. - Anonymouth - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 12:14 pm: === I must disagree that this is the defining issue for Chicago. Violent crime has an issue in Chicago for as long as I can remember. === There is one big difference this year - the violence has spilled into areas where there has been very little to no gun violence. People have historically felt secure due to the fact that the violence did not impact their neighborhood. If that sense of security is gone, people will leave the City in large numbers. Such an exodus would devastate the City. - New Guy - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 12:16 pm: @Big Muddy - Awfully hard to rack up this many murders with knives and bats. Maybe some of the frustration and anger comes out as political willpower instead of gun violence. Maybe some of the kids dead at 19 grow to be 29 and get to start moving their family forward. Gun availability may not have started the problem, but gun availability is gouging a hole in the generation growing up in our poor neighborhoods that will keep cohorts at a disadvantage for the rest of their lives versus their peers who are poor but not mostly dead. - Jerry - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 12:37 pm: Everyone always wants to the punishments increased for having a gun. Yet, the 2nd Amendment folks preach the safest thing to have in a dangerous neighborhood, is a gun. So, which is it? By the way, there are no gun shops in Chicago. So, what can the City do? Make handguns illegal? Oh yeah, no, and wouldn’t you want everyone armed anyway? The circular logic we as Americans work on this issue is truly mind-blowing. - Last Bull Moose - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 12:47 pm: Gun availability is a red herring. I have seen estimates of some 300 million firearms in the United States. Roughly 1 per person. So how many firearms are in Chicago? At the national average, it would be over 2 million. Even if it is only 500 thousand, that swamps the number seized. The Captain is right on drug policy. We cannot enforce the laws we have and will not change them. Do one or the other. I don’t accept the murder rate as Chicago’s defining issue. Nor are we close to being a war zone. Chicago can do much better. We will get better answers if we keep things in perspective. - Anonymous - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 12:59 pm: Reading the morning paper, it was hard to absorb the fact that one couple shot down over the Labor Day Weekend were planning to move to Iowa in order to escape the violence that plagued their Chicago neighborhood (Back of the Yards). Elsewhere in the same issue was a story about a violent group of hardcore gang members who are on trial for a variety of crimes, including murdering police informants. During the Capone Era, Chicago developed a bad reputation for fewer than one thousand gang killings over an entire decade. Those modest crime statistics would be grounds for a celebratory press conference today. - Team American - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 1:34 pm: Missing the point award of the day goes to Jerry: “Everyone always wants to the punishments increased for having a gun.” Um, they want to increase the punishments for committing a CRIME with a gun. Big diff. - Rod - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 1:48 pm: I agree with part of Huh?’s response to Anonymouth. The murder totals cited by Huh are correct. But Anonymouth is also correct that the fear of these killings is spreading into higher income communities in Chicago. On my street in the Andersonville community we have several million dollar homes, yet only a few blocks away there have been shooting that are gang related. I had the chilling experience of seeing four young African Americans males driving slowly down my street the other night with all their windows down and hip-hop blasting. The first thought in my mind was a drive by shooting, now that’s total profiling based on the growing fear. But thoughts like could they be looking for someone in an apartment building behind me and make me collateral damage run through your head. I have a concealed carry permit too, but it would have been completely illegal for me to draw a gun based on abstract anxiety. But the truth was I felt none for the better having a concealed carry gun in that situation. The word “nihilism” comes to mind when discussing these killings. Really the killers have little concern about the future and more than likely have a fatalistic perspective on their own life. The pervasive media coverage given these shootings is indeed giving a lot of people the heebie jeebies in this town and not just in poor African American communities. It weighs on the mind and does cause people to consider getting out of Chicago. By the way back in 1974 it was just as crazy as this but the media coverage was totally different. I mean TV news with guys like Fahey Flynn and Joel Daly didn’t give us a running count of murders nightly. Maybe ignorance was bliss. - Albany Park Patriot - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 1:50 pm: Governor Rauner has been virtually silent on this issue, especially compared to his redistricting schtick. Someone should remind him he’s the governor of all Illinois. - Tom K. - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 1:51 pm: Jerry, it’s pretty simple. Guns in the hands of responsible, law-abiding people are “good”. Guns in the hands of people who use them for criminal activities are “bad”. I’m not sure I wouldn’t support a Sharia-type solution, where you can tell the gun crime violators by the absence of their trigger fingers. - Sad - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 2:23 pm: Based on the comments and outcry from from the elected alderman and other electeds, it seems like they don’t care, let them blame rahm. - @MisterJayEm - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 2:34 pm: “Blame guns all you want but make them 100% disappear and you still have major issues in the poorest areas of Chicagoland.” And a pregnant woman being shot in the middle of the afternoon on the porch of her boyfriend’s grandparents wouldn’t be one of them. – MrJM - Anonymous - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 2:55 pm: “There is one big difference this year - the violence has spilled into areas where there has been very little to no gun violence. People have historically felt secure due to the fact that the violence did not impact their neighborhood. If that sense of security is gone, people will leave the City in large numbers. Such an exodus would devastate the City.” Criminals are opportunistic. Many feel that the Chicago Police Department is understaffed and it has been a standard Emanuel policy to pull police officers from some districts to saturate the South and West Sides. Every time police are pulled from a “safe district” to help elsewhere, robberies, burglaries, and property crimes increased in the undermanned districts. Emanuel promised to hire 1,000 new police officers in 2011. Chicagoans are still waiting for this promise to be fulfilled. - Arthur Andersen - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 3:13 pm: -Rauner has been silent- Actions speak louder than words. How much did his budget allocate for anti-violence programs, the ones that worked? Was it zero, or am I mistaken? - crazybleedingheart - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 3:14 pm: Which punishment is too low? Please be specific. - Anonymous - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 3:51 pm: Gangs. gangs. gangs. That’s most of the problem. The description in this incident seems innocent enough. But the details may show the devil. That 9 year old kid hunted down on the south side? Not random but a gang issue with his dad. Families are being targeted. Much of this is intentional and involved in larger enterprises. Gangs, gangs, gangs. - Denisquared - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 4:09 pm: From Crains comment section: Sick Chicago….hardly. Almost all of the violent crime is in the same place it has been for the last 50 years, Black Englewood, Black Gresham, Black South Chicago, Black Austin, Black Lawndale and Black Garfield Park. The murders and shootings have been larger than today, approaching 1,000 on several occasions, in the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties. 17,000 violent, black male gang members feel comfy in these six neighborhoods, because of 50 years of the black code of silence, not reporting known violent gang members to the police. They murdered 500 blacks last year and shot 2300 blacks. This year , they have murdered 400 blacks and shot 2,000 blacks. This is far from a record for this city. In years past, no one cared about the numbers. These gangs are responsible for almost all of the city’s murders, shootings, rapes, armed robberies, drug dealing and using. There are 10,000,000 metro Chicagoans and on any given day , outside these six neighborhoods, 99.999999999 % of them are not involved in any violent crime or any crime whatsoever. 52,000,000 people visited Chicago last year and few of them saw violent crime, nor were they aware of the black slaughter in these neighborhoods. 400,000 young people attended a music festival a few weeks ago over a few days….No violence. The court system is responsible for releasing many criminals with illegal gun and criminal records on to the streets of this city, after police have arrested them. It is a major problem. Black Lives Matter marched around downtown Chicago over a few police incidents, but, have been missing in action, along with Jesse Jackson and Bobby Rush, where they should be, in these six neighborhoods. Number one , the court system has to support the police. The police are NOT the problem. The Mayor is NOT the problem. The black code of silence is a huge problem If these 17,000 gang members were in NYC or LA, they would be in the same boat. So, Chicago sick? No. Black Englewood, Black Gresham, Black South Chicago, Black Austin, Black Lawndale and Black Garfield Park violent. Yes. The vast majority of Chicago’s 240 square miles are not violent and most areas are integrated and peaceful. For these six neighborhoods, it is business as it has been for 50 years. Gentrification is moving quickly toward their borders, with massive building going on right now. In time, the problem may not be solved, but,, these gangs will be pushed out. It is just a matter time. - Payback - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 4:33 pm: The Captain- “I don’t expect we’ll have large changes in drug policy any time soon but I’d consider it a success if we at least we’re honest about the policy we do have and accept that these are the consequences that come with it.” Good economic analysis of the drug/gang/gun violence problem in Illinois. Don’t hold your breath though for small town politicians to vote for policies that mean fewer prisons. Look at the huge struggle we had simply to “decriminalize” not fully legalize less than ten grams of marijuana in this state. The police unions opposed the intoxication standard of 15 nanograms/milliliter of blood (whatever that means) level for driving under the influence last year in Heather Steans bill. This year the decrim bill finally passed with 5 nanograms as driving under the influence. I suspect that DUI arrests with all court costs, plus vehicle towing fees& fines are big “business” for the police agencies who keep part of the fees, courts, lawyers, etc. Everyone in the criminal justice system is making money off drug offenders. Then when the crime rate goes up like it is now, the cry is to hire more police to fill up more prisons. It seems like full legalization of some drugs is never discussed as a long term solution for less violence. This is a statwide problem that deserves full discussion with statewide and systemwide solutions if reduction of violence is the real goal. I wonder if some are simply profiting from the status quo. - Downstate - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 4:55 pm: I’d read that that Chicago’s murder rate is higher than NYC and LA, combined. Over the weekend, a Chicagoan offered the opinion that the gang activity in Chicago involves an incredible number of groups. Whereas in LA and NYC there is more structure, and fewer gangs (in total, but not necessarily fewer gang members). The more centralized, structured gangs tend to reduce the amount of actual violence. Would be interested in others perspective on that theory. - Small town taxpayer - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 5:05 pm: “Governor Rauner has been virtually silent on this issue,…” I do not see that the silence of the Governor is at all odd or unusual. During his election campaign it was clearly stated that he has no social agenda and that he is mainly interested in financial issues and how they effect Illinois. Gun valence is clearly a social issue. Rauners work on issues such as the state budget, the states pension plans, and the creation right to work zones clearly show where his effort is being put. - Slippin' Jimmy - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 6:00 pm: I will give Chief Johnson credit for knowing that most of the violent gun crime is directly related to 1400 persons on his strategic list. So, we know who the problem is, what neighborhoods in which the crime occurs yet we are seemingly unable to effectively reduce the shootings. Rahm, Rauner seem helpless to affect the shootings. Leadership clearly is missing. If CPD is arresting these 1400 on any regular basis and many/most are felons why couldn’t a coordinated effort between the SA/ Cook county court system/ CPD be utilized in a serious manner to begin incarcerating these 1400- the sooner the better. Chicago IL needs leadership. - Last Bull Moose - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 6:48 pm: Downstate, Basic economics, monopolies and oligopolies have less competition than markets with large numbers of competitors. - Buddy Blade - Tuesday, Sep 6, 16 @ 8:33 pm: A big big part of the problem is the cow boy style of the present gang “leadership”. With may of the former gang chiefs in prison discipline has broken down. Sounds bazaar but the sooner the old bulls get back to the hood, the sooner the murder rate will fall. Budlong Buddy Blade Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.