Buttigieg seeks Jackson redemption

Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign is a confounding mess – he’s raising a significant amount of money that would give him a chance to be a competitive campaigner, yet he has many would-be black voters thinking he’s the devil incarnate.

BUTTIGIEG: In trouble with black voters

So what does he choose to do? He gets himself a spot on the program Tuesday of the Rainbow/PUSH convention held every year in Chicago.

IN SHORT, HE seeks out an audience with none other than the Rev. Jesse Jackson himself – hoping that Jackson will give him the political equivalent of a papal blessing that would get many black voters to quit thinking in terms of Buttigieg as the absolute last of the two dozen presidential aspirants whom they’d consider supporting.

Buttigieg, at 37, is amongst the youngest of the presidential dreamers, and he has attracted some support from the kind of people who want to believe that everybody else is far too old to be in charge of the federal government.

Youth, vigor, somebody who understands (and is fully a part of) the world of the 21^st Century! Which is why he was able to raise some $24.8 million in donations during the second fundraising quarter – more than any other candidate.

He may have the kind of campaign cash that could make him competitive with the Bernie Sanders’ and the Joe Biden’s of the political world. But the man whose political background is serving as the mayor of South Bend, Ind., also is turning out to be the guy that black voters want to see go down to an embarrassing defeat.

AS IN THERE are some black voters who not only want him to lose, they want him to become politically-damaged goods to the point where he’d never be able to run for any government post again in the future.

It stems from an incident in South Bend where the local police were involved in a shooting incident in which a black man was killed.

It didn’t help that the officer was equipped with a body camera and a squad car with a video camera, yet neither one managed to record the incident – which might have backed up the officer’s claims that the man was armed with a knife and was brandishing it.

JACKSON: Being sought for his aid

Also the fact that Buttigieg himself has let himself get bogged down by the whole affair – making himself seem weak and indecisive and potentially helping to cover up details in the whole affair.

SO THE MAN who is openly in a gay marriage who’d like to think he’s the natural choice of all progressive-minded people has one segment of the Democratic electorate wishing he’d drop dead.

And some Democratic political operatives thinking that Buttigieg himself is just too flawed to unite the various factions that comprise the modern-day Democrats.

Hence, Buttigieg seeks redemption in the form of Jesse Jackson. Who had a meeting with the mayor, then allowed him to speak at the Rainbow/PUSH forum gathering.

But the most important part may well be the words from Jackson himself, who said he thinks the accounts many people have heard about what is happening in South Bend are distorted, and that Buttigieg has handled things about as well as any political person could.

“HE’S HANDLED AN awkward situation well by being transparent,” Jackson said of Buttigieg, while also tossing out a potshot against Indiana state law that actually forbids municipalities from having residency requirements for their police officers and firefighters.

SANDERS: Can 'Mayor Pete' beat him?

The fact that cops in South Bend don’t have to live in the city (only within an adjacent county) means local residents don’t necessarily trust them, and view them as something of the equivalent of an “occupying force.”

A description that I’m sure law enforcement types will resent, and one that could come back to bite Buttigieg on the behind if he gets perceived as having too much support from Jackson.

Although for now, I’m sure “Mayor Pete” would gladly accept a Jesse Jackson blessing, if only it results in turning black voters into a segment that eagerly awaits his electoral defeat in the 2020 presidential election cycle.

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Everybody upset w/ Van Dyke verdict

I suspect there was a moment, however brief, of joy when Judge Vincent Gaughan said “81 …,” giving people the impression that a former Chicago cop convicted of the shooting death of a 17-year-old black teen was about to put the 40-year-old cop away to rot in prison for life.

VAN DYKE: Nearly 7 years

But then, Gaughan continued with “… months,” not years.

AS IN GAUGHAN decided that his prison term will only last a period of just under seven years – of which he’s already served three months in the county jail out in Rock Island, Ill.

Considering that the family of Laquan McDonald came out and said Friday that they thought a prison term of at least 20 years was essential for Van Dyke to be properly punished.

And, in fact, prosecutors themselves made a recommendation of an 18- to 20-year prison term for Van Dyke.

But Gaughan ultimately chose to concoct a prison term based off the fact that Van Dyke was found guilty of a second-degree murder charge, and not to factor in all those additional counts of aggravated battery with a firearm – which in theory could have made for a prison term of nearly 100 years possible.

