BLACK VIOLENCE IN AMERICA - Residents of L.A.’s Watts Urged to Avoid Large Gatherings Due to Shootings

 ONLY LOS ANGELES?!?

     CRIME IN AMERICA IS BLACK! 

 

Residents of L.A.’s Watts Urged to Avoid Large Gatherings Due to Shootings

40

Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times via Getty

JOEL B. POLLAK

3 Aug 2023156

2:52

Residents of Watts, a predominantly Latino and black neighborhood in south-central Los Angeles, are being discouraged from attending large gatherings for the rest of 2023 due to the recent surge of drive-by and mass shootings in the area.

The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday:

Leaders have now called on Watts residents not to congregate in large groups for the rest of 2023.

…

The impassioned calls for “unity within the community” arrived on the heels of two shootings that killed two and injured nine near the Imperial Courts and Jordan Downs public housing projects, according to LAPD Deputy Chief Emada Tingirides. She told The Times that law enforcement agencies were investigating the recent shootings.

…

Attendees were told during Tuesday’s briefing that both of the incidents involved lone gunmen. Disrespectful posts on social media likely fueled some of the shootings, which Rejón says is a trend that has picked up in other major cities across the country in recent years. He blames social media and online “rumor mills” that help disrespectful messages feed into a larger conflict.

The ongoing violence comes amid calls by newly-installed Mayor Karen Bass to hire 1,000 new Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers to bring the force back to 10,000 cops. Her predecessor, Mayor Eric Garcetti, vowed to cut $150 million from the LAPD during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, and to redistribute the funding to “communities of color.”

When Breitbart News asked Garcetti whether that would make such communities unsafe, he denied that it would. He also decried “systemic racism,” which he defined, when asked, as “racism that’s built into systems.” He is now U.S. Ambassador to India.

Crime has surged in many American cities in recent years, over a period that has coincided with the election of radical left-wing prosecutors, many of them backed by billionaire Democratic Party patron George Soros, such as Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón. Gascón has focused on reducing criminal penalties for violent felons, rather than reducing crime.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Meanwhile, Johnson has busied himself with looking to put $25 million in city funds to house illegal aliens, and turning several of the city’s schools and colleges into shelters for illegal aliens. Even as up to 50 Chicagoans have been shot every weekend since he took office.

Chicago Police Finally Make Large Number of Arrests During Teen Mass Rampage

2

E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

WARNER TODD HUSTON

1 Aug 2023144

4:09

For the last several years, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) has engaged in a policy of “hands-off” as huge groups of hundreds of teens and young adults rampage through neighborhoods looting stores, vandalizing cars, fighting with each other, and even shooting people. But on Sunday, police reversed that policy and actually made dozens of arrests during one such mob scene.

Last weekend, the CPD made about 40 arrests as a large group of teens again targeted an area along Roosevelt Road in the city’s South Loop business district.

It was the largest number of arrests since 61 were arrested during a mob rampage in July of 2021, according to CWB Chicago.

Still, a mere 40 arrests made only a small dent in the mob of some 400 teens carousing through the area and totally trashing a 7-Eleven convenience store in the process.

Video shows the scene at the store:

According to NBC 5, most were charged with misdemeanors and immediately released, though a select few were hit with gun charges.

But, the CPD certainly made an about-face. In fact, according to CBS News, several CPD supervisors were heard encouraging officers to make arrests.

“Let’s be clear – for these kids are running in the street, mass arrest. Lock them up,” a supervisor was heard saying, CBS added.

“If you’re an officer, you should be putting hands on people and arresting them right now – not watching them walk by you,” the supervisor reportedly added.

Interim Chicago Police Supt. Fred Waller stood by the arrests.

“Our posture has been tolerant, and usually when we say that it’s curfew and we ask them to disperse, they do,” Waller said. “Yesterday, they, so to speak, crossed the line.”

Waller also said the arrests were for cause, not random.

