CHICAGO | Politics and Current Events

[Vlajos]

Brandon calls this silly?

https://wgntv.com/news/chicagocrime/girls-13-and-15-face-felonies-for-robbery-and-battery/

[twister244]

Originally Posted by Klippenstein

You mean this response? Seems to make sense to me. Or did you just hear the sound bites?

Like I said, I’m surprised the moderators are allowing this to be focused on so much. It’s not a generative topic because of how people are distorting each other's viewpoint and it’s gone on ad nauseam.

Or maybe you're upset because the vast majority of people here think what BJ said was idiotic and representative of his naive thinking with respect to public safety in our city.

And yes, we are going to groan about it because we are going to have to put up with this — for four years. Everyone was hopeful that someone new would come in and send the era of LL in our rearview mirror, not introduce another — show.

[Klippenstein]

Originally Posted by twister244

Or maybe you're upset because the vast majority of people here think what BJ said was idiotic and representative of his naive thinking with respect to public safety in our city.

And yes, we are going to groan about it because we are going to have to put up with this — for four years. Everyone was hopeful that someone new would come in and send the era of LL in our rearview mirror, not introduce another — show.

So you’re not gonna respond to the news about his appointment? If not, I’m done reading people’s complaints.

[jpIllInoIs]

So what's the recall procedure? BJ won by a thin margin. Im sure the turn out to recall would be very high after seeing his early responses to hooliganism.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by jpIllInoIs

So what's the recall procedure? BJ won by a thin margin. Im sure the turn out to recall would be very high after seeing his early responses to hooliganism.

We have none. And it would probably fail anyway. Look at all the leftist crimInal coddlers in the city

[Tom In Chicago]

Originally Posted by Klippenstein

So you’re not gonna respond to the news about his appointment? If not, I’m done reading people’s complaints.

What's your point?

. . .

[ChiMIchael]

Originally Posted by jpIllInoIs

So what's the recall procedure? BJ won by a thin margin. Im sure the turn out to recall would be very high after seeing his early responses to hooliganism.

This comment just proves how butthurt some are that he won and the discussion has gone way beyond constructive criticism. I'd rather he gets recalled for some he actually did while in office.

At least let the man get sworn in...

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

mean, the total homicides, total shootings, and general all-around violent lawlessness compared against the other largest cities bear this out.

And it's sadly been this way for like 6 — decades now.

Tens of thousands of mostly young, black, male lives mowed down by the game.


AND.

NOTHING.

EVER.

CHANGES.

This is an international embarrassment. If you ever want to see the true nature of America, spend a week on the West Side or South Side.

Nothing will ever change until we eliminate disinvestment in the neighborhoods where these kids are growing up. All other policy proposals are —. There's only one solution and that's repairing the rot we've allowed to set in over entire quadrants of this city.

Originally Posted by moorhosj1

No doubt some will keep making excuses for CPD. This shows us that they were in fact there and had the manpower to actual do something. They chose not to. Anyone who lives in the city has had an experience like this. Probably why the "more cops" guy didn't win the election.

If there is video of these cops driving away like this they should all be fired and charges pressed against them. Criminal negligence to do something like this.

Originally Posted by Tom In Chicago

Yeah. . . this is kind of how I feel about things too. . . but I knew that going into it when I moved here 30 years ago. . . having grown up in Chicagoland the stories of crime and corruption were on the nightly news all through the 1980s and yet that didn't stop me from moving here. . .

Unfortunately this is true. People forget Chicago has been this way since it was a trading post on the frontier of the "Wild West". As unacceptable as these events were, it's also generally not advisable to exchange words with an unruly mob. If they shove you then you keep walking, you don't stoke the situation. Not to blame the victims here, but this is a real city, you don't try to play hero and obtain justice for your girlfriend being shoved.

Originally Posted by galleyfox

You don’t want to hear the real opinion of international communities. It would make Vlajos sound like a progressive.

In China they would just run them all over with tanks and firehose the pulp down the drain.

Originally Posted by moorhosj1

Over 60 countries had protests against police misconduct and militarization after George Floyd was murdered.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_George_Floyd_protests_outside_the_United_States

You are including Russia, Iran, China, and other authoritarian kleptocracies with egregious human rights records in that number. These are places where protests are simply not allowed... Unless they are beneficial to the regime.

Originally Posted by Handro

Everyone is to blame.

When's the last time anyone in this thread spent a penny outside of downtown, the North Side, the NW side, or the gentrifying areas of the SW and S side?

Bueller?

We are all to blame if we expect to live in our little bucolic new urbanist bubbles with zero consequence to the fact that we've all accepted that there are just massive "no go" zones full of people we never think about.

Eliminate disinvestment and you will eliminate the problem.

Originally Posted by jpIllInoIs

hooliganism.

Fun fact: The etymology of this word is literally English Bobbies in London being unable to properly pronounce an Irish surname and instead saying "Hooligans". There was apparently a massive clan of Houlihans in London that were particularly known for brawls and acts of mass disobediance and the bastardized pronunciation stuck as a catch all for mob action. My last name is literally the root of this word.

[twister244]

Originally Posted by Klippenstein

So you’re not gonna respond to the news about his appointment? If not, I’m done reading people’s complaints.