“A JOKE AND a slap in the face,” along with a slew of obscenities, was the reaction of McDonald’s family to the prison sentence after the sentence was handed down following a day-long sentencing hearing that occurred Friday.

McDONALD: Gone nearly as long as Van Dyke

But Gaughan made a point of saying he figured “100 percent” of people were going to be offended by his sentence. I don’t doubt that, because Van Dyke’s family made emotional pleas saying they have already suffered severely by the loss of Jason to incarceration for any length of time.

As it was, they argued that a sentence of probation would have been appropriate. Which I don’t doubt was an idea of great offense to the McDonald family. As it was, Laquan’s uncle read a letter into the record on Friday that was written as though it was crafted by McDonald himself.

Telling us that he was trying to make something of his life, give up his drug addictions, and that Van Dyke, by firing the 16 shots into his body, deprived him of that opportunity.

GAUGHAN: Upset 100 percent of people

THERE IS ONE thing that has to be conceded – it could have gone much worse for Van Dyke. He’ll be about 46 years old when he is released from prison. In short, he has a chance to put together a “rest of his life.” Even though I don’t doubt he’ll view the next six or so years as the most hellish experience he’ll ever have to endure.

It’s not going to be a pretty experience for a law enforcement officer. But some people see this whole Van Dyke ordeal as being about making police suffer.

If anything, they’re even more upset by the ruling earlier this week that three police officers facing criminal charges for filing false reports about what it was Van Dyke did to McDonald were NOT guilty.

There are those who wanted Van Dyke to rot in prison, and see a complete crackdown on the Chicago Police Department. Anything short of that is going to cause them to feel nothing but contempt for our legal system.

THEN AGAIN, THERE probably is nothing that would please those individuals. Some people get way too hung up on the concept of retribution. Even though what we as a society ought to be trying to do is figure out the way to move beyond this incident.

McCARTHY: Would win be seen as police victory?

Because the reality of the whole affair is that there’s nothing that can be done to bring Laquan McDonald back to life. There’s nothing that will restore the type of life that Jason Van Dyke had, or will protect his family from the harm they’re suffering as a result of what happened on that October night of 2014.

Of course, there could be one coming blow in the near future that would further “rub it in” the very notion that law enforcement is protecting itself, and NOT the public. What happens if Garry McCarthy somehow wins the mayoral election of February and run-off of April?

For McCarthy was the police superintendent who lost his job because of Van Dyke’s actions. Would the people eager to protect the police image be strong enough to make him our city’s mayor?

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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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Where does line lie determining when/if police officer justified in using force?

Paul Bauer was a police commander who literally walked into an incident that put him in the line of sight of a man fleeing the Thompson Center state government building, with that man then pulling out a pistol and shooting Bauer dead.

'Hero' cop Bauer versus … 

While Jason Van Dyke is the patrol officer now rotting away in a jail cell in Rock Island County, awaiting sentencing on the criminal charges that say he committed murder of a teenager whom he tried claiming posed a physical threat to his life.

VAN DYKE TRIED to make much of the fact that the teenager whom he shot to death had earlier in the evening been kicked out of area fast food restaurants for his erratic behavior, had slashed the tire of a police squad car and may or may not have been waving about that knife with its three-inch blade in a menacing manner.

He would have liked it if the jury that decided his fate would have sympathized with his thoughts that he could easily have wound up in a situation similar to Bauer – who earlier this year happened to be near the state government building when he heard a radio report of a suspect, then saw that very same individual run past him.

A brief foot-chase ensued, followed by a struggle, with the suspect then firing seven shots at Bauer.

Now I realize Van Dyke’s incident occurred nearly four years ago, whereas Bauer’s incident was back in February of this year. It’s not like Van Dyke would have had a memory of what happened to the police commander – which was still just over three years off in the future.

BUT IT HAS me wondering about the legal fine line that exists for when a police officer is permitted to use deadly force on the job – based on the logic that he’s protecting the public safety by doing so!

There are those who argue that had Van Dyke waited a little longer, a colleague with a taser gun could have arrived at the scene, used that weapon to stun the teenager in that incident, and he could have been subdued still alive.

For all we know, he’d have been someone celebrating his 21^st birthday in prison, as a convict with a criminal record, instead of becoming a cause celebre who some will forevermore envision as an innocent-looking teenager in his bright-red graduate cap-and-gown.

… 'felon' Van Dyke -- how different are they?