“The arrests are a result of the actions. Before we asked them to move, we asked them to go home. It was curfew time, and they did. This time, they refused. They began fighting against each other,” Waller said. “We haven’t arrested people like that, but this group got so out of hand we had no choice.”

Community activists also tried to jump into action ahead of the appearance of the mob of teens. Seeing social media posts encouraging teens to gather in the area, activists say they began contacting businesses to close up and lock down to try and prevent damage to their best ability.

These mobs of teens have been causing havoc in Chicago for several years, now, and little has been done to stop them.

Just in April, a couple suffered injuries as groups of hundreds of teens rioted through the city’s downtown Loop area.

Mayor Brandon Johnson listens during a City Council meeting Wednesday, May 24, 2023, at City Hall in Chicago. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

Also in April, two teens were shot by someone seemingly shooting randomly into the crowd of hundreds during four days of teen mob action.

In May, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a self-professed “progressive,” took office, but has thus far been able to make a dent in the rising crime rates, or put a stop to these mobs of teens terrorizing the city.

In fact, Johnson has scolded anyone critical of the mobs. In April he was heard chastising the media and Chicago’s weary residents for “demonizing” the mobs of teens.

“In no way do I condone the destructive activity we saw in the Loop and lakefront this weekend,” Johnson said after the four days of destruction wrought in April. “It is unacceptable and has no place in our city. However, it is not constructive to demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities.”

Meanwhile, Johnson has busied himself with looking to put $25 million in city funds to house illegal aliens, and turning several of the city’s schools and colleges into shelters for illegal aliens. Even as up to 50 Chicagoans have been shot every weekend since he took office.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston.

CrimePoliticsassaultChicagoChicago Police De

 

California's Crime Crisis is getting worse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LhXKch3QPc

Police: Man Posing as UPS Worker Beats Woman with Weighted Sock in Manhattan Elevator

97

New York Police

ELAINE MALLON

30 Jul 2023220

2:43

New York City police officers are on the hunt for a man who allegedly robbed and beat a woman with a sock stuffed “with an unknown object” inside an elevator in Manhattan on Sunday.

Surveillance images outside the building show that the suspect is a black male who appears to be posing as a UPS delivery man, the New York Post reported. At the time of the assault, he was wearing a black shirt and pants, a grey baseball cap, and a lanyard, and he was holding a package in one hand and a book bag in another.

The assailant reportedly robbed $25 from the 26-year-old victim who was transported to Bellevue Hospital. According to authorities, she is in stable condition.

The suspect fled the scene on a bike.

This latest incident in Manhattan comes days after Breitbart News reported that authorities responded to two stabbing victims outside of Magnolia’s Bakery in the West Village:

Eli Klein, 45, witnessed the attack while he was walking with his wife and infant daughter on the sidewalk. They ran away as soon as the incident broke out.

“It happened so close – it was 10, 15ft away – and we were on the same side of the sidewalk,” Klein told the DailyMail. “Normally I would stop to help the guy or take a picture of the suspect and give it to the police but in this instance, I had my baby with me, we just ran, we didn’t wait.”

Crime statistics from November 2022 revealed just how prevalent violence and lawlessness have become in the Big Apple.

Breitbart News’s Amy Furr reported:

Crime in New York City increased over the past year but New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) claims data did not show bail reform as being the problem.

The New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) recent crime statistics show that year to date, rape was up 10.9 percent, robbery up 32.4 percent, burglary up 29.1 percent, and grand larceny up 38.5 percent.

During an interview Friday on CNN, Hochul asserted that “the data is not showing” that bail reform is causing the surge in crime, and “There are individual cases, but compared to pre-pandemic and when this was passed, I don’t think there’s a real disparity.”

The New York Bail Reform law went into effect on January 1, 2020.

Researchers from John Jay College of Criminal Justice found that more than 72 percent of violent crime suspects freed without bail were rearrested, compared to fewer than 62 percent who were rearrested before the bail reform law, Breitbart News reported.

