SafeStreetsChicago

Safe Streets Chicago is a group of concerned citizens working to improve the safety of our city through accountability.

[SafeStreetsChicago @StreetsSaf62989]

Late Saturday night, August 30th, there were 15 people shot in Washington park. One of those shot has died. Where are the vaunted violence interrupters? What have the 17 people on the mayor’s Department of Gun Violence Reduction been up to?

https://t.co/BtAdEysTty

[SafeStreetsChicago @StreetsSaf62989]

Vote no on Judge Kelly McCarty when she is up for retention this November. She has a history of being weak on criminals. She recently released a man on electronic monitoring accused of trying to light a Molotov cocktail at a bus stop, (link follows), despite the prosecutor requesting him to be detained. He has now disappeared and arrest warrants are out for him.

In the past she has refused to detain a criminal who attempted to rob a person in broad daylight and in a separate incident refused to detain a person who took a shot at another person.

https://t.co/WTs18QpIuF

[SafeStreetsChicago @StreetsSaf62989]

Lots of things go wrong here. The founder of a high-profile violence prevention group, who is also employed by the Chicago Public Schools as a counseling assistant, has been arrested and charged with criminal sexual assault and grooming two 14-year-old girls. These are current charges and there are other allegations that go back 10 years.

One of the girl’s reported this to her mother who is a suburban police officer but the mother took no action.

So, who at CPS is vetting these employees and what mother ignores her daughter?
How active and what good is his violence prevention group doing and who is reviewing them?

https://t.co/c2uU8zgFm4

[SafeStreetsChicago @StreetsSaf62989]

@JennyGooz I am not seeing the video

[SafeStreetsChicago @StreetsSaf62989]

Much has been made of the State’s Attorney posting signs on the CTA that crime will be prosecuted. However, from this story which flew under the radar, with the Cook County Sheriff’s Police now patrolling the CTA, it seems like old fashioned patrolling, enforcing and arresting are the reasons for a drop of violent crime by 77% on the Red Line since the program began a few months ago. Among their results are 74 WANTED FUGITIVES TAKEN INTO CUSTODY, 10 missing people located and 10 registered sex offenders arrested for failing to comply with registration laws.

Another benefit of this is that where officers are stationed, fare evasion has stopped. Maybe the CTA can now stop asking for another bailout because of greatly reduced ridership.

https://t.co/ea7ZclW0C0

[SafeStreetsChicago @StreetsSaf62989]

Alexi Giannoulias has entered the mayor’s race. Some excerpts of his views on public safety from a story from the Hyde Park Herald. He supports bringing back ShotSpotter, wants to hire 1,000 more police officers and pay for them by reducing police overtime which totaled $286 million last year.

[SafeStreetsChicago @StreetsSaf62989]

Two more people have entered the race for Mayor. Danielle Carter, and John Kelly.
Following are excerpts of their views on Public Safety from their web sites.

Danielle Carter: Chicago citizens, workers, and businesses deserve to feel safe again. Public safety starts with police support, serious consequences for violent crime, and visible protection where people are actually in danger.

John Kelly: John Kelly will make safe streets the first priority of his administration. That means well-trained, well-resourced police officers working as genuine partners in the neighborhoods they serve. It means investing in violence prevention programs that have demonstrated real results. It means holding City Hall accountable for the daily experience of residents, not just the numbers in a press release.

[SafeStreetsChicago @StreetsSaf62989]

The ugly politics of public safety and more media failure to cover it. The Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA) is charged with finding candidates for the next police superintendent. Many of the commissioners who are, shall we say not the strongest supporters of the police, are trying to remove commissioner Sandra Wortham from a 2 person workgroup that is supposed to support the process. The background on Commissioner Wortham is she is the only commissioner with law enforcement experience. Commissioner Wortham is a black female, who had served as a CPD civilian deputy director and comes from a police family. Her father is a retired CPD sergeant and is the sister of a slain Chicago police officer. Commissioner Wortham has lived most of her life in black communities. (Note, the full commission will decide who to interview and who to send to the mayor.)

Why? Formally it is because commissioner Angel Navarijo emailed all the commissioners on July 10 that Wortham lacked a collaborative work style and supports traffic stops. Or is the real reason as one commissioner has reportedly said that Wortham “is biased towards conservative” viewpoints and has a biased lens.

More of the intrigue is that the July 10 email cannot be found as requested by a Freedom of information act. No one can find an email sent to seven people in their inbox, or their deleted file, or the sent file of Navarijo? Or in some sort of central server? What was in that email that makes it so “difficult” to find?

Commissioner Driver sent a letter to the city council asking to postpone the search until after the mayoral election next year. Driver is also reported to be among the commissioners seeking Wortham’s removal.

And lastly, our beloved media has no mention of this palace intrigue that is occurring in the bureaucracy charged with providing candidates to be the next Police Superintendent.

https://t.co/8eKftWejzy

[SafeStreetsChicago @StreetsSaf62989]

Is the Chicago mainstream media underreporting crime? The Chicago Police department released a community alert on Sunday about large groups of teens attacking women in the south Loop. CPD described them as 10 to 16 Black males aged 14 to19 years old. Google search could not find any mention of this besides on CWB.

Tuesday night July 28 into Wednesday morning, 11 people were shot in Chicago and 2 of them have died. While this was a compilation of multiple incidents, only 1 station put the entire picture together.

Makes you wonder why. Links follow: https://t.co/iVJWiy2QoV

https://t.co/lhU64ExtI8

[SafeStreetsChicago @StreetsSaf62989]

Interesting that there were multiple 911 calls regarding activities leading up to the shooting at the bar in on Lincoln in Lincoln Park on Sunday night where one man was killed but there was a backlog of calls for two hours that prevented dispatchers from sending any car to address the situation and possibly prevent the shooting.

