Who will try to make bigger political hash of weekend incidents of violence?

One might try arguing that the protest march of last week to Wrigley Field was an over-blown event that didn’t live up to its hype. But then, we get weekends such as this past one that help underscore the serious problem that exists in parts of Chicago.

EMANUEL: Is it all his fault?

For this past weekend was one of many petty incidents that left people dead (12 in all) or wounded (71 gunshot victims). There was one six-hour period on Sunday when five of the fatalities occurred and 30 more were shot.

THE OVERALL TOTAL for the period from 5 p.m. Friday through 5 a.m. Monday is the 71 people shot – with 48 of those shootings occurring on Sunday. The so-called day of holiness, when we’re all supposed to rest (unless you’re Jewish, in which case it’s Saturday until sundown).

I’ve noticed that in recent stories, the emphasis is placed on the number of people who got shot – even though when I was a police reporter-type person, I usually focused on the number dead.

Which back then (the late 1980s) was an era when the homicide tally in Chicago usually came close to 1,000 per year. Trying to tally every person who got wounded would balloon the figure up to a ridiculous tally.

Although I suspect that’s what the people trying to use this issue for political purposes want to do. They probably want us to hear the number of people wounded, then make the assumption that it’s really the number dead. Former New York Mayor (and current Donald Trump apologist) Rudy Giuliani did just that in a series of Twitter tweets he sent out this weekend.

McCARTHY: Trying to bolster his campaign?

WHICH IF THEY were true would make this city a ridiculously violent place – instead of one that doesn’t even come close to leading the nation in a homicide rate.

Not that I’m trying to understate the problem. We do have parts of Chicago that are ridiculously violent, and the people whom life’s circumstances give them no other choice but to live in those neighborhoods, are enduring ridiculous conditions that no one ought to have to put up with.

But listening to the political people trying to use these figures to justify their own partisan rants strikes me as being even more vulgar than the fatalities themselves.

Garry McCarthy, the one-time Chicago Police superintendent who now is amongst the many running for mayor against Rahm Emanuel come next year’s election cycle, took his own pot shots.

GIULIANI: Bringing N.Y. to Chi?

HE CLAIMS EMANUEL’S efforts to improve urban life are ignoring the parts of the city where violence is the problem. Although I can’t help but think no one is going to take seriously this claim coming from McCarthy.

It may be true that those Black Lives Matter activists concerned about police brutality want Emanuel out! But those same activists also blame McCarthy’s police department for escalating their concerns. They’re certainly not about to want him to replace Rahm at City Hall.

McCarthy’s rants come off as trying to shift blame for a problem that escalated during the time he was police superintendent.

The fact that Giuliani (who was New York mayor back in the days when McCarthy was a New York Police Department official) is throwing in his own two cents merely makes the whole issue entirely partisan.

IT MAKES US wonder why Trump himself didn’t jump into the rants, since the man usually isn’t the least bit bashful about using his Twitter account to spew whatever nonsense happens to motivate him on any given day.

TRUMP: How long until he jumps into mix?

It also has us wondering how much any of these officials are really concerned about urban violence in Chicago.

Are they, on a certain level, thankful for weekends such as this past one; because it gives them something to complain about publicly with regards to Chicago? For McCarthy told the Chicago Sun-Times that he accused Emanuel of “mak(ing) everything a diversion” to avoid talking about crime. Listening to such rants makes me wonder if he’s just as guilty of diversionary tactics to focus entirely on this issue.

Although the sad part may be that, to a certain segment of Chicago, the most tragic death of the weekend is none of the above -- but instead that of the suburban Mundelein teenager who died Sunday night due to a seizure suffered while attending Lollapalooza.

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Will signs of businesses past cause confusion for future Chicagoans?

I suppose people will argue it’s a matter of historic preservation, but there’s a part of me that thinks it’s ridiculous that the giant letters of gothic type spelling out “Chicago Tribune” will remain in place on the building the newspaper no longer uses.

Sign to be restored around 2020

Tribune Media (the division that operates the television stations) sold the nearly century-old tower that was corporate headquarters, and the newspaper that had been housed there for decades made its move just over a month ago.

