This year, all hell has broken loose in downtown Chicago. Years of under-hiring have resulted in a police force that is unprepared for wildings and gang violence. Moreover, concealed carry in Chicago is illegal, unless one follows the Constitution.
Tourists and residents have been attacked by mobs of youths on buses, on beaches, on bicycle paths, near the shops of the Magnificent Mile, and outside their homes. Mobs of shoplifters plagued “Mug Mile” stores. The irony is that these disenfranchised youths are turning to crime — and if justice is done, prison sentences –against innocent targets. Their focus is misdirected. Participating in a peaceful five million man march — a true show of force and power — against elected culprits in Washington would get them better results for lasting change.
The Spring of Anarchy: “A City At War With Itself”
It is still technically spring in Chicago, and wildings have made Chicago and its beaches unsafe. Poorer neighborhoods have long been war zones. The murder rate and gang violence in Chicago has been unacceptable for years.
Yet the police force was gutted, handcuffed, and muzzled. (“In Third World America Expect to be Investigated, as Lt. John Andrews Is Being Investigated, for Speaking Up”) Police officers — some off duty and still in uniform — have been gunned down in the streets. Their crime-fighting abilities are severely hampered by years of irrational policies and genuflecting to politically power hungry special interest groups.
Of course, we want police officers to follow proper procedures at all times, but we also want them to make fast decisions in violent chaotic circumstances, defend themselves, and get home safely to their families and friends. Local media hounds come out in force against police work. It’s time they came out in favor of superior training and hiring.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, with less than a month in office, has called for the arrest of all the youths involved in last weekend’s mob attack that included an attack on a shopper and on two middle-aged doctors — in separate incidents — visiting for an oncology convention. Yet there have been ongoing incidents of wildings that didn’t make the front page of local papers as did this last attack on tourists.
The woefully undermanned police force plans to recruit and train 300 new officers when some estimates indicated it needed more than 3,000 new officers before the outbreak of the new-pattern crime wave.