Although I also suspect that many of the same people who have protested the teenager’s death would have protested just as loudly about what they’d want to view as merely another incident of police brutality.

JUST WHAT WAS the point that would need to have occurred before Van Dyke’s use of physical force would have been considered legal and justified.

Would the teenager have literally had to slash at the cop with his knife before a single shot could be justified from the Smith & Wesson 9 mm semi-automatic (the weapon that Van Dyke carried on the job)?

Would he have literally had to risk becoming the “hero cop” we now think of when Bauer’s name is mentioned? Would we have been willing to spare Van Dyke the public disgrace and humiliation he has endured if we literally had been able to hand his wife a medal for “giving his life” in the name of the people of Chicago?

Now I’m not trying to imply there was anything heroic about the way Van Dyke handled himself that night in 2014. If anything, his actions are more those of a man who gave in to his fear – with his over-reaction being something that he will now pay for with the next few years (if not several) spent in incarceration.

HE WAS TRYING to do a job, just as I’m sure Bauer all those months ago was trying to perform his own duties during his moment of truth that got his name etched in stone as a law enforcement tribute.

While Van Dyke awaits sentencing far from Cook County, out of the fear that inmates at our own county jail might have singled him out for abuse and brutality before he could ever have been sentenced to prison time for his crime. A fate that some may sickly believe is totally appropriate.

It’s a fine line that exists between use of force for protection and for abuse – one made all the more vague because the reality is we DO give law enforcement the authority to use force, and on occasion to kill.

Anybody who has a problem realizing that reality likely is just trying to support people who are just as much criminals as they proclaim Van Dyke to be.

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Do we really give police officers this much authority to use physical force?

Perhaps it is only appropriate that on the first day of activity in the criminal trial of police officer Jason Van Dyke, attention was brought to the concept that the alleged criminal activity was captured on video.

Serving and protecting us? Or harassment?

Let’s be honest – if that video from a police officer’s own camera didn’t exist, it’s very likely that there would be no trial and Van Dyke would have spent the past four years continuing to work his beat and be one of the officers allegedly enforcing the laws for the people of Chicago.

WHEN OPENING STATEMENTS were made Monday at the Criminal Courts building (Judge Vincent Gaughan ultimately rejected all notions of moving the trial outside of Chicago), special prosecutor Joseph McMahon emphasized the video and the number of shots (16) from his pistol that Van Dyke fired into the body of Laquan McDonald.

In a touch of hamming things up a bit, McMahon literally pounded his fist on a lectern to do a count-down of each shot, and even emphasized the point when the eighth shot was fired – so as to imply that Van Dyke wasn’t even close to finishing his gunfire at that point.

Almost as though he thinks (and wants the jury to believe) that everything else is irrelevant, and we all ought to just issue the “guilty” verdict right now – saving us all time and hassle by carting Van Dyke off to prison right now.

But the legal process instead will be spending the next few weeks trying to establish whether there was any justification for the police officer’s actions.

WHICH ACTUALLY MADE another remark McMahon made all the more interesting.

He tried to summarize the incident of Oct. 20, 2014 (the night McDonald died) as one where Van Dyke saw, “a black boy (McDonald was 17) walking down a street with a chain-link fence with the audacity to ignore the police.”

But the reality is that we do give police significant authority to stop people. While they’re supposed to have “probable cause” to justify their actions, the reality is that it really doesn’t take much to give a cop the ability to question someone they find suspicious.

Trying to walk away from the police can be construed as resisting arrest. And if McDonald really was carrying a knife (as has been reported), that may well make this an “open-and-shut” case of a police officer being justified in using force – which would make the case one of justifiable homicide.

NOT THE “MURDER” that many have spent the past few years decrying the death of McDonald as being.

Now I’m not in the courtroom to see any of this. I don’t doubt that the jury is going to manage to offend some people – no matter how they choose to interpret any of this. I don’t expect anyone will be satisfied by the ultimate outcome of this trial.

I suspect the eventual verdict will offend the beliefs of everybody who wants to think this is a clear-cut case.

In reality, there is only one definitive “fact,” Jason Van Dyke did fire 16 shots from his weapon that killed Laquan McDonald.

THE REST OF the story? We’re going to get an up-close lesson as to just how much force police are allowed to use in the act of doing their jobs; which amount to that old cliché about “serving and protecting” the public.

On the one hand, we wouldn’t be issuing police officers those pistols and other countless weapons if we didn’t expect there would be circumstances upon which they would have to use them.