Dominant sign near Tribune's new digs

IT SEEMS THE company that bought the building (and has plans to convert it into condominiums) thought it was buying the rights to the building, as-is. Including the eight-foot-high letters that spelled out the newspaper name.

While the newspaper thought they had the right to take their sign with them to their new offices in the one-time Prudential Building just a few blocks to the south.

In the end, it appears the sign will remain in place – with the argument being made that it is a part of the historic character of the structure that the company thought it was buying along with the structure itself.

Retail rivalry signs live on, even though Field's … 

The sign itself will be taken down later this year when the construction work needed to convert the structure into high-end condominiums for the ridiculously-wealthy of Chicago residents. When that work is complete (sometime around the year 2020), the sign will be restored.

WILL WE HAVE future generations of out-of-towners who get confused about where exactly one of our city’s newspapers is located?

… & Carson's are no more

Particularly because it seems that there isn’t anything excessively prominent to let people from outside know that the Tribune is located where it is now.

I took a recent day trip downtown just to walk around, and checked out the Prudential Building area because I wanted to see for myself just how prominently the newspaper had put its stamp on its new digs.

I found nothing. I had to have it pointed out to me where exactly the Tribune’s new home is. The Tribune hasn’t let its professional ego take over its new site.

IF ANYTHING, THE huge sign marking the building as the corporate headquarters of The Prudential Insurance Company of America is still all-dominant. Just as a few blocks once one crosses the Chicago River and one-time site of Fort Dearborn, the gothic type of the Chicago Tribune will be a very visual reminder of what once was.

Maybe that’s not too confusing. Take a little trip along State Street just a few blocks away, and you’ll see the signs remaining on Marshall Field’s and Carson, Pirie, Scott – even though it is Macy’s and Target that now do business in the one-time downtown flagships of Chicago’s classic retailers.

Past newspapers live on only as Mich. Ave. plaque

Maybe it’s evidence of my increasing age (I’m on the ‘experienced’ side of the half-century mark), but I’m at the point where every time I head into the city, I notice something else missing.

I’m starting to develop in my memory an entire city that no longer exists in quite the same form.

I ONCE THOUGHT it odd that a part of me still expects to see the brick, whitewashed building at 35^th Street on the Dan Ryan Expressway, instead of the pale pink concrete paneled structure that replaced it as the Chicago White Sox ballpark some 28 years ago.

Of course, it also makes me realize there are older generations of people who would regard themselves as life-long Chicagoans for whom my Chicago of memory would be a whole lot of nonsense – none of it existed when they were around.

How many think Macy's Frango Mints the  same? Photos by Gregory Tejeda

We have a city of perpetual change. It may be a sign of continued development. Because stagnation is not something we’d want to occur.

Although I also noticed that when I used the search engine of bing.com to confirm the new Chicago Tribune address, it persisted in telling me the newspaper is at Tribune Tower north of the river. Perhaps the Internet is confused by the sign’s remaining in place – and may be evidence we shouldn’t put too much trust in anything we find on these computers.

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School proximity restrictions about politics more than public safety

The political reporter-type person in me always found humorous the laws that were meant to restrict proximity to a school or church – usually based on the concept that certain individuals or businesses have no business locating hear the youthful or the overly-holy amongst us.

BERRIOS: Name in news despite himself

No strip clubs or dive taverns across the street from a church or convent (remember that bar in west suburban Stone Park that ultimately lost its liquor license because the nuns nearby didn’t appreciate the drunken neighbors?).

THEY ALWAYS STRUCK me as something overly simplistic, and not always easy to enforce. Particularly if they come down to issues of “How close is too close?”

So I was intrigued by a pair of stories I stumbled across Friday.

One involved Gov. Bruce Rauner signing off on a long-standing change to state law that requires the General Assembly to approve amendments to the state’s Liquor Control Law for every instance for every instance where alcohol is served within 100 feet of a church or school.

