July 24, 2017
Chicago violence is overwhelming police
capabilities and spreading beyond gang strongholds
Carl Sandburg indelibly
dubbed Chicago "hog butcher for the world," though swine are no
longer[i] massacred
there. But slaughter remains part of the city's global image, as every
weekend sees multiple deaths from gang warfare (this weekend's total is 6 dead, 35 wounded). Until recently, the
remaining affluent tax-paying residents, the ones occupying expensive condos
and townhouses near the lake, for instance, were able to comfort themselves
that the bloodshed was largely confined to a couple of districts to the south
and west of their Northside enclaves.
That assumption is
crumbling, as CWB Chicago reports gang warfare at one of
the city's crown jewels, on the lakeshore just north of downtown and Lincoln
Park:
Shootout Near Lakefront
Golf Course Stuns Duffers: "There was definitely a handgun and a shotgun
and they fired back and forth," Cop Says
A gang-related shootout
on the lakefront left Lakeview golfers stunned, but nobody injured Sunday
morning at the Sydney Marovitz Golf Course parking lot, according to witness
reports and police sources.
No one is in custody.
Gunfire between rival
gang members erupted around 8:10 a.m. apparently after one man approached
another and asked for his affiliation.
Multiple witnesses
reported that one man fired a shotgun and the other fired a handgun in the
conflict which unfolded at the east end of the parking lot. Shell casings were
recovered at the scene.
A policeman on scene
stated that "there was definitely a handgun and a shotgun and they fired
back and forth."
It is bad enough that
gang warfare is spreading to the affluent lakefront. But the thieves, who
were spotted driving away in luxury cars – an Acura and a Beemer – got away.
Even worse:
About 30 minutes after
the gunfire, golfers summoned police to the course after seeing two men who
were in the area of the shooting ducking in and out of brush along Marovitz's
east fence line.
A carload of men was
stopped nearby, but the city's link to a national crime database was offline,
and officers could not verify the occupants' identities, gang affiliations, or
warrant information, according to an officer.
"If that's not officer safety issue, I don't know what is," one said.
"If that's not officer safety issue, I don't know what is," one said.
Witnesses to the
shooting refused to help cops determine if any of the car's passengers were
involved in the gun incident and officers were forced to set the carload of men
free.
CWBChicago later
verified through a source that at least one occupant of the car is a
17-year-old member of the La Raza street gang.
We see the elements of a
complete breakdown of civil order brewing.
1. Police: Organizational
decay leading to incompetence.
2. Public fear of gangs
dries up witnesses.
3. Gangs (the wolves) are
dividing up the territory (the sheep) as opportunity beckons.
As for point 1, the
website Second City Cop is an invaluable source for
charting the decline of police capability there. It comments this
morning:
The LEADS system has
been down for two or more days now, rendering the entire Department incapable
of running plates, verifying licenses, checking names. And no word on when it
will be back.
LEADS is the Law Enforcement Agencies Data System, meaning
that the CPD is working in a pre-internet mode, cut off from the information
revolution.
On points 2 and 3, CWB
Chicago provides photos of gang tags at the golf course:
"Rival gang tags mark the lakefront wall just steps from this morning's shooting scene. Photo from June 2017."
"More gang tags at the lakefront near today's incident. The photo was taken earlier this month."
The ongoing gang
violence has pulled police resources away from the city's more affluent areas,
creating an opportunity there for thugs from districts of the city populated by
large numbers of youths who grew up without fathers.
Gangs already openly
gather for parties where the law is flouted, as police are so outmanned and
outgunned that they give up and acknowledge a lawless territory within their
purview. A precedent exists for far worse, if the vector continues.
The City of Chicago is
poised on the slippery slope toward criminal anarchy, the likes of which we
associate with Johannesburg, São Paulo, and other third-world megacities where
personal safety cannot be assumed when in public.
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