‘I am Hopeless’ — Assailants Set Free After Putting NYC Cab Driver in Hospital

690

Screenshot

ELAINE MALLON

30 Jul 2023851

2:40

A cab driver in Democrat-controlled New York City is outraged after authorities released a man and woman after they allegedly beat him, landing him in a hospital bed with a neck brace on.

Afzal Butt, 61, said the July 19 evening attack in Midtown left him feeling “hopeless and helpless” with the criminal justice system and blamed New York’s bail reform laws for allowing the two of the five assailants to just be issued a desk appearance and be able to go home that same day, the New York Post reported.

“If they’re not going to put them behind bars, this is a horrible system,” Butt told the Post. “I am hopeless and helpless with this system.”

As a new poll by Sienna College Research Institute found 41 percent of the public has “never been this worried about safety,” Mayor Eric Adams flouts citizens’ concerns, claiming the news plays on people’s psyche.

“Let’s think about it for a moment, how do they start their day? They start their day picking up the news, the morning papers, they sit down and they see some of the most horrific events that may happen throughout the previous day,” Adams told Fox 5.

“Send the mayor the video and tell him die with the shame,” Butt told the Post.

Butt, who immigrated from Pakistan in 2004, pulled his cab over after a separate group of scooter riders threw food inside his cab. As he was cleaning his car, video shows the five attacking him after busting his side window. He falls to the ground and one of the assailants —  a woman with long braids — stomps on him. A bystander grabs her away from Butt. He was immediately sent to the hospital.

“There’s so much pain in my neck,” Butt said. “I still can’t move my neck. My arms, my knees, my hips. My chest felt like I was getting pressure on my chest. So much pain.”

Authorities arrested Howard Colley, 35,  Natalie Morgan, 51. Colley was charged with misdemeanor assault and Morgan was charged with criminal mischief; however, since neither had a criminal history and the offenses were just misdemeanors they were just issued a desk appearance.

A police source told the Post these lenient rules are thanks to the bail reform passed in 2019, which ended the practice of cash bail for most misdemeanors.

Authorities are still in search of three suspects: a 5ft5 woman with her hair in a bun, a 5ft10 man with an athletic build and a 5ft8 woman with lengthy braids.

A married father of two, Butt said his family is worried about him returning to work.

Oakland NAACP Calls for 'State of Emergency' Over Crime

Ian Schwartz

July 28, 2023

The Oakland NAACP released a statement Thursday calling for state and local elected leaders to declare a "state of emergency" as a result of increasing violent crime in the California city.

The statement, written by Oakland NAACP president Cynthia Adams and Bishop Bob Jackson of Acts Full Gospel Church, blasted soft-on-crime local officials as well as left-wing activism for the surge in crime.

"Failed leadership, including the movement to defund the police, our District Attorney’s unwillingness to charge and prosecute people who murder and commit life threatening serious crimes, and the proliferation of anti-police rhetoric have created a heyday for Oakland criminals," Adams and Jackson wrote.

Adams and Jackson also said that African Americans were disproportionately affected by crime and criticized misguided attempts to alleviate racism by refusing to prosecute violent offenders.

"There is nothing compassionate or progressive about allowing criminal behavior to fester and rob Oakland residents of their basic rights to public safety. It is not racist or unkind to want to be safe from crime," the statement read.

Adams and Jackson called on city and state officials to devote additional resources, including police officers, to resolve the problem:

"We are in crisis and elected leaders must declare a state of emergency and bring resources together from the city, the county, and the state to end the crisis."

The statement comes amid a spike in crime in the Bay Area. In neighboring San Francisco, Mayor London Breed was forced to flee a speech on combating violent crime after someone threw a brick in the crowd.

Several big-name brands like Nordstrom and Saks OFF 5th and hotel chains have left the area due to concerns about public safety.

Published under: California , Crime , Defund the Police , San Francisco

Nearly 50 Shot Friday into Sunday Night in Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Chicago

1

Jamie Kelter Davis/Bloomberg via Getty Images

AWR HAWKINS

31 Jul 20230

2:39

Nearly 50 people were shot, five of them fatally, Friday into Sunday night in Mayor Brandon Johnson’s (D) Chicago.