Now, municipal officials will have the authority to issue exemptions. No more having to get the legislative types who, theoretically, ought to be preoccupied with bigger issues instead of worrying about where taverns are located in the neighborhoods.

THERE ALSO WAS a Chicago Sun-Times report about the company that oversees parking of cars for various public events at privately-owned lots.

In the instance that has the newspaper all worked up, people attending ballgames at Wrigley Field are parking their cars in, amongst other places, a lot that is part of the Inter-American School property two blocks away on Waveland Avenue.

The “controversial” part is that the Blk & Wht Valet LLC employed an individual to work at that lot who has a criminal record for sex offenses – and part of his penalty is that he is required to list himself as a sex offender, which limits the places where he can be.

RAUNER: Giving local officials more control

And as the Sun-Times chose to phrase it, their reporters found the employee in question at work, “with kids swinging on the monkey bars behind him.”

FOR THE RECORD, that employee has since been fired from his job, although it seems the company may wind up losing its contract for claims they didn’t do an adequate background check on their employee.

Although the Sun-Times reports the company saying the worker in question didn’t indicate his criminal record on his job application. Which would put this incident in the category of a person with a record hoping it wouldn’t catch up with him.

In short, an incident where such restrictions aren’t the easiest thing to enforce. I suspect, however, this particular worker is going to think he’s the victim – yet another incident of “the system” working to keep him unemployed.

One thing that caught my attention is the political connections of the company that, basically, is using other peoples’ property to park cars near Wrigley, along with Guaranteed Rate Field and the United Center.

ONE OWNER IS the son-in-law of soon-to-be former Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios (he’s married to former state Rep. Toni Berrios) and also is a grandson of a former Chicago Public Schools official with ties to the 11^th Ward Democratic Organization (a.k.a., the Daley family).

How tame is parking nearby?

By comparison, Rauner indicated his support of the state law change is meant to create greater local control, since he told the Chicago Tribune that many state legislators used the law to maintain a sense of local influence in their home neighborhoods.

After all, getting the legislator to support your measure would require a campaign contribution to the appropriate authority, with other legislators across the state sticking up for their colleagues even though they often knew nothing of the local situation.

So no matter how much people spew rhetoric about these laws somehow benefitting children and the public safety, in the end, they all come down to political concerns.

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EXTRA: Presidential birth dates little more than partisan fundraising schemes

12.

 Barack Obama turns 12 on Saturday.

He does, that is, if you follow that quirky means of estimating one’s age by adding up the digits in his actual age (5 + 7) to come up with some youthful sounding number.

SO YES, SATURDAY is the birthday anniversary of that date upon which Stanley Ann Dunham gave birth to her eldest son in Honolulu (I don’t want to hear from the crackpots who persist he was born in Kenya, or Singapore or anywhere else outside the U.S. boundaries).

My e-mails have been flooded in recent days with messages from the Organizing for Action group (the remains of Obama’s old fundraising organization) telling me to sign off on a digital birthday card that will be sent to the man they say is now “Organizer-in-Chief.”

It’s a way of reminding the majority of us who didn’t vote for the current president (and remain disgustingly appalled he could ever win) that there really was once a better time. And that by uniting together, we might be able to undermine The Donald come the Nov. 6 elections (by erasing the Republican congressional majorities that give him strength) and the 2020 general elections when we can vote to remove him from office altogether.

Otherwise, it would be the tackiest of behavior that we’re supposed to celebrate a past president’s birthday. We don’t get similar requests on behalf of Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter.

OBAMA ALSO POPPED into the news this week when he made his own endorsements for Election Day known publicly. There are some 81 people running for various political posts who can say they have the backing of “the Big O!”

Those include a few Illinois races, including that of J.B. Pritzker for governor and Kwame Raoul (the man who replaced Obama as a state senator some 14 years ago) for state Attorney General.

Also, he’s backing three people wishing to run for Congress from Illinois – although the common thread is that Obama is backing the Democrats wishing to challenge Republican incumbents in the House of Representatives.

Only 9.

