Mixed message on urban violence

Call it the advantage of multiple news organizations reporting happenings – we get a more-thorough picture of reality.

Or perhaps it is the concept of dueling news organizations – with the various sides unable to agree on what they want the message to be. Which still results in a greater picture of what is occurring within our society.

THOUGHTS THAT RUN through my mind as I peruse reports by the Chicago Sun-Times and WBBM-TV – both of which purport to be about the levels of violent crime and murder that are occurring in Chicago.

With some individuals of a certain ideological leaning eager to want to believe that the city of Chicago is amongst the grubbiest, grossest, most violent places that exist within the United States – if not anywhere on Planet Earth.

Which is a gross exaggeration, although there are certain neighborhoods where the levels of violence seem so intense that we have to wonder how we as a people could ever have let conditions get so out of hand in those places. Although many of us choose to cope with such conditions by ignoring such places altogether.

The Sun-Times took the angle in a story published Monday that this very weekend that marks the half-way point through 2019 is yet another of a bloody morass that is modern-day Chicago.

THE HEADLINE ALONE says it all – 56 shot – 4 fatally – in Chicago over weekend.

With a subhead pointing out one incident alone on Saturday where five people were shot on the Near West Side, although in that incident, it should be noted that all five individuals were able to get themselves to area hospitals where they were ‘treated and released’ for their wounds.

Bloodshed galore. It’s a wonder we don’t have Donald Trump engaging in yet another Twitter-motivated rant about how gory Chicago has become.

But then, there was the CBS-operated station in Chicago, which came out with a story the same morning indicating the number of shootings in Chicago are down for 2019 – compared to the past.

ALTHOUGH WBBM-TV INDICATED that this was a particularly harsh weekend of violence in Chicago, overall, it seems there are signs of improvement.

Some 1,229 shootings in Chicago through Sunday – about 100 less than the first half of 2018 and lower than any year since 2015.

Also, we have 236 murders in Chicago thus far this year – which the TV reports indicate is 21 less than the fist half of last year.

And certainly might put Chicago at about 260 or so slayings for this year – if things continue at this rate. Far less than the recent years when the homicide totals reached 700 or more (or the late 1980s when Chicago would easily come close to 1,000 murders annually.

SO WAS THIS Chicago Police Department spin control in trying to give us a bigger picture about the amount of violence and crime occurring in Chicago? Or is it ideological prattle to come up with tales of how bloody and out-of-control the city was on this past weekend?

Or is it really evidence that “facts” can be found to justify any point of view one wants to take on just about any issue.

Personally, I’m inclined to think that some people use the story of urban violence in such ways as to confirm whatever ideological hang-ups they have about life and our society – wanting to further lambast whomever or whatever they have contempt for.

Then again, to those four people who were killed this weekend prior to Independence Day in Chicago this year, it WAS a most-tragic period of time – a moment that their families will forevermore mourn for its great loss!

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Chicago’s homicide rate down for another year, but is anyone swayed?

For the second straight year, it appears Chicago’s tally of homicide will decline, and certainly isn’t anywhere near how high it reached back in the days of some three decades ago.

Workload not as violent, but it doesn't feel easier

Yet let’s be honest; I have no doubt that the instant another incident occurs that we’ll get another diatribe from Donald Trump and his ilk about just how god-awfully violent the Second City is.

AS THOUGH THE key to our improvement is to replace our elected officials with people inclined to sympathize with this Age of Trump we now live in. Allowing ourselves to be perceived as “blue” and the reason why Illinois is so intensely hostile toward Republican interests is the real reason for the diatribes.

For I doubt the people who make such absurd statements really care about the conditions in Chicago. It’s just another partisan piece of rhetoric they can use against the political opposition.

I doubt they care in the least about the people who actually have to suffer in the parts of Chicago that provide the bulk of the incidents that comprise most of the city’s homicide rate. If anything, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the ideologues who most complain about the city’s statistics related to violence think the people who are the brunt of the incidents are to blame for their own circumstances.

That’s the reason why I have such hostile reactions toward anybody who tries to make an issue of the homicide total – which in coming days is going to get another update.

FOR WE’RE IN a New Year. As of Friday (Dec. 28), there had been 570 people killed by the deliberate actions of another human being (which is the very definition of ‘homicide’). When one adds in the weekend running through incidents as late as midnight Monday, that’s bound to increase a bit.

