Chicago’s rising violent crime: How to hold
politicians and judges accountable? Connect the dots.
By John Kass
Over
the Labor Day weekend, the people of Chicago will have two things on their
minds:
What to
grill.
And how
not to get killed.
Like
that Sox fan driving home from a baseball game, getting caught between
street gang crossfires on the expressway, with more than 150 expressway
shootings already this year, more than double since last year.
Or they
might get shot off their porch. Or stabbed in the neck in a bank lobby downtown
or perhaps, murdered by some repeat violent offender waiting trial, out now on
low or no bail or electronic home monitoring because the politicians showed him
mercy.
Not
mercy for you. No mercy for the public. But mercy for repeat violent offenders.
That’s
where we are now, facing the consequences of those good liberal Democratic
intentions that have helped pave Chicago’s Road to violent crime hell.
Violent
crime is the number one issue in Chicago.
There is no other issue.
The
city is suffering a 50 percent jump in murders compared to 2019, and thousands
of shootings. Carjackings have tripled. And all the media and political
cheerleading about the wonders of the once-wonderful city won’t make people
forget how they feel.
They
feel afraid. And they have every reason to be.
Just
the other night on the 400 block North State Street, two men were beaten and robbed,
slammed to the ground, and kicked, all of it recorded on that viral video so
many are still talking about,
It’s
all in that video reported by CWB Chicago, my go-to source for crime news. The
video CWB presented shows the merciless beating, and a group of women off the
side twerked up a storm, working their pelvises while the beating victims are
humiliated, robbed of their money, even their shoes.
It was
horrific, the demons unleashed, like something out of Hieronymus Bosch.
But it
wasn’t Bosch. It wasn’t art. It was real and happened on the 400 block of North
State Street just a short stroll from what once was Chicago’s Magnificent Mile.
And things like this kill the city.
The
other day on The Chicago Way podcast,
Jeff Carlin and I were talking with Kristen McQueary about how best to cover
crime.
McQueary
is my former editor, and the editor of the editorial page at the Tribune. She
should be running a news shop in this town.
“There
are entities on Twitter that do a better job of explaining what happens in bond
court than the newspapers, or tv stations or radio stations,” she said. “Every
time someone is released on electronic monitoring or commits a violent act but
they’re bonding out, the name of the judge should be in the paper, the
circumstances.
“Those
should be the stories we’re seeing every day so that there’s more connecting of
the dots and holding individual judges accountable. They’re elected officials
too. And I don’t think there’s enough exposure there as well.”
One of
those entities is CWB. And CWB connects the dots while
reporting on its growing list of people charged with violent crime while out on
bail while charged with felonies.
I just
wish the other news shops would, too. I know there’s a shortage of
reporters, and those who remain are completely overworked, as are assignment
editors and newspaper editors.
Chicago
media makes do with a weekend’s litany of the dead.
But
litanies of the dead simply aren’t enough to hold elected officials, and
elected judges, to account.
A few
days after that River North beating, my wife and I were at a friend’s birthday
party just a few blocks to the northwest from where the beating took place. We
sat at a restaurant along the river at dusk, the food was superb, as was the
wine. On the far bank I could see the printing plant of the paper I once worked
for.
And all
anyone was talking about was violent Chicago crime and how the politicians
aren’t being held accountable.
They
talked about that CWB video.
“They
kept beating them and beating them,” said a Chicago woman who loves the city
and aches for what it’s become. “And the women twerking. Twerking while men
were being beaten? It was hideous.”
It is
hideous. And it’s Chicago. Not the Chicago you’ll read about in cheerleading
stories. The Chicago that people live in, or run from.
A
friend owns a restaurant in River North. The constant threat of street violence
is killing his business. His is a great restaurant, one of my favorites. He’s
so particular about the food he serves that he’ll take three days to prepare
demi-glace just for the peppers and sausage.
But customers
now avoid the area for good reason. They don’t feel safe.
“I’m
not a cop, but this ain’t rocket science,” said Ald. Brendan Reilly in a tweet.
“Put foot patrols back in River North to get this s–t under control.”
It’s
not under control, Ald. Reilly. We all know it’s not under control.
