The warm weather has finally arrived for Chicago, with two recent weekends featuring moderate temperatures. While the warm weather is great for those out jogging and enjoying the Lake Shore, it isn’t so great for crime, as shootings have soared. Just over the Easter weekend, 9 were killed and another 36 shot in gang violence.
With the beautiful weather hitting Chicago over the Easter weekend, 9 residents were shot and killed and another 36 were hit by gunfire. This large toll mirrors the previous weekend when moderate weather coincided with 35 shot, several of whom were killed.
Despite some 100 shooting incidents spread out over the last two weeks, Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy insists that his crime reduction policies are “working.”
Of the rising crime during nice weather, the Superintendent said, “It’s something that we deal with.” However, of his crime reduction policies McCarthy insisted to ABC 7 News, “the point is [they’re] working.”
Many doubt McCarthy’s claims. A recent investigative report in Chicago magazine reported that the CPD has been essentially cooking the statistics by playing loose with the reporting.
The magazine claimed that the way the CPD falsifies the stats is a “troubling practice” that is a “betrayal of public trust.”
However, a retired Chicago Police Detective told Breitbart News that these practices have a long pedigree in the city. The Detective said that in the 70s and 80s the CPD would often misreport crimes to make the stats seem lower. For instance, “If two people were killed it was counted as one incident – or one murder,” he said via email.
In another example, the Detective said a crime would be reclassified as “unfounded” when a victim would not cooperate. However, the way to manufacture an “uncooperative witness” was to call the victim at 3:00 in the morning, thereby upsetting him and causing him to refuse to talk about the crime at that hour. So, with an “uncooperative witness” who wouldn’t confirm details, the incident was called “unfounded,” and the crime was knocked off the books.
The Superintendent’s main reply to all this violence is to call for greater gun control.
“Studies show, where there’s more restrictive gun laws, there’s less gun violence. It’s really, really simple,” McCarthy told WGN radio.
In the meantime, Chicago Teachers’ Union President Karen Lewis thought that the gun crime in Chicago was fodder for jokes, even as many of the victims are the same teens and children who go to the very schools at which her members teach.
At a recent appearance, Lewis was attacking the city for its teachers pension reform policies and likened cuts in pensions to being shot.
“‘Take this cut or nothing’ – that’s not a choice,” Lewis said of the pension reform plans. “You gonna shoot me here or here?” she joked.
“I’m still shot! And this is Chicago!” she said laughing as the crowd roared in hilarity.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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