But it would take a total bloodbath for the death tally for Chicago to exceed the 675 of 2017, which itself was lower than 2016 – which is starting to appear more and more like some sort of statistical fluke.

Rather than a return to the days of the late 1980s into the early 1990s, when it was typical for there to be between 900 and 1,000 homicides per year – which means the recent spurt isn’t even close to what this city used to experience.

Not all explosions are celebratory fireworks

I’ll be honest and admit that era sticks in my mind particularly harshly; largely because that’s back in the day when I worked for the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago and the daily activity of the Chicago Police was on the forefront of my mind.

BUT EVEN THEN, the bulk of violent crime in Chicago was contained to certain neighborhoods. There were parts of Chicago where a single violent death would be considered a major headline, while other parts of Chicago would have so many incidents that most of them were never covered beyond anybody but a “City News” kid reporter.

The sad part of this story is that, according to a Chicago Tribune report on Monday, it appears the leading police districts for violent crime will be Harrison on the West Side and Englewood on the South.

Which, to be honest, were the leaders for violent crime back in my own police reporting days.

It’s as though nothing has changed, and certain parts of Chicago continue to get the brunt of everything that is wrong with the city – while other parts manage to benefit from the city’s improvements of recent decades.

WHICH IS WHAT I’m sure the ideologues will complain is some form of hypocrisy on the part of Chicagoans – talking up our strengths while ignoring those of us who don’t fall into certain demographics.

TRUMP: Numbers won't matter, he'll complain!

Yet I’d also note that the ideologues are more than willing to see certain peoples amongst us (most often, the ones of us whose complexion doesn’t resemble their own in the least) continue to suffer from violence and the other societal problems that are brought about by such attitudes.

As in they’re merely interested in using a high homicide tally to tag the rest of us with a dirty brush. And as for the people who will suffer, I can’t help but think of those who (invariably) will perish in the early hours of Tuesday – starting off a new year with the same ol’ nonsense,

You just know someone will be hit by stray shrapnel from a nitwit who thinks the way to kick of 2019 is to fire off a weapon into the air; hitting an unintended target several blocks away.

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A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): Not living up to bloody reputation Trump tries to tag our city with?

Whatever shall Donald J. Trump have rants about when he sits at his keyboard and taps out another 140-character missive meant to make himself feel better about his existence?

TRUMP: He should stifle self on Chicago

For a common topic for Trump to get worked up over is the homicide rate for Chicago, which is actually running a little bit lower this year compared to last but is still significantly higher than it has been in most recent years.

BUT FOR THE time period stretching from Feb. 26 through Saturday, there were no deaths in Chicago caused by any other human being's deliberate actions. On Sunday, a 23-year-old man was shot repeatedly in the Austin neighborhood, dying from his wounds. You have to go back to a week in December of 2009 to find a stretch of time with less fatal activity than we had in Chicago this past week.

Now as the Chicago Tribune points out, we have had more shootings occur in Chicago this year compared to last. But fewer fatalities. People are surviving. Which is good.

For everybody except Trump and his miscreant followers who are absolutely determined to look down upon the Second City. My own suspicion is they are bitter that a Chicagoan provided our society with the president they came to despise so intensely because he was so unlike them, so they're going to keep up the rants for as long as they're alive.

Maybe we'd hear less ranting about Chicago if the city hadn't been so overwhelmingly opposed to Trump last Election Day that his campaign might have been somewhat competitive in Illinois and this state might have joined other Great Lakes/Rust Belt states like Michigan and Ohio in backing the Trumpster.

De Blasio: Ate a Portillos, but prefers Nathans

WE'D BE HEARING more about New York or Los Angeles or the neighborhoods of Washington, D.C., that many of us don't have a clue even exist. Anacostia?

Even New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, in Chicago for a speaking engagement last week said he was tired of hearing Trump's Chicago rants, adding they surprise him because Trump himself is not some rural bumpkin but a genuine Noo Yawker.

Although I'd argue the view on the 69th floor of the Trump Tower in Manhattan provides a much different glimpse of urban life than does living in a place like Brooklyn. Particularly if they have the Mar a Lago mansion in Florida (whom various reports have pointed out is near a Florida municipality whose crime rates per capita are remarkably similar to that of Chicago).

An old Peanuts comic strip has Lucy spew a slew of statistics for Charlie Brown about how bad their baseball team is, with the final panel having Charlie retort, "Lucy, tell your statistics to shut up!" Don't you wish we could do the same to The Donald? What else is notable about life these days on the southwestern shores of Lake Michigan?