As I
write this, Chicago has a new downtown murder to talk about: Jessica
Vilaythong, 24, an employee of Chase Bank, at 600 N. Dearborn. She was stabbed
in the neck by a random goon in the lobby, and on Friday as I write this news
is breaking that she died. Police were questioning a person of interest.
But
she’ll be forgotten through Chicago’s defense mechanism: forgetting the names
of those who float away in the city’s river of violence.
The
people know the criminal justice system is broken, but they don’t know who to
hold responsible for breaking it, or who is refusing to fix the system so that
it works for the law-abiding. To the political class, they just don’t count.
And
though news shops in town are understaffed, the politicians have plenty of
people to spin the news their way, and taxpayers pay for the privilege of
having these distractors wave shiny objects even as they’re slapped in the
mouth.
My
friend Jeff Carlin, a longtime Chicago radio producer and co-host of The
Chicago Way podcast says that as local news shops continue to thin out, there
is no real mechanism left to hold elected officials accountable.
“They
[elected officials] have walled themselves off behind phalanxes of coms
teams, adjusting their messages and putting out their own stories timed with
keywords specifically to get above the other stuff, outthinking the zeitgeist
and keeping the status quo in check,” Carlin said.
Bingo.
Mayor
Lori Lightfoot takes the heat for rising crime. And yes, she should take that
heat. She’s the mayor and her idiotic war with rank-and-file cops, demonizing
police, hasn’t helped. But she’s not the only one.
What of
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, the catch-and-release prosecutor?
In a
recent WGN TV/Emerson College news poll, violent crime is the number one issue
in Chicago. Lightfoot is under water, with some 46 percent disapproving of the
job Lightfoot is doing, and only 42.5 percent approve.
Only
34.7% of Chicagoans polled approve of the job Foxx is doing, with 47.7%
disapproving, and 15.9% unsure or have no opinion.
Foxx
reacted to the poll by reverting to failsafe ploy, the race card.
“And we
need to stop oversimplifying the criminal justice system and critically examine
all the factors influencing violence in our communities. This means not relying
on data from a cherry-picked poll that only examines two actors in a broad
system and who happen to be Black women.”
Pathetic,
yes, but effective in Cook County where Democrats rule and play race like
maestros play music. She’ll play the race card for as long as can get away with
it. And she’s been getting away with it for years.
Lightfoot
takes the heat and stands by impotently as the Obama Machine and former Mayor
Rahm Emanuel and his money guys groom another hapless suit for the job:
Former
Obama Education Secretary, Arne “The White Shadow” Duncan.
Duncan
gets glowing media. And Lightfoot, scowling, wears the jacket.
And
Foxx? She just won re-election with Lightfoot’s endorsement. And she’s backed
by her political patron, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, the boss
of the Cook County Democratic Organization. Foxx’s qualifications for the post
of top prosecutor? She was Preckwinkle’s gofer.
Whoever
wants to be mayor will kiss Preckwinkle’s ring. And Preckwinkle—credited for
emptying the Cook County jail, reshaping the new social justice bond court, and
elevating Foxx—can slide away.
And
what of Cook County Chief Judge Tim
Evans, who gutted his bond court and installed new “compassionate”
judges who’ve put so many violent repeat criminals on his electronic home
monitoring program?
He
slides away, too. Tim has always been good at sliding away from disasters he
helped cause.
What I
don’t see:
I don’t
see packs of reporters hounding Foxx, Preckwinkle, and Evans on the crime
issue. Like Carlin says, they wall themselves off behind phalanxes of comms
teams, and let Lightfoot take the beating.
“There
should be an outside-the-box way of covering crime,” McQueary said. “We’re
contributing to the numbness that allows this to continue to happen, among the
electorate by just reporting every Monday or Friday, the numbers. you know,
treating human beings and tragedies as numbers that go up and down, comparing
them to the previous year. Little nuggets about where and when something
happened, the age of the victim, you know a bulleted countdown of people killed
over the weekend.”
But
that’s not enough.
Like I
keep saying, people vote with their feet. Or they vote with their wheels.
And
they just drive away.
(Copyright
2021 John Kass)