Then again, we do need to have some sense of restraint – otherwise our “protectors” would be nothing more than the official city-sponsored goon squad. Certainly not something anybody with sense would want to see.

Where is the “line” between force and abuse? That question really is the key to comprehending everything that we’ll see and hear during the trial’s coming weeks.

  -30-

Civil disobedience against violent crime? Or just a pain in the keister?

If the people of Chicago are complaining about something, there’s always a good chance that the Rev. Michael Pfleger is involved.

PFLEGER: Trying to 'tie up' Chicago?

That’s certainly the case these days, as Pfleger – the pastor of St. Sabina parish in the Auburn/Gresham neighborhood – has his plans to do a large-scale protest act come next weekend that is supposed to draw public attention to the level of urban violence we have in Chicago.

SPECIFICALLY, PFLEGER HAS plans to do his march along the Dan Ryan Expressway come the morning of July 7 – which is a Saturday.

Theoretically, Pfleger wants to have his supporters march along the highway that is a major thoroughfare leading people into and out of the various neighborhoods of the South Side.

He talks of wanting to clog up traffic so bad that people will have one heck of a time getting anywhere. Pfleger wants to create a massive inconvenience for the people of Chicago – which he says is nothing compared to the conditions that residents of select neighborhoods in Chicago have to endure when it comes to being at risk of being shot or killed in, or near, their own homes.

It seems the Police Department is trying to cooperate with the idea of a protest act. But the Chicago Sun-Times reports that they want Pfleger to turn his action into a march through the neighborhoods.

BECAUSE TO MAKE it anything other than risky for protesters to try to block up traffic along the Dan Ryan is going to mean several hundred police officers being diverted from their home police districts and doing duty along the Dan Ryan.

Anthony Riccio, a first deputy superintendent for the Police Department, says having that many officers reassigned potentially makes high-risk neighborhoods even more dangerous. Although it should be noted the Dan Ryan (Interstate 94) technically is under the jurisdiction of the Illinois State Police.

I already can envision the stories that will result if somebody gets killed in the Englewood neighborhood that Saturday because there were not the usual accompaniment of police in the South Side neighborhood.

Can Pfleger's protesters really jam up the Dan Ryan?

Not that Pfleger is swayed by such logic. He tells the Sun-Times that police are routinely diverted from their usual beats for events a lot less significant than his.

HIS BOTTOM LINE?

Pfleger and his followers plan to be along the Dan Ryan, starting around 95^th Street, at 10 a.m. on July 7 – which is next Saturday.

I suspect that Pfleger thinks he’s already made enough of a concession by holding his protest on a weekend, rather than a weekday, when traffic would be even more intense.

Then again, it’s a bit of practicality. I have no doubt that if protesters tried to clog up the Dan Ryan during the week – even if it wasn’t during a morning or evening rush hour time slot – there would be many of those commuters trying to get to, or home from, downtown jobs who would persist in driving right through the protesters.

AND AFTER SUCH an act of “hit and run,” they’d argue that they’re the victims, with the protesters being trouble-makers who are able to engage in such actions solely because they’re “out of work bums” (or perhaps they’ll use more vulgar language).

Law enforcement of Chicago … 

For what it’s worth, I understand the point of doing a Dan Ryan protest rather than a neighborhood action. It would be way too easy for people to dismiss the latter as something irrelevant to their lives because they never set foot in “those” places.

A part of me thinks one person posting their thoughts on Facebook had a point this week when saying that if Pfleger really wanted to get the city’s attention, he’d try to clog up the Edens Expressway. As in a road traveling north to those neighborhoods and suburbs where the locals think urban violence is irrelevant to them.

… and Illinois will be busy July 7

Although I must also confess the protest is unlikely to impact me, no matter how out-of-hand it gets. I have an aunt who’s organizing our family’s annual summer get-together for that very same day; which means I won’t be anywhere near the Dan Ryan – although I’m sure my assorted cousins and I will be able to debate the merits of Father Pfleger’s actions for ourselves.

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EXTRA: St. Sabina marches on MI Av.

The protest. Photograph provided by Faith Community of St. Sabina

The Faithful of St. Sabina parish on the South Side came to the Magnificent Mile on Saturday to try to force all of Chicago to address the reality of the number of homicides, which the Chicago Sun-Times reported as totaling 778 but could increase in coming days if a last-minute incident results in fatalities.