RAUNER: Needs to find education solution

YOU WILL LISTEN TO WHAT I HAVE TO SAY!!!: Chance the Rapper, who on Friday was granted a token audience with Gov. Bruce Rauner to talk about the financial problems confronted by the Chicago Public Schools, felt the need to speak out again Monday.

Then again, he only got a half-hour, and I suspect the governor wasn't exactly subtle in letting it be known he wasn't terribly interested in hearing opinions other than his own about how the state's financial mess (which he wants us to believe is the fault of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and state Comptroller Susana Mendoza) is impacting public education programs.

Anyway, the music star who actually won a Grammy Award this year held a press conference at the Westcott Elementary School in the Auburn/Gresham neighborhood, where he made a $1 million donation to the Chicago Public Schools. People were able to watch his largess via his personal Instagram account.

Which means you could have heard the whole lot of nothing being spewed that Rauner was ignoring. Of course, I have to confess the entity that is most worthy of criticism in this whole matter are those news media organizations that felt compelled to cover any of this as though it mattered. Focusing on the trivia is the easy way of pretending to have significance, rather than pushing people to try to find a real solution to the state's financial mess.

IT'S GOOD TO BE THE KING (and Queen):  Barack and Michelle Obama may not live at their Kenwood neighborhood residence these days, but they are capable of possessing drivers' licenses issued by the state of Illinois.

Nobody gets drivers' license photos ...

The State Journal-Register newspaper in Springfield reported that the secretary of state's office issued the now-former first couple new licenses without them having to make a return trip to Illinois. The deal was done through the mail, and the state even waived the $30 renewal fee, sending the new licenses -- which used old photographs the state already had on file -- to a D.C.-area address.

... that look this good

Officials said the deal was done right about the time of Election Day, and they say they would have made a similar accomodation for anyone "serving in that office" who happened to have an Illinois license. Not that any others have had one.

It also helped that both Barack and Michelle qualified for the automatic renewal program intended for anyone who manages to go all four years without accumulating traffic tickets. Then again, it's not like Obama has been in a position to get a ticket -- unless you really think some motorcycle beat cop is going to pull over the presidential motorcade to cite the president for having a busted taillight.

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I don’t think even Trump knows what he means by “send in the Feds!”

President Donald Trump got a lot of people stirred up with his latest Tweet from a Twit, the one this week that said he would “send in the Feds” if there wasn’t a dramatic reduction in the rate of violence occurring in Chicago.

Is this really the image people think would make the streets of inner-city Chicago safe?

I suspect that getting everybody all riled up was his purpose. I don’t think Trump has a clue what the actual problem is with regards to the homicide rate in Chicago, or anywhere else in this country. I suspect he could care less – he’d probably find the details “Boring!” and want to move on to something else.

IN FACT, I suspect that with regards to his blurb on Twitter, the most significant part of it for him was the exclamation point that he put at the end of “Feds!” You’ve got to show excitement and outrage!!!!!

Actually dealing with the problem? That’s much less interesting than engaging in actions that allow you to express the sentiment that someone else is screwing up!

When Trump chose to rant on Twitter this week about the city’s homicide rate, most likely what really bothers him is that Chicago is a place where some 80 percent-plus of us are immune to his rhetorical nonsense. We are never going to be amongst the 46 percent of the electorate who actually think he makes a fit president.

So this is just the pot shot of the week at Chicago – as though we Chicagoans really care what a geeky Manhattanite (not even a real Noo Yawker) thinks about us!

IF IT HADN’T been the homicide rate, he would have found some other issue with which to try to trash us. Which ultimately is going to build up our immunity to his rants – who really cares what the cranky old man with the bad orange dye job has to say when it’s obvious he’s not based in anything resembling real fact?

Personally, I’ve noticed that some people are putting their own spin on Trump – largely because his “send in the Feds!” comment is so vague and has no real meaning.

They’d love it if the federal government were to provide all kinds of assistance in the form of Drug Enforcement Agency or Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms specialists to work with the Chicago Police Department. Getting rid of illicit narcotics or firearms would be a significant step toward resolving the conditions in our society that create high levels of urban violence.

TRUMP: Tough to take his talk seriously

Going through Facebook for the stray comments people post, I couldn’t help but notice both former Cook County Board President Todd Stroger and Rev. Michael Pfleger expressing such thoughts.