Obama thinks we’d be better off with Peter Roskam and Mike Bost (both of whom are people who were amongst his state legislative colleagues all those years ago) and Randy Hultgren. Similar to how Republicans would put effort into trying to win congressional seats held by Democrats so as to reduce the partisan numbers.

I DON’T KNOW how many people are going to be swayed by the influence of Obama, who has done one thing right in his post-presidency – he’s kept a low-profile. Otherwise, the people who think that this Age of Trump we’re now in is largely Barack’s fault because he wasn’t aggressive enough in pushing an agenda of his own (Trump has largely been able to erase many of the Obama-era accomplishments) would really be screeching!

Of course, I also noticed the e-mail I received Friday on behalf of one-time Vice President Joe Biden, who wanted us to know he recently had lunch with Barack (and had a ham sandwich). As though he wants us to think he’s still important enough to warrant a presidential campaign come 2020 – even though he’s already 75 and ain’t gettin’ any younger.

A lot of this e-mail traffic is to be expected. They’re probably p-o’ed at me for not giving them a credit card number so as to make it easier for them to charge me money for their campaign fundraising efforts.

Even President Donald Trump is sending out his e-mails – he wants me to send him $1 (or more, if I absolutely feel compelled to do so) to be entered into a sweepstakes. The prize being a chance to eat dinner with the president and a collection of people he says are, “great American patriots.”

14, by 2020.

JUST AS I haven’t felt compelled to sign off on the Obama birthday card, I also think I’m taking a pass on the idea of eating with Trump.

The man who thinks he’s the sweepstakes prize is just a little too full of himself for me to want to spend time with.

Besides, we have a president these days who is a mere 9-year-old (7 + 2, as of June 14) and often behaves as though he lacks even that much maturity.

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Death penalty proponents may view Papal pronouncements as fightin’ words

It has been a few hours since Pope Francis’ comments Thursday about the death penalty being “inadmissible” in all instances, and I’m still trying to figure out why anyone should view this as a radical change.

FRANCIS: Church to more actively oppose death

As a reporter-type person who has, on several occasions (although none since 2001 when the federal government put Timothy McVeigh to death), covered the process leading up to executions, one of the standard pieces of the story is that the Catholic Church is opposed.

THE POPE HIMSELF invariably will make statements about how cruel the concept is of putting someone to death as a form of criminal punishment. As though it is Homicide, committed in the name of Justice.

I know church officials I have spoken to have always tried to describe capital punishment as something obsolete – something that there’s just no need for in the modern-day world.

There are provisions in Catholic teachings that were taught in the past to justify an execution as a form of public protection. Meaning that the criminal in question was so violent and such a risk to society that putting the person to death was the only way to ensure that nobody else was hurt by his acts.

The governors who did away … 

Modern-day prisons and life-without-parole prison terms are considered sufficient protection – thereby eliminating the need to take away an individual’s life.

ONE THOUGHT I always was taught was that execution as a form of providing someone with vengeance for a criminal act was wrong – if not a sinful thought to have itself.

Almost as though someone who is eagerly awaiting another person’s execution ought to be making a trip to their priest to perform confession of their sin – and seek penance so as to avoid the pains someday of Hell and eternal damnation.

… with death penalty in Illinois, … 

But now, Pope Francis is proclaiming that execution “attacks” human dignity, even in those who have committed violent criminal acts. A thought that is not going to be a popular one amongst those who publicly proclaim their desire for more executions – and those who think that one of Illinois’ drawbacks is that we had the sense to do away with the state’s capital crimes statutes nearly a decade ago.

… and the governor who hints at bringing it back

To the point where Gov. Bruce Rauner’s political re-election strategy has included making pronouncements implying he’d like to see executions restored in this state (there hasn’t been an execution in Illinois since the 1999 date when Andrew Kokoraleis was put to death by lethal injection at the now-shuttered prison in Tamms).

IT WOULD SEEM that instead of papal pronouncements against execution every time a death row inmate comes close to an execution date, it’s now going to be an active part of Catholic teaching to publicly support abolition of execution.

Catholics are now going to have to become truly “pro-life” in their views on mankind and society, instead of using the label to define their opposition to abortion being a legal medical procedure.

