There’s an article by Frank Main in the Chicago Sun-Times about the deadliest police district in Chicago. It’s a small area on the West Side of Chicago. My eyes went to the blue area, below. About 3 by 15 square blocks. Maybe 34 of those blocks are residential. Perhaps about 650 houses in all. Nice housing stock. Maybe 5,000 residents?…
Tag: chicago
Van Dyke Guilty in Chicago
Former Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder in the shooting of Laquan McDonald. This isn’t surprising. I think Van Dyke was found guilty because, get this, he was. I wrote this in 2015: The video is out. Finally. After long attempts to sweep it under the rugfailed. … It’s a bad shooting…. The officer who…
Why they carry illegal guns in Chicago
There an interesting studyby the Urban Institute on young men carrying guns in Chicago. This has already been misrepresented in the Chicago Sun-Timesas “1 in 3 young people surveyed in four Chicago neighborhoods say they carry a gun.” Factually true… but meaningless because they’re trying to survey people who carry a gun. 100% is the goal. It’s not trying to…
The best of times, the worst of times
Ah, the ol’ Tale of Two Cities trope. But the diverging homicidal paths of Chicago and New York City are striking. The New York Post has a surprisingly good (especially for the NY Post) article on homicide in Chicago and NYC. These are raw numbers and not a rate. Chicago is roughly one-third the size of New York City. [Notwithstanding…
“Chicago cop murders unarmed man after fender bender”
That’s the headline that wasn’t. Instead we have this headline: “Officer Didn’t Shoot Attacker Because She Feared Backlash.” A 43-year-old female 17-year-veteran suffered this: The man had punched her and “repeatedly smashed her face into the pavement” until she was knocked out, police said. She suffered head trauma and multiple cuts to her face and head. When you’re a cop…
“Three Years of Nights”
Very good piece by Peter Nickeas in Chicago magazine. “Three Years of Nights: Violence convulses the city after dark. Reporting on it leaves its own scars.” It sure does. Same for policing (though for some more than others). And just another 17 years of the same and he’s have the career of a copper: It was the beginning of a…
40 shooting victims and 672 arrests? “That’s ridiculous!”
CBS reports: At least 52 people were shot across [Chicago] over the weekend, including nine homicides. (“At least”? Has it got so bad that we can’t even keep track?) Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson, talking about the 40 victims known to police, is “sick of it”: 672 arrests? That’s ridiculous! … There’s a certain segment of the community that is…
Paul O’Neal shot and killed by Chicago police
Last week Paul O’Neal was fleeing from police in a stolen car. He crashed past one police car, and cops shot at him. He then veered head-on into another cop car, bailed, jumped over a fence (being more agile than any of the chasing cops), and was then shot at again. One (or more?) of these shots hit O’Neal in…
10 shootings a day: This is the homicide problem
The Chicago Tribune has an excellent articlethat starts on the West Side [2 miles from this house]: To understand Chicago’s violence, start at Kostner Avenue and Monroe Street and walk west up a one-way stretch of graystones and brick two-flats. There on a boarded-up front door you’ll see the red stain of gang graffiti. On the cracked sidewalk below lies…
Is this what the Ferguson Effect looks like?
Take this fightat North Avenue Beach in Chicago. Seems like mostly a bunch of stupid frat bro’s, one wearing an SAE tank top. (“These people” also have problems.) Why does does this have to do with the Ferguson (or “Viral Video”) Effect? Well, if you’re looking for an example of how fear or negative publicity can impact policing and create…