BUT I ALSO don’t doubt that strengthening such initiatives is the last thing Trump has in mind, although I also doubt he has thought this issue through to the degree of actually authorizing National Guard troops to patrol the streets of inner-city Chicago and shoot those they think pose a threat.

Which may be the image that Trump backers fantasize about becoming reality, but which is one that is so absurd that I even doubt Trump himself would have the nerve to try to impose it.

He’s along the lines of all-talk and no action!

So what should we think about the facts (as presented by Trump) that there have already been 228 shooting incidents in Chicago during the past three-or-so weeks, with 42 people being killed already. Although it has been reported the truthful figures are 182 shooting incidents and 38 homicides.

WHICH, ADMITTEDLY, ARE not something we ought to be proud about. This is a situation that needs to be addressed, perhaps such as Gov. Bruce Rauner did Wednesday in his State of the State address in which he suggested the need to create more jobs to keep people employed and less likely to resort to violence. An idea that I'm sure Trump would have absolutely no interest in pursuing.

RAUNER: Making too much sense for Trump

Looking solely for a law enforcement crackdown would only aggravate the situation. In fact, I’d argue that ridiculous rhetoric such as we’re receiving from the president isn’t going to do a thing to ease the violence level – which in reality is at its highest in parts of Chicago I suspect Trump could care less about.

Can we blame his apathy for the inability to make a dent in the problem? That might be a simple-minded response, but the fact that some are only interested in Chicago’s urban violence for the purpose of scoring partisan political points for themselves is a reality.

Then again, simple-minded responses that don’t address the problem is probably about all we should ever expect to get from this particular president!!!

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Was ‘Sweet 16’ of our century really that miserable? Or just the Cubs?

It is a running theme of much commentary these days – the year 2016, to put it mildly, sucked.

TRUMP: Ugh, is all many of us will ever think

One can cite the many celebrity deaths of the year that extend far beyond Carrie Fisher and her mother, Debbie Reynolds passing just one day apart, or Zsa Zsa Gabor, Florence Henderson (how can 'Marcia, Marcia, Marcia's' mom be gone?), David Bowie and Prince, along with Muhammad Ali. Or actor William Christopher (of M*A*S*H fame) who died Saturday.

THOSE ARE JUST a few, as in the ones I can recall right off the top of my head as I write this. I’m sure you instantly will remember someone else who has passed and will want to dash off a quickie note to me telling me how stupid I am for forgetting so-and-so.

Those are on top of the 778 homicides that occurred in Chicago, with the likelihood that another two or three people will slip into the total before it becomes absolute. As in 2016 was the bloodiest year on Chicago streets since 1997 – and is becoming too close to the totals we used to achieve back in the late 1980s that we had hoped were absolutely in our past.

And if that isn’t enough, let’s not forget the election of garish real estate developer Donald J. Trump as our nation’s president. The ongoing partisan political nonsense between Gov. Bruce Rauner and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, that is rearing its ugly head again now that the interim budget agreement has expired with nothing even close to a long-term agreement.

Or the fact that the Chicago Cubs managed to do something they hadn’t achieved in over a century – winning a World Series. I put those last items on the list even though I’m sure there are some people who will be grossly offended at thinking negatively at those things.

SUCH AS THE 46 percent of the electorate who actually voted for Trump and seriously believe that the nation dodged a bullet by avoiding the concept of “President Hillary R. Clinton” for the next four years.

RAUNER: Not likely to lighten up anytime soon

But I’m inclined to think of the nearly 49 percent who are now seriously disillusioned with our government process – one that could allow someone with 2.86 million fewer votes to actually proclaim himself the winner without the rest of us needing to call for the psychiatrist.

Plus the other 5 percent or so who voted either for a Libertarian or a Green or whatever other fringe name was on the ballot that they thought would make a better commander in chief than either of the major party doofuses.

That’s a lot of people who are going to forever remember this year as the one in which the nation’s electorate got goofy. They’re the ones who can’t help but think that 2017 has potential to be even more stupid because we’ll actually have the presence of a “President Trump” in place – doing his thing, whatever that may well be.

CHRISTOPHER: No longer w/ us

THOSE WHO ARE more rational are the ones who are most scared because we really don’t know what to expect – except that Trump’s idea of “reform” is likely to benefit only those few individuals like himself.