ABC 7 / Chicago Sun-Times noted that four others were fatally shot Friday into Sunday night, and those shooting victims were among the at least 47 people who were shot.

The first fatal shooting of the weekend occurred around 10:20 p.m. Friday. Two men, one of whom was 61 years old, pulled guns on each other “in the 2600-block of West Luther Street.” The 61-year-old was shot in the head and pronounced dead at a hospital.

A 28-year-old man was shot in the face and killed in Auburn Gresham Saturday night around 8:00 p.m.

A 20-year-old woman and a 30-year-old man were walking “in the 1300-block of West Devon Avenue” around 1:45 p.m. Sunday when a drive-by shooter opened fire on them, shooting the man ten times. He was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Breitbart News reported that nine people were shot just before 1:00 a.m. Sunday morning in Chicago’s Lawndale neighborhood when multiple people exited a Jeep and opened fire on a group of women. One woman was killed, and eight others were injured.

At 5:00 p.m. Sunday, another drive-by shooting occurred on the “6400 block of South Albany Avenue.” There was an exchange of words between someone in the car and a 66-year-old man before shots rang out. The 66-year-old was shot in the chest and was taken to hospital, where he died.

The Sun-Times pointed out that 342 people were killed in Chicago from January 1, 2023, through July 30, 2023.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com

The Gift That Keeps On Giving: Chicago Man Charged in Years Long $6M Home Depot Scam

92

Chicago Police Department

AMY FURR

28 Jul 2023293

4:00

Officials have charged a fourth suspect in a fraud scam that caused Home Depot stores in Chicago to lose a massive chunk of money.

In an article published Thursday, CWB Chicago said it reported in May the stores were defrauded by several individuals who racked up $900 credits over 6,000 times for one purchase a few years prior:

Officials said the scam began in March 2020 when someone purchased more than $6,000 from the home improvement chain’s 2570 North Elston location. Days later, someone returned to the store and said the purchase was for a tax-exempt church. A store employee accepted the tax-exempt documents and issued the representative a $900 gift card for the tax value.

Taxes on the purchase were $555, and that receipt was recycled for three years to make over 6,000 gift cards. Many of those cards had $900 on them.

“Cashiers scanned the receipt bar code from an accomplice’s phone each time, manually entered the tax exemption information, and then cut a gift card for the difference,” the report continued, noting some of the cashiers made several gift cards for the same purchase at one time, and some had a copy of the receipt saved on their phones to use.

He said the company was investing in more security guards, lighting, and additional lighting in parking lots, along with recording towers, in order to remedy the problem.

“And it’s not a place that many of us in retail thought we’d have to be,” he added.In December, an 83-year-old Home Depot worker in North Carolina died after reportedly being shoved by an alleged shoplifter, according to Breitbart News.

Gary Rasor, the victim, was allegedly assaulted at the store in Hillsborough when he tried to confront a man who was allegedly stealing pressure washers.

“Rasor suffered several fractured bones, and he was in the hospital for weeks and unable to walk. His condition worsened after he viewed footage of the incident for the first time, according to his wife,” the outlet said.

BLACKS APPEAR TO BE THE MOST VIOLENT SUBCULTURE IN THE WORLD

Witnesses described the  suspect as a black man wearing a gold chain and a navy shirt, the Daily Mail said. Officers called a Level One Mobilization and have a person in custody, but did not confirm the suspect’s description. New York City Councilmember Erik Bottcher said  the man had “mental health issues.”

Police: Suspect Stabbed Multiple People Outside Famous New York City Bakery

5

iStock/Getty Images Plus

ELAINE MALLON

27 Jul 2023105

3:01

A man is in custody after stabbing two people with scissors outside of Magnolia’s Bakery in West Village in New York City on Wednesday morning.

A 911 call was made at 9:58 a.m. First responders arrived on the scene quickly to treat the victims, Citizen reported.  The man allegedly slashed a 24-year-old man in the arm and another man in the neck, the Daily Mail reported. Both are in stable condition.

