DAHLEEN GLANTON<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nCHICAGO TRIBUNE\u00a0 (Source)<\/p>\n
APR 26, 2021\u00a0AT\u00a05:00 AM<\/p>\n
Mayor Lori Lightfoot speaks during a news conference April 19, 2021, about the death of 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams.\u00a0(Erin Hooley \/ Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n
Seven-year-old Jaslyn Adams was killed in a hail of bullets while sitting in a car at a McDonald\u2019s drive-thru on a Sunday afternoon in Homan Square.<\/p>\n
That was just three days after authorities released video showing a police officer shoot and kill 13-year-old Adam Toledo in Little Village.<\/p>\n
A few weeks before, 22-month-old Kayden Swann was shot in the head and critically injured in a road rage incident on Lake Shore Drive near Grant Park.<\/p>\n
A month before that, 11-year-old Ny-Andra Dyer was killed when a gunman opened fire on her mother\u2019s car at a gas station in West Pullman.<\/p>\n
Fifteen people were shot at a funeral in the Gresham neighborhood last July. It was the deadliest shooting in recent memory \u2014 until 15 people were shot, two fatally, at a pop-up party in the Park Manor neighborhood in March.<\/p>\n
Last August, rapper FBG Duck was gunned down in a brazen shooting on the Gold Coast. In December, Dwain Williams, a retired Chicago fire lieutenant, was killed during an attempted carjacking in Morgan Park.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s time for us to come to terms with a fact no one wants to admit: Chicago is a dangerous city. No neighborhood is shielded from the violence. We can\u2019t even protect our children.<\/p>\n
Every mayor for the last 30 years has failed to keep his or her promise to bring the violence under control. Richard M. Daley didn\u2019t know what to do about it. Rahm Emanuel couldn\u2019t fix it. And Lori Lightfoot hasn\u2019t either.<\/p>\n
Since I moved to Chicago in 1989, there have been eight police superintendents who were as clueless as the mayors.<\/p>\n
Superintendent David Brown\u2019s first-year legacy does not give us reason to feel hopeful. There have been nearly 1,000 homicides in Chicago since he took over the Police Department in April 2020.<\/p>\n
It would be unfair to blame Brown for every killing during his short tenure, but under his leadership thus far, the violence clearly has gotten worse.<\/p>\n
Though the numbers remained uncomfortably high, Chicago had seen a three-year decline in homicides prior to Brown\u2019s arrival last year. In 2020, there were 769 killings, about 270 more than the previous year. In all, more than 4,000 people were shot last year, the most since 2016.<\/p>\n
Maybe we\u2019d be better off if Lightfoot and Brown admitted that they\u2019re in over their heads. That way, we wouldn\u2019t keep looking to them for solutions.<\/p>\n
Brown didn\u2019t spend much of his first year getting to know the residents of Chicago. If he has a detailed plan to address the violence, he hasn\u2019t revealed it to us. We\u2019re still waiting for him to tell us what he plans to do and what we can do to help.<\/p>\n
Early on, Brown seemed to think that he could just arrest the violence away. But long-term, sustainable solutions require a thoughtfully laid-out plan that engages the entire city. We need a proactive approach to policing, in which potential issues are identified and addressed before a problem arises.<\/p>\n
For too long, police officers have followed a script that does more to terrorize communities of color than encourage residents to work with them as a team. Nothing Brown or Lightfoot does will succeed until the trust issue is resolved.<\/p>\n
________Last week, Brown indicated that he is open to a more comprehensive approach, which involves changing police culture to build relationships.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019re going to change our culture, it\u2019s going to be because the community demands it,\u201d Brown said during a rare news conference. \u201cAnd we as a profession, not just as a department, have to \u2026 embrace this change that\u2019s happening across this country in law enforcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of what that means is shut up and listen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
If Brown had listened sooner, he would have known that the community has been demanding change for a long time. Residents who live in the most challenged communities have good ideas. What they need from the Police Department is a willingness to hear them and the leadership to carry them out.<\/p>\n
If residents could fix the problems in their neighborhoods on their own, they would have done so long ago. They are continuously putting their heads together to figure how to stop the next shooting from occurring. But they don\u2019t have the resources to protect themselves day to day, much less effect long-term change.<\/p>\n
They have marched through their streets in an attempt to reclaim their communities from gangs. They have pleaded with the business community, philanthropic groups and volunteers from throughout Chicago to join them.<\/p>\n
They have begged politicians in Chicago, Springfield and Washington to lend a hand. They\u2019ve mostly gotten empty promises.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, innocent children are dying. As summer approaches, we are braced for an onslaught of violence, while hoping that it isn\u2019t as bad as the last one.<\/p>\n
When 3-year-old Mekhi James was shot to death on Father\u2019s Day weekend last year in Austin, a Tribune editorial called for Chicago to make his killing a \u201cspringboard for change.\u201d Turns out it was the beginning of a bloody summer.<\/p>\n
Mekhi was killed while riding in the back seat of a car with his father. Two hours later about five blocks away, 13-year-old Amaria Jones was dancing with her mother when a stray bullet fatally struck her in the neck inside her South Austin home.<\/p>\n
In the following weeks, innocent children kept dying.<\/p>\n
Twenty-month-old Sincere Gaston was shot to death while riding in the car with his mother in Englewood. Ten-year-old Lena Nunez Anaya was killed by a stray bullet that went through the window of her grandmother\u2019s apartment in Logan Square.<\/p>\n
Seven-year-old Natalia Wallace was killed on the Fourth of July while playing in front of her grandparents\u2019 Austin home. Nine-year-old Janari Ricks was killed as he played outdoors in Cabrini-Green on July 31. And 8-year-old Dajore Wilson was riding in the car with her parents in Canaryville on Sept. 7 when gunmen opened fire.<\/p>\n
It isn\u2019t too late for Lightfoot and Brown to turn things around. But we are running out of time. Summer is just around the corner.<\/p>\n
Chicagoans want the mayor and the police superintendent to succeed because it\u2019s the only way the city can win. Many residents are anxious to help in any way they can. Young and old voices from all over the city have a lot to say. They\u2019re just waiting for a chance.<\/p>\n
But our patience is wearing thin.<\/p>\n
If Lightfoot and Brown can\u2019t help us protect our children, we will keep searching until we find a mayor and police superintendent who can.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Mayor is not the only one responsible for dealing with violence in Chicago. The violence that plagues our city and many others is multi faceted and takes ALL stakeholders to be involved. Check out the article from the April 26th edition of the Chicago Tribune and share your thoughts. Every mayor for the last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ucanturnitaround.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ucanturnitaround.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ucanturnitaround.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ucanturnitaround.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ucanturnitaround.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1156"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ucanturnitaround.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1160,"href":"https:\/\/www.ucanturnitaround.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1156\/revisions\/1160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ucanturnitaround.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ucanturnitaround.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ucanturnitaround.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ucanturnitaround.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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