7 shot dead and barely a peep is heard
Friday, Mar 31, 2017 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Can you imagine if seven people had been shot dead in an eight-block radius by foreign terrorists? There would be a massive response from every level of government with huge media headlines and frantic updates. Everybody from the president and the FBI Director on down to US Senators, to congressmen, to the US Attorney, to the governor, to the mayor, to legislators, to the aldermen would’ve taken their turns in front of the microphones.
Instead, except for the mayor’s response, it’s just another day on the South Side of Chicago…
When the shooting stopped, two young men lay dead inside the South Shore restaurant Thursday afternoon, another was dead outside and a fourth was found dead around the corner, slumped against a tree.
Paramedics draped a sheet over the man outside the Nadia Fish and Chicken restaurant at 75th Street and Coles Avenue as his mother grieved. […]
Officers ran toward a commotion farther south and found the fourth victim behind an apartment building on Coles, slumped against a tree. It was the woman’s other son. […]
The shooting may have been part of an internal gang conflict involving the Black P Stones gang, in retaliation for the killing of a 37-year-old man in the 7900 block of South Phillips Avenue about 11:15 p.m. Wednesday, police sources said.
* But, wait, that’s not all. Three more people were murdered in that same neighborhood, including a pregnant woman…
Seven people, including a pregnant woman, were killed in three separate shootings that happened within 12 hours of each other on Thursday in South Shore.
The attacks took place in an eight-block radius in the neighborhood, but Chicago Police have not said if they were related. No arrests had been made as of Friday morning.
* Related…
* Mark Brown: Untold harm from buying guns legally in Indy to sell here: “There are a lot of people in Indiana selling guns for profit,” Jackson said. “Not everybody’s getting caught.”
- anon2 - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 2:12 pm:
=== Untold harm from buying guns legally in Indy to sell here: “There are a lot of people in Indiana selling guns for profit,” Jackson said. “Not everybody’s getting caught.” ===
Can we all agree that legal purchases by persons selling illegally on the black market helps fuel the violence? Might a one-gun-a-month rule slow down these merchants of death?
- wordslinger - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 2:16 pm:
You’ve got that right. Maybe if one of the shooters turns out to be named Muhammad, the cynical politicians and media yakkers will put on their usual hysterical show for the boffo ratings.
If not, it will be chalked up to what my first city editor (now a big shot at a Central Illinois daily) called “urban renewal.”
- New Slang - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 2:24 pm:
It’s about priorities. Period. In better times, thanks BR for visiting the IHOP employee. Get it. But like DT playing golf so much (but criticizing former POTUS for anything similar), bunker down and #DoYourJob. Photo ops not needed at this point. FFS.
Word is right. It’s all in a name. Pathetic.
- cdog - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 2:24 pm:
The desensitization of Chicago violence continues.
It’s really sad and unacceptable.
The people that live there must feel nearly hopeless due to incompetent and ineffective city, state, and federal officials.
Black P Stone gang is not an encouraging Google exercise. Just a bunch of thugs, making their money from drugs, guns, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almighty_Black_P._Stone_Nation
https://www.google.com/search?q=black+p+stones+gang&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=black+p+stones+gang&tbm=nws&*
- 47th Ward - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 2:24 pm:
===The shooting may have been part of an internal gang conflict involving the Black P Stones gang, in retaliation for the killing of a 37-year-old man in the 7900 block of South Phillips Avenue about 11:15 p.m. Wednesday, police sources said.===
That’s from the Tribune. There were two older men killed in the restaurant where the younger brothers were killed. Hard to say from the limited info available which of these victims might have been the intended target(s). I guess it doesn’t really matter though. That there is such little regard for life is so shocking we’re becoming numb to it.
The 19-year-old and his 20-year-old brother were shot right in front of their mother, who worked at the restaurant. Senseless. Somebody knows who pulled the trigger and why. Does that even matter? Will it stop when we get rid of guns, or when all of the killers are killed?
Will it stop if these gang-bangers had alternative paths to jobs? Since we can’t ban guns and since we want the body count to stop, maybe it’s time to get serious about bringing some hope to these hopeless communities.
Or we can continue to ignore it and hope it stays contained to “those” neighborhoods.
- Handle Bar Mustache - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 2:26 pm:
Remember all the outrage about NRI? All the energy in those hearings?
I wish some of the outrage and energy could be applied to solving this horrific, horrific violence in Chicago.
Some awfully smart guys on that Legislative Audit Commission now have gone silent on this issue of LIFE AND DEATH.
- Honeybear - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 2:28 pm:
Being poor and black unfortunately makes one invisible in Chicago. Actually pretty much anywhere. I take that back. If you are poor and black you’ll get watched by police. God help you if you try to peacefully express your first amendment rights. You’re liable to get attention from riot police.
- RNUG - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 2:28 pm:
== Can we all agree that legal purchases by persons selling illegally on the black market helps fuel the violence? ==
If they were purchased for resale to people without the proper credentials, that is an ILLEGAL straw purchase under Federal law.
- Colby jack - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 2:28 pm:
##Might a one-gun-a-month rule slow down these merchants of death?##
Sure, making something that’s already illegal more illegaler will do the trick.