Even the masses who voted for him because they fantasize that their ballot action somehow makes them more like him than the working stiffs they truly are won’t truly get any benefit.

But they will justify their vote in future years because of how horrid they want to believe a second coming of Bill Clinton would have been for the nation.

Although the only thing that would have been horrible about it is if the partisan trash-talk that Bill endured during his two terms in office were repeated for Hillary. It is that partisan trash we as a nation need to rise above. Instead, we rewarded the people who spew it by putting them too firmly in charge.

BUT THERE WILL be differences of opinions about how good, or bad, this truly made 2016.

Which in my mind makes having to endure the Chicago Cubs’ ego trip as the worst aspect of the year – and in future years. Not that I care about denying the Cubs a victory (truthfully, it's about time). But the same Cub fan types who always wanted to talk as though 1969, 1984 and 2003 were truly Cubs championship years (if only they hadn’t been robbed) are now seriously acting as though the next four or five seasons of National League championships are already won.

To those who are Sout' Side in spirit, the scene of the year's low point

They’re buying into the hype to the point where they’re going to be insufferable for all of us to bear with – particularly if the truth turns out to be that 2016 was just a fluke year in between a series of contending St. Louis Cardinals teams and they’ll go back to thinking the whole wide world is supposed to pity them.

Of course, a part of that sentiment stretches from the realization that the only World Series that truly meant anything was the one played some 12 years ago. Now 2005, that was an incredible year!

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Chicago homicides at a low in my life; so much for cheap partisan rhetoric

I’ve made it clear before that I’m not among those all hyped up about the rising homicide rate in Chicago – which in 2012 did experience a jolt upward but was far from being anywhere close to a record for urban violence.

So the fact that things seem to have returned to the norm in the now-completed year of 2013 ought to be seen as a plus. The New York Times on Wednesday reported there were 417 homicides in Chicago through Monday.

THERE WERE A couple more on Tuesday, with the final incident in 2013 resulting in a human death being a shooting outside of a store in the Englewood neighborhood. Although the rule of thumb for putting together a homicide tally for the year is that it matters when an incident occurs – not when the person is pronounced dead.

Which means by the end of the week, there could be a few more people added onto the list About 420 slayings for 2013 is the most accurate figure that we can give now. It's an educated guess.

Which, according to the Chicago Tribune means this year will probably go down in the books as being the lowest homicide total since 1965 – the year of my birth.

I’m pushing close to 50 (another year and a half) and this could turn out to be the safest the city has ever been.

ALL THAT MAY well be true. But I’m also realistic enough to know that none of this statistical spin means anything if you’re of the parts of Chicago that are getting hit with the bulk of this violent activity.

And if you’re of a family whose members included one of the approximately 420 deceased, I’m sure it doesn’t matter at all that this is a low – or that 2012 with its 503 homicides was an aberration!

Or that we used to have 900-plus homicides per year in the city back in the late 1980s-early 1990s. It is an era I particularly remember because it is when I regularly wrote about cop-shop stuff for the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago. There are still intersections across the city that, in my mind, jolt memories of 26-year-old slayings that too many others have long forgotten.

Englewood ought to warrant our attention

It may well be appropriate that the final violent incident of 2013 occurred around 71^st Street and Vincennes Avenue outside of one of those neighborhood markets that no one outside of Englewood would ever think of shopping at.

MANY OF US wouldn’t even pay attention to this particular incident because of the neighborhood it occurred in.

And those with Englewood ties have probably become so immune to the violence that the masses don’t give a thought to that the only reason the death of 26-year-old Vincent Rogers will be noted was because it occurred with about three-and-a-half hours before Janet Davies could mark the end of 2013 along State Street.

It should also be noted that the urban violence continues even though ’13 is through. The Chicago Tribune reported about shootings in the Fernwood and Park Manor neighborhoods on the South Side.

Four were wounded – although in those cases, the gunmen were Chicago Police patrolmen responding to incidents of shots fired in the neighborhoods.

SO AS WE move forward into ’14 (the holiday’s over – even though I realize there are those who think they’re entitled to do nothing on the job until Monday), we should give a thought about the degree to which we accept violent crimes as part of the status quo.

We as a whole have to take a harsher attitude toward the situation, and not ignore it just because it might not impact our specific home neighborhood.

But more important, going on and on about violence in Chicago just to score cheap political points for someone’s “cause” is even more reprehensible.

Particularly because it tries to make a point that is just factually inaccurate!

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