Chicago Homicide Rate Worse Than Kabul, LA and NYC!

[Logical]

The streets of Chicago are now officially a warzone.

Homicide victims in the Windy City this year have outnumbered U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan, according to The Daily.

A whopping 228 Chicago residents have been killed almost doubling the amount of Americans who have died in Afghanistan (144) in 2012. That is quadruple the rate of New York City forcing Chicago to allow officers to work overtime in an already cash-strapped city.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has been under increased pressure to find a way to stem the violence. Rahm has cut some anti-violence programs as the city’s economy continues to struggle.

http://loop21.com/life/chicago-homicide-rate-worse-kabul-la-ny

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/16/chicago-homicide-rate-wor_n_1602692.html

Wait, I thought Illinois had really tight gun control laws. Hmmm. Interesting.

[sarisataka]

1. Motive, means, opportunity...

Motive:

Just as important have been dramatic changes within the gangs themselves.

"In the past the gangs were very organized from the top down," said Sgt. Matthew Little of the Chicago Police Department's gang enforcement unit. As more gang leaders are arrested, convicted and sent to prison, the gangs they left behind have become "very splintered," he said.

Young men on the city's streets agree.

"There is no one to control this, so it has become haywire," said Devon Tims, who identified himself as one of the Chicago Vice Lords, making him one of the city's estimated 70,000 gang members.

Means:

Jean Carter-Hill, an activist from Englewood, said she thinks the increase in officers patrolling the streets is helping clean up the area but that the city needs to do more, such as helping youths with conflict resolution.

"Every time there is a conflict, these young people get a gun," she said. "And everyone seems to know where a gun is."

Opportunity:

The demolition of the city's infamous public housing complexes in recent years also played a role. While the high rises long were considered a massive failure that warehoused the city's poorest families and became magnets for gangs, tearing them down caused a new set of problems by scattering gang members to other parts of the city.

Some of them eventually settled in the thousands of houses that were abandoned during the nation's recent financial crisis. There the battle for supremacy started anew.

Solutions:
a) More gun restrictions
b) Ignore it and hope the gangs settle down
c) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tio-hardiman/ceasefire-chicago_b_1600226.html

On Saturday June 9, 2012 the CeaseFire Violence Interrupters were called to mediate a conflict between a 10-year-old African American male and a 12-year-old African American male on the Westside of Chicago that almost turned deadly because the adult family members got involved in the conflict. The 10-year-old beat up the 12-year-old that was trying to bully him and the twelve year old ran home to tell his family members that three young men jumped on him. The 12-year-old returned to the 10-year-old's house with six adult family members and his family members beat up the 10-year-old's aunt. Then the aunt called her relatives and before you know it we had a potential gang conflict on our hands that started with two children. The Violence Interrupter mediated the conflict and everybody calmed down before things got way out of control.

This conflict represents one out of 225 conflicts that the Violence Interrupters have mediated from January 2012-May 2012. Young people are growing up thinking that violence is their only option and some adults reinforce this message on a daily basis. It's time to work on changing behaviors with the most high risk youth in Chicago. This is one way you can teach young people that there are other ways to deal with everyday frustration and your emotions before taking somebody's life and in return losing your life to the penal system.

[DonP]

2. That was a "good" weekend in "gun free" Chicago

The President was in town all weekend so there was heightened security everywhere.

But it's better than the last few weekends, where we had as many as 11 killed and 45 wounded.

Keep up the good work Rahm. We don't need those 1200 street cops you let go and not replaced or given their union a contract.

Maybe another gun buy back photo op with flaky Pfleger and Jesse Jackson will solve the problem Rahm, or your latest try to get the Superbowl here? That's what people need while they're burying their children you scummy, egomaniacal hosebag.

But thank heavens there's no CCW here, imagine all the shootings over parking spaces or in the produce aisle over who gets the last eggplant! We'd be as bloody as Des Moines Iowa or Janesville Wisconsin! Oh the horror!

Oh wait, we're killing more here than in Afghanistan. Never mind.

[IamK]

3. gun control at it's finest.... n/t

[dogman]

4. hyperbole

Where are the equivalent Afghan dead? Our Congress chooses to fund "peacekeeping" there instead of here. Where do the gangs derive power? Dealing with that could bring a better solution. Drugs, guns are both illegal but both accessible. Comes back to money and greed.