Interesting too that back in April the Workforce Allocation study of the Police Department shows that the 18th district where this occurred was an understaffed district, yet Brandon Johnson talks about cutting the police department budget.

https://t.co/IbRS0HFXub

[SafeStreetsChicago @StreetsSaf62989]

Continuing efforts to identify declared mayoral candidates’ views on Public Safety, Michael Quigley said in an interview on WTTW,“I think the way to address public safety is to use programs like CRED, CeaseFire, the anti-violence programs that President Trump has cut,” Quigley said. “I do believe we need to spend more on those because they’re cost-effective.” Sounds like Quigley just wants to follow in Brandon Johnson’s footsteps. No mention of amending the safety act or judges that coddle criminals.

Newcomer Lisa Nee has stated Public Safety is one of the 3 pillars she is running on and has stated she wants more police officers in an interview on CBS but has not released details on how she would accomplish this.

[SafeStreetsChicago @StreetsSaf62989]

The testimony of a grieving mother. Jennifer Gorman, mother of Sheridan Gorman who was murdered by an illegal alien on the lakefront in Chicago on March 19th of this year. She was shot in the back of her head running away from him.

This is the heart-breaking testimony of her mother before Congress. Her mother speaks in plain language of the state and local policies that contributed to her death and the pain and outrage that she feels.

https://t.co/UIDbXb6TOs

[SafeStreetsChicago @StreetsSaf62989]

5 years in Juvenile detention for a cold-hearted killing? Octavia Redmond should still be alive today. Why didn't her life matter?

[ABC 7 Chicago @ABC7Chicago]

A teen who pleaded guilty to killing a U.S. Postal Service worker in Chicago has been sentenced five years in juvenile detention. https://t.co/naF2wkrU4K

[SafeStreetsChicago @StreetsSaf62989]

Two more people have jumped into the mayoral race. Former Chicago Housing Authority Head Matt Brewer and current 5thdistrict Congressman Mike Quigley (who is running for re-election in November). Neither addressed public safety in any way or commented on reforms to the Safe-T act or calling out pro-criminal judge in their announcements.

[SafeStreetsChicago @StreetsSaf62989]

Taking action without doing anything!

With murders and shootings higher than they were last year at this time, mayor Johnson has taken the political action to create more bureaucracy and bureaucrats to deal with it. No one knows what The Office of Gun Violence Reduction (OGVR) will do in detail except dole out money to groups Johnson says it will focus on investments in the areas with the highest rates of gun violence while focusing on young black men. It will be led by Emmanuel Andre who currently leads the Office of Community Safety (OCS), per the city website

But WAIT, OCS, per the city website, says it is committed to investing intentionally in people and communities through the full force of government and systemically promote community safety by addressing root causes. So, WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE between the two departments?

Additionally, there is a concern that the Rev. Sandi Norman expresses, who runs a violence interruption group, that this is an insider’s game and money will be doled out to favored organizations.

Lastly, to prove what a potential debacle this can be, a 17-member community advisory group will be created as part of the executive order to develop guideline for the OGVR. The group is made up groups that regularly receive money from the city to do violence prevention work.

https://t.co/57UCEQXMQV

[SafeStreetsChicago @StreetsSaf62989]

The final Fathers Day weekend shooting count is in. 47 shot of which 8 were killed. There have been the usual calls for more money to be spent on violence interrupters but if you read through the details in this CBS story, basically except for the mass shooting of 14 people Friday night, the remainder appear to be random or targeted shootings of individuals and not shots into a crowd. Seems like these are incidents that the violence interrupters would be powerless to affect. https://t.co/ffMoJ57B71

[SafeStreetsChicago @StreetsSaf62989]

As of 9:15 Saturday night of Fathers Day weekend, the shootings in Chicago are 30 shot of which 6 are dead. This includes the 12 shot late Friday night in Princeton Park. All the mayor can say is that he is heartbroken. No outrage at the shooters and where are his vaunted violence interrupters to stop this? Do they only work 9 to 5? Details on all the shootings in this link. https://t.co/ffMoJ57B71

[SafeStreetsChicago @StreetsSaf62989]

The office of mayor has a great impact on public safety. There are currently numerous people who have declared themselves a candidate. As such, this page will periodically publish their views on Public Safety. None of this should be construed as an endorsement of these candidates. When the election gets closer and early voting opens, an endorsement will be made.

The latest person to enter the race is George Cardenas. His announcement was light on public safety issues. He said he would create a stipend, called Parenting Matters, to urge parents to involve their teens in productive programs. "Paid parenting participation for structural engagement, we do it for teens. We're gonna do it for parents," Cardenas said.

Cardenas is currently a Cook County Board of Review Commissioner running for reelection this year. Previously he had been a Chicago alderman for about 20 years.

[SafeStreetsChicago @StreetsSaf62989]

The violence interrupters and preventers had a rough weekend. Shootings doubled this weekend from the same one last year. Included in the shootings were four people shot by a 13-year-old boy at a teen riot, (excuse me, takeover). This link contains the details on the shootings. https://t.co/pBwbKSAeNK

[SafeStreetsChicago @StreetsSaf62989]

There has been much made of a flawed analysis of ShotSpotter in the media. The claim is that without it, police response time is 4 minutes faster. Here are some of the key points of why the analysis is flawed.

The biggest flaw is that the analysis EXCLUDED all 911 calls involving shots fired. The sole purpose of ShotSpotter was to address the sound of shots fired.

Other flaws are:
There is no detailed analysis, only map graphics
Response times improved in most areas of the city including those areas which never has ShotSpotter.
There is a concern that the response times recorded by CPD are not accurate. The City of Chicago Inspector General has reported this.

The full story is in the following link: https://t.co/RO7lTWnrfd