As for those political people who happen to be Catholic, I know there are those who happen to think they’re obligated to follow their religious faith over all when it comes to abortion-related questions. There are some clergy who like to make overly public pronouncements of excommunication for any government official who doesn’t rigidly support viewing abortion as a criminal act.

Are we bound to see government officials now facing a conflict with regards to capital punishment? Or could this become the ultimate reason why we should view a government official’s religious faith as a personal view, rather than one controlling their public policy actions?

YOU’VE PROBABLY FIGURED out that my own leanings go against capital punishment. I was supportive back when Gov. George Ryan effectively ended the death penalty in Illinois (although there are those who view his actions as the most heinous of his record – more so than any of the offenses for which he was convicted and incarcerated), and thought it a good day when Gov. Pat Quinn signed the legislation that abolished the death penalty altogether.

GACY: For some, he didn't die painfully enough

I still remember the day I came to my leanings – it was May 10, 1994. That was the date John Wayne Gacy was put to death for the dozens of slayings of young men he committed in the 1970s.

I was at the Stateville Correctional Center near Joliet when the execution was performed. There was nothing about the execution procedure that was particularly gruesome (Gacy essentially was put to sleep). But I was most offended by the sight of a trio of nuns and a priest who gathered at the prison to pray for Gacy’s soul – only to be harassed, jeered and taunted by the hundreds of people who gathered outside the prison to cheer on Gacy’s death.

A sight I suspect we’re going to see much more of in coming years as the Catholic Church attempts to show compassion for all of mankind.

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Can cop firearm reporting rule work?

The part of me that, many years ago, was a full-time cop and crime reporter appreciates the fact that police officers are going to have instances where they use force on people.

To the point where we issue them firearms. Why else would we do so if we didn’t expect there to be occasions when they’d have to kill someone else “in the line of duty.”

WHICH IS WHY I’m skeptical of a new proposal that would require police officers to report for the record every single instance where they reach for that sidearm and use the threat of shooting someone as a way of intimidating them into submission.

A consent decree offered up by the Illinois attorney general’s office (and enforceable by the federal courts) to help govern the operating policies of the Chicago Police Department includes that very provision, and it is one that the police themselves don’t think much of.

Soon-to-be former Illinois attorney general Lisa Madigan may be adding to her legacy of 16 years in that post, but many of the political people don’t think much of the policy, with possible mayoral candidate Paul Vallas (the one-time Chicago Public Schools CEO) jumping on the bandwagon and saying he thinks it’s a bad idea.

Personally, I don’t comprehend how a reporting requirement would work. Or if there’s any way it could work. It just seems too far out of the realm of what is practical.

CURRENT POLICIES REQUIRE that police officers be capable of accounting for every bullet they fire with their sidearm. If they pull the trigger and try to shoot someone, they have to be capable of justifying why they felt compelled to do so.

Police officers don’t (or aren’t supposed to) go around shooting people just for the sake of trying to intimidate them into submission.

My own memories of talking with street cops back in the day (which in my case was the late 1980s, back when the city’s murder rate for a few consecutive years averaged 900-something per year) was that if an officer reaches for that pistol, it’s because he seriously thinks someone’s life (possibly his or her own) is in danger.

VALLAS: Appealing for cop votes?

In short, it is a “shoot to kill” type of situation. Otherwise, reaching for the pistol and waving it about to try to scare someone (or firing off “warning” shots) is out of line, and just as reckless and inappropriate as killing someone who didn’t pose a threat.

WHAT I DON’T get is just how a reporting requirement of drawing a weapon could possibly work. After all, the decision to reach for the pistol is usually a reactive one – it happens in a matter of seconds.

Political people, including Vallas and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, say they fear causing an officer to have to spend that extra second thinking could be the difference between an officer able to do his job and one who gets the official police rituals performed at his (or her) funeral.

I also wonder if we fully trust officers enough to think that at the end of every shift they work, they’re going to do even more paperwork to acknowledge every incident where they felt compelled to reach down to grab their pistol.