The discussion here has been around BJ's comments - They were ridiculous and completely tone deaf. Not to mention, he's making these comments after being elected, which gives some hint as to how he plans on governing as a mayor.

Hence some of our grievances.

[Vlajos]

My company just told us to feel free to leave early due to expected chaos downtown later today and tonight.

[left of center]

Again? So now every weekend we have to worry about chaos in the city because no politician wants to stand up to a bunch of punk teenagers? I am embarrassed for my city.

[moorhosj1]

Originally Posted by twister244

The discussion here has been around BJ's comments - They were ridiculous and completely tone deaf. Not to mention, he's making these comments after being elected, which gives some hint as to how he plans on governing as a mayor.

Hence some of our grievances.

I think the point is that his actual actions, like his choice Chief of Staff announced yesterday, tells more of a story of "how he plans on governing" than a comment from Monday.

You focus like a laser on the words and completely ignore the actions. One fits the narrative, so you amplify for going on 5 days. The other doesn't fit the narrative, so you completely ignore it.

[Chisouthside]

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/do...wing-disruptive-teen-gatherings/3124243/

[VivaLFuego]

Originally Posted by galleyfox

In that regard, Klippenstein has a point that there’s not that many people with means left in neighborhoods like Englewood and Garfield Park to lose to the suburbs.

Households that make <$30K don’t really have a choice where they end up in the metro. Often the suburbs are the cheapest and sometimes only option.

Also most households are having far fewer children regardless of where they live in the country. Even though vacancy in many violent neighborhoods is probably the lowest in over a decade, they won’t see any population gains without the ability to afford new construction.

No real disagreements. Regarding the decline in child-bearing - it's true, but you can browse ISBE report cards for various districts and see that many suburban districts' enrollment has basically held steady or only declined slightly, in contrast to CPS (although, some suburban districts have declined even more than CPS).

Living in a low-income majority-minority community for the past few years, I have been struck by how enormous a difference that a dedicated and invested core of merely 1-2% of the population can make with their time, knowledge, money, and/ot motivation to make and keep things livable for the entire community - and it's all the more striking because the per capita budget and expenditures for public services is so much lower than in the City, because there isn't much of a tax base.

Until the City's entire public policy framework encourages private investment in these neighborhoods - particularly for people of means to dwell there and bring/keep their spending power and political advocacy and knowledgebase with them - there won't be any measurable improvement.

One large TIF-subsidized development every 10-20 years at a prominent intersection (Invest South/West style) can certainly help a little, but it isn't going to make a dent on its own, and it doesn't send a strong signal for anyone else to come in and make unsubsidized investment.

Originally Posted by galleyfox

There’s a good possibility that many of the people from tonight are responsible for violence in their own neighborhoods.

Commendably droll understatement.

[skysoar]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

My company just told us to feel free to leave early due to expected chaos downtown later today and tonight.

I hope not, but where did your company get that information from. I have heard nothing of the sort,[ expected] I hope we are not making things up. I plan on going downtown later, but I have not heard of any impending trouble. But since you said expected I will be sure to let people know tomorrow how true it is. If that happens again heads had better roll....

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by skysoar

I hope not, but where did your company get that information from. I have heard nothing of the sort,[ expected] I hope we are not making things up. I plan on going downtown later, but I have not heard of any impending trouble. But since you said expected I will be sure to let people know tomorrow how true it is. If that happens again heads had better roll....

Downtown is teeming with cops right now with nary a teen in sight from my place on Madison. I saw maybe two teens on my walk home from millennium station around 6 pm. But who knows, maybe later or a different area.

At the very least, there was certainly planning, whether or not the teens decide to show up...

[SIGSEGV]

BJ's chief of staff:

Rich Guidice said he has spent the last few days “participating in after-action conversations” to make certain sufficient police personnel and “city assets” are downtown this weekend.

He called last weekend’s flat-footed performance by the Chicago Police Department “unacceptable,” but argued the circumstances were unique.

“We received some late information regarding what was actually trending. We had some unusually warm days in April. ... But that’s beside the point,” he said.

“Leading into this weekend, we’ve already made a lot of adjustments. We have infrastructure assets that are on site in the downtown area. We have additional teams on site. Undercover police personnel on site. Just a lot more coordination. This morning, we had a coordination call regarding the potential for trends that are coming downtown. So, we’re in a better place to make better decisions.”

https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2...ice-response-johnson-chief-staff-guidice

[moorhosj1]

CPD is such a joke. For those talking about the supposed lack of resources, they somehow managed 5 dozen police cruisers on one street, on a Friday night (plus all the others nearby). It seems the kids never showed up.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/4/21/2...nium-park-loop-security-weekend-violence

More than 60 CPD vehicles, including a mobile command center, lined Randolph Street near Michigan Avenue. Dozens more were scattered throughout the surrounding streets.

Officers also lined the streets, many near Randolph and Michigan, while pedestrians strolled by on their way into the park.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Have the twerking teens driven every last business out of downtown yet? They basically just embarrassed CPD by not showing up when expected.

[Tom In Chicago]

^Wait for nicer weather. . .

. . .