Witnesses described the  suspect as a black man wearing a gold chain and a navy shirt, the Daily Mail said. Officers called a Level One Mobilization and have a person in custody, but did not confirm the suspect’s description. New York City Councilmember Erik Bottcher said  the man had “mental health issues.”

Eli Klein, 45, witnessed the attack while he was walking with his wife and infant daughter on the sidewalk. They ran away as soon as the incident broke out.

“It happened so close – it was 10, 15ft away – and we were on the same side of the sidewalk,” Klein told the DailyMail. “Normally I would stop to help the guy or take a picture of the suspect and give it to the police but in this instance, I had my baby with me, we just ran, we didn’t wait.”

Owner of a nearby art gallery and a lifelong resident of New York, Klein said crime has become a greater worry.

“We’ve seen a steady decrease since whenever it was, decades ago, but unfortunately the decrease has stopped,” Klein told the DailyMail. “It’s not like it was in the 1980s or the early 90s, when it was much worse than this, but you want things to keep getting better and the improvement, the overall trajectory, has stopped.”

 Crime statistics from November 2022 revealed just how prevalent violence and lawlessness have become in the big apple.

Breitbart News’s Amy Furr reported:

Crime in New York City increased over the past year but New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) claims data did not show bail reform as being the problem.

The New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) recent crime statistics show that year to date, rape was up 10.9 percent, robbery up 32.4 percent, burglary up 29.1 percent, and grand larceny up 38.5 percent.

During an interview Friday on CNN, Hochul asserted that “the data is not showing” that bail reform is causing the surge in crime, and “There are individual cases, but compared to pre-pandemic and when this was passed, I don’t think there’s a real disparity.”

The New York Bail Reform law went into effect on January 1, 2020.

Researchers from John Jay College of Criminal Justice found that more than 72 percent of violent crime suspects freed without bail were rearrested, compared to fewer than 62 percent who were rearrested before the bail reform law, Breitbart News reported.

James Lee Ramsey, 27, allegedly kicked the elderly victim to the ground just after 11 a.m. Friday on Ellis Street, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office said Tuesday.

88-Year-Old Asian Woman Faces Life-Threatening Injuries After Unprovoked Attack in San Francisco

Getty Images

Thomas McKenna

July 26, 2023

A California man is under arrest after he allegedly violently assaulted an elderly woman in San Francisco last week, as crime rises and businesses leave the city.

After spitting in the face of another victim, 27-year-old James Lee Ramsey allegedly kicked the 88-year-old Asian-American woman to the ground Friday morning in downtown San Francisco, according to Fox News. Bystanders detained Ramsey until police arrived. The woman was brought to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.

The unprovoked attack comes as San Francisco struggles with out-of-control crime, drug use, and homelessness that are driving businesses out of the city and state. Homicides and fentanyl deaths in San Francisco have both spiked in the past three years, with homicides increasing nearly 40 percent. More than half a million residents fled California in the two years after the pandemic’s start, according to the New York Post. More than 350 companies left California between 2018 and 2021, according to the California Globe.

Ramsey was charged with felony elder abuse and assault, as well as two misdemeanors for battery and vandalism.

San Francisco district attorney Brooke Jenkins called Ramsey's alleged crimes "horrific" and said she is "fed up with brazen violence."

Jenkins took office last July after her predecessor, Chesa Boudin, was recalled. During his stint as DA, Boudin ended cash bail and announced he would not prosecute a slew of misdemeanors, including prostitution and public urination.

Published under: California , Crime , San Francisco

Five-Year-Old on Cocaine Fatally Shoots 16-Month-Old on Marijuana

1

Laurent Hamels/Getty Images

AWR HAWKINS

27 Jul 20230

2:22

A five-year-old Indiana boy, allegedly high on cocaine, shot and killed his 16-month-old brother, who was allegedly high on marijuana, in March of this year.