Will we start getting people filing claims that a cop pointed a pistol at their heads? Will we start hearing stories of some cop playing “cowboy” and waving his firearm over his head?

AT A TIME when we have a significant share of our society not really trusting of law enforcement (that’s actually putting it mildly), while others throw their support to police officers usually to reinforce any racial, ethnic or whatever other hang-ups they may have, this could cause more confusion.

MADIGAN: Adding to legacy?

Although I do have to admit I approve of the notion of some sort of restriction on firearm use – even though I’m sure some would argue there already are sufficient limits on our police officers.

There may be people who think there’s nothing wrong with a cop using his/her pistol to intimidate a “punk” by pointing it upside his temple to scare him into submission. The problem is that life always presents situations (such as misfired shots) where something can go drastically wrong.

Disarming the police altogether might be a solution, but it isn’t one that is the least bit practical in our society of today.

  -30-

Wrigley’s week of infamy?

The image of Wrigley Field as “the Friendly Confines” took a hit this week, what with the sexual assault that occurred during a concert held at the stadium, and the fact that the Cubs feel compelled to re-assure people they’ll be safe if they try to come out to Thursday’s game.

How long until Wrigley Scene becomes just about baseball again?

Not that there’s anything about the game against the San Diego Padres that is interesting or threatening.

BUT THAT’S THE day protesters upset about the amount of urban violence in Chicago say they’re going to do some serious disruption.

As in they’re going to march along Lake Shore Drive north to the Lake View neighborhood – hoping to disrupt traffic. Then, they say they’ll march to the ball park.

Whether they plan to picket outside in the hours prior to the ball game’s 7:20 p.m. starting time, or plan to try to force their way past ballpark security to get into the game? We’ll have to wait and see just how raucous the scene will be.

And whether a group of people claiming to be high-minded and concerned about violence devolves into a group of gate crashers – we’ll have to see how ugly the scene becomes on Thursday.

WHICH WILL BE just four days following the sexual assault – which involved a woman who got groped while waiting in line for concessions. Then, when she went to a portable toilet to try to get away from the guy, he followed her into the port-a-potty and before she could lock the door, he grabbed her by the neck and made his “moves,” so to speak.

Personally, what I find most repulsive about this incident is that there’s a guy out there (police on Tuesday made public a picture of the suspect taken by ballpark security cameras) who thinks that a portable toilet is a place to have thoughts of intimacy with another human being.

Eww!

Suspect being sought by Chgo police in Sunday Wrigley incident

I suppose something like that could happen anywhere there’s a public event that requires mass amounts of toilets being added on to accommodate crowds.

IN THE OVERALL scheme of things, these incidents don’t really make Wrigley Field some sort of hell hole that ought to be avoided at all costs.

But you just know some people are going to feel irrational enough to want to connect them, and most likely will have horrid thoughts in their heads about going anywhere near Clark and Addison streets as a result.

My own thoughts are the only reason people should feel a negative aura about Wrigley is the generations of bad baseball that were played there. The past few seasons of sort-of-respectable ball don’t erase memories of guys like Karl Pagel taking to the field all those years ago.

But on a serious note, one can’t help but wonder about the timing of this week’s activity, and how long people will remember what occurred this week. Similar to the way some want to think Chicago White Sox games are risky because of that night some 39 years ago when the rock ‘n’ rollers took over the ballpark to blow up the disco records.

OR MORE INTERESTING, to speculate on how well the Cubs’ security can handle the situation around the ballpark come Thursday.

Because I don’t doubt the protesting types want to make a scene – thinking that too many people who go to Cubs games are inclined to ignore the portions of the city where violent outbursts are likely to occur.

What the Cubbie talent pool was once like

They will want to spin anything that happens is that irrational Cubbie fans are showing disrespect to the protesters. While I also expect Cubs fans will claim the protest’s point is irrelevant at the ballpark and that the protesters are merely trying to cause trouble.

I’d like to think that Thursday ultimately will be a forgettable moment in our city’s history. A large part of that is going to be determined by just how rational the Wrigley Scene is capable of being in the face of people who could care less about Cubs baseball.

  -30-