- Puddintaine - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 2:32 pm:
Obviously guns from Indiana are the cause of all this violence, representing a clear and present danger to the citizens across the entirety of Illinois. We’re going to have to muster troops for a punitive expedition against these insidious Hoosiers and teach them a lesson they won’t soon forget!
- 51st ward - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 2:34 pm:
Yeah Honeybear if anything the last couple of years of weekly protest marches has shown its that the first amendment rights are completely safe. No one seems to have answers for the violence but woes me lies sure dont help.
- Rocky Rosi - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 2:36 pm:
All of the shootings in Chicago are awful. I wonder if the Gov or the Dems running in 2018 have a plan to stop the violence?
- A Jack - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 2:49 pm:
There is also a problem with lax security on train shipments of guns that are parked in Chicago rail yards. So Indiana guns are only part of the problem.
- RNUG - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 2:58 pm:
== Obviously guns from Indiana are the cause of all this violence ==
Do we need to build a wall? /s
- Rough Rider - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 3:02 pm:
Well since 1968 it has been illegal for the citizen of one state to buy a handgun from one he or she does not live in. Charge some of them.
- Honeybear - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 3:09 pm:
Woe is me lies 51st ward? Bite me. I’m 23 miles from Furgeson, MO.
- GetOverIt - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 3:12 pm:
I rented to a woman who ran Nadia with her ex-husband. She moved out of that area fearing for her son’s life. I hope she’s okay.
- Louis G. Atsaves - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 3:46 pm:
The restaurant shootings were not just shootings. They were assassinations.
There was no indication that the victims were armed or even had a chance to defend themselves.
- Anonymous - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 3:51 pm:
It would be helpful if at least the licensed, armed citizens could protect themselves in these violent neighborhoods, but Brandon Phelps concealed carry bill bans public transpo. carry. Nobody rides the CTA bus to work in southern IL, so it’s not a big issue for the good old boys who send money to NRA.
I’m sure the flag wavers at the IGOLD march next week will fix this. Then again, maybe not, the ISRA types didn’t have much use for Otis McDonald after he signed on to the lawsuit against Chicago that cleared the way for concealed carry in Illinois.
NRA lobbyist Todd Vandermyde has been busy doing important stuff like legalizing silencers, and Phelps is legalizing courthouse carry for state’s attorneys. It’s important to advance the interests of government employees, but Chicago residents, not so much.
- lake county democrat - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 3:51 pm:
RNUG - take a look at the 2008 US Civil RIghts Commission report on the effect of illegal immigration on African-American unemployment, ask yourself why you hardly ever see young African-Americans working on construction sites or a bunch of professions once racist cliches for entry-level African-American jobs, look at estimates of young African-American unemployment rates in Chicago. The answer is yes - not the wall you allude to, but the one Trump alludes too (though in reality that means an e-verify system with draconian penalties and independent enforcement).
- CrazyHorse - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 3:54 pm:
Laws make it tougher on the people who obey laws. Sentences make it tougher on the people who break laws.
In an effort to curb the violence, we always seem to start by examining how we can make it tougher to obtain guns rather than how to make it tougher for people who have wanton disregard for human life to have freedom to use guns. I’m not saying that gun laws aren’t important but at some point we need to realize that if someone is brazen enough to kill 4 people in front of eyewitnesses there isn’t a law we can write that’s going to deter them. Locking these guys up and throwing away the key is the only solution. It’s the criminal justice system that needs the overhaul. Lessen sentencing on non-violent offenders that pose little or no threat to public safety and lock these killers up until Blago gets re-elected.
- lake county democrat - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 3:59 pm:
Guns are part of the problem, but the much bigger problem is JOBS. We’ve been awash in guns for decades, but this level of violence is new. Chicago has it worse than other places because of some particulars, but overall the story of the recovery from the Great Recession is very different for different ethnic groups and nobody is hurt more than young and poor African-Americans because they are hit not only with the tech disruption affecting lower educated workers in general but also systemic racism. I’m not against gun control in theory but as a political matter it’s been terrible for Democrats to go alone - it was the biggest force in the Dems losing Congress *twice* (Clinton and Obama ‘10). What jobs we have flexibility with need to be targetted to the poorest parts of CHicago (oh, and thanks lakefront liberals for spurning the Lucas Museum - we’ve got the jobs to spare in order to keep a barely used part of the lakefront a pristine McCormick Place south), bolder experimentation in education (see the Chicago Heights Freakonomics study on merit pay for example) and - forgive my bleeting - progressive taxation and pension reform so we can free up some resources to address, not just struggle to pay off the old pension bill and tread water.
- Precinct Captain - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 4:39 pm:
==- lake county democrat - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 3:59 pm:==
Violence was worse in the 80s and 90s.
- St Thomas - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 4:40 pm:
I get it. Gun violence in Chicago is the fault of Trump, Rauner, the guns, Indiana, Chic-Gil-a, the NRA and the railroads. Guess Rham is just a victim. Hypocrisy is the backbone of liberalism.
- IllinoisBoi - Friday, Mar 31, 17 @ 4:43 pm:
The shooters just performing their lawful duty of maintaining a well-regulated militia. /s