The Daily Mail reported that 27-year-old Deonta Jermaine Johnson was in the apartment asleep when the five-year-old allegedly shot 16-month-old Isiah Johnson in the head.

CBS News noted that Johnson is the father of the deceased 16-month-old, not the five-year-old.

Initially, Johnson allegedly denied having a gun and claimed the 16-month-old had fallen or was otherwise injured by his brother. As police searched the apartment, they found a gun locked in a safe and another “in the drawer of a dresser,” according to the Daily Mail. Officers also discovered “93 fentanyl pills, marijuana, and drug paraphernalia inside the apartment.”

Prosecutors have since charged Johnson and 24-year-old Shatia Tiara Welch “with neglect and various drug charges.” Johnson also faces obstruction of justice charges for allegedly taking marijuana out of the apartment and hiding it in his car before officers arrived on the scene.

Deonta Jermaine Johnson, 27, and Shatia Tiara Welch, 24 (LaPorte Police Department)

On April 15, 2023, the day of Isiah’s funeral, Welch posted on Facebook, “Today has been the hardest day of my life. HOW Tf do I say goodbye to my son my one-year-old baby? S*** so crazy I lost my best friend March 28th my life will NEVER be the same.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

33 Shot in Chicago in Bloody Weekend Under Soft-on-Crime Mayor

A crime scene in Chicago, 2021 (Getty Images)

Thomas McKenna

July 25, 2023

A slew of weekend shootings over the weekend left at least 33 shot—with 6 dead and 27 wounded—in Chicago, where the Democratic mayor has called "defund the police" a "real political goal."

The city has averaged 13 homicides per week in the past year, compared with 10 per week in 2019, according to a local ABC affiliate. The bloody weekend was the deadliest this month.

The shootings come under the tenure of recently elected mayor Brandon Johnson, who took office in May after arguing the city should "have health professionals, not police, respond to crisis calls." He was the only candidate who did not support filling the 1,600 vacancies in the Chicago Police Department. Johnson’s predecessor, former mayor Lori Lightfoot, pushed similar soft-on-crime policies that included hiring mental health workers "to respond to 911 calls."

The City Council is set to hold a hearing titled "Treatment, Not Trauma," which aims to reform how the police respond to mental health crises.

After a violent weekend in April in which hundreds of juveniles wreaked havoc downtown, Johnson said the smashed windows and wounded bystanders were due to a lack of "spaces for youth to gather safely." The city sent "peacekeepers" into the streets to stop violence during Memorial Day weekend but subsequently charged a man wearing a peacekeeper’s vest in connection with a street scuffle.

Published under: Brandon Johnson , Chicago , Crime

33 Shot in Chicago in Bloody Weekend Under Soft-on-Crime Mayor

A crime scene in Chicago, 2021 (Getty Images)

Thomas McKenna

July 25, 2023

A slew of weekend shootings over the weekend left at least 33 shot—with 6 dead and 27 wounded—in Chicago, where the Democratic mayor has called "defund the police" a "real political goal."

The city has averaged 13 homicides per week in the past year, compared with 10 per week in 2019, according to a local ABC affiliate. The bloody weekend was the deadliest this month.

The shootings come under the tenure of recently elected mayor Brandon Johnson, who took office in May after arguing the city should "have health professionals, not police, respond to crisis calls." He was the only candidate who did not support filling the 1,600 vacancies in the Chicago Police Department. Johnson’s predecessor, former mayor Lori Lightfoot, pushed similar soft-on-crime policies that included hiring mental health workers "to respond to 911 calls."

The City Council is set to hold a hearing titled "Treatment, Not Trauma," which aims to reform how the police respond to mental health crises.

After a violent weekend in April in which hundreds of juveniles wreaked havoc downtown, Johnson said the smashed windows and wounded bystanders were due to a lack of "spaces for youth to gather safely." The city sent "peacekeepers" into the streets to stop violence during Memorial Day weekend but subsequently charged a man wearing a peacekeeper’s vest in connection with a street scuffle.

Published under: Brandon Johnson