“This is a gun-crime crisis,” Brown told reporters who pressed him on his strategy going into the summer, typically the most violent time in the city.” We are awash in guns.”
“…young people have been “fussing and fighting since the beginning of time,” and the only difference now is that too many of them are settling their differences with a gun.” (Mayor Lori Lightfoot/Sun-Times)
I just can’t do it anymore. I listened to part of Chicago Superintendent of Police David “Tex” Brown’s presser about the mass shooting at Chicago and State Street Thursday night. I could not take the nonsense and lies of the mumbling, stumbling, bumbling, and rambling. I cannot listen to or read about Mayor Lori Lightfoot anymore. She is another babbler of nonsense.
Lightfoot and Brown do not inspire confidence. They do not have a handle on the rampant violence in Chicago. Brown has an excuse, his incompetence. Lightfoot has no excuse as she should have fired Brown long ago. Lightfoot is the mayor. She wears the hat. She cannot escape the blame, accountability, or responsibility. She is not even good at ducking them.
“We were already supposed to have fixed posts in place at Chicago & State. So, huh?” the alderperson tweeted. “City Council needs to step in & demand accountability. Their strategy is failing us miserably.” (Ald. Brendan Reilly/Sun-Times/Emphasis mine)
The alderman is only partially correct. All “Tex” Brown’s plans, strategies, and deployments are miserable failures. He is a miserable failure. He was a miserable failure from day one. The only public safety policy, plan, strategy, and deployment in Chicago is that failure is an option, the only option.
New York City has had three mass shootings so far this year, and Los Angeles has had two, but Chicago –despite a smaller population than both of those cities – has already had 10... …Overall during the last three years, Chicago has gone from 33 mass shootings in 2019, to 53 in 2020, to 60 in 2021. (CBS Chicago)
Lightfoot and Brown ran out of excuses. There is no plan, strategy, or anything else on public safety. No number of pressers or hype by the news media can demonstrate that Brown is competent and knowledgeable. He is just another hack mercenary police executive from someplace else cashing in on the big kachingo$.
Lightfoot’s rollback of the city curfew is a cheap publicity stunt. Teens do not care about curfews. Young people will do what they want, when they want, and where they want. There are not enough police officers to enforce such a ridiculous stunt.
Brown lost control of the city. The news media is mute on his incompetence. Lori Lightfoot lost control of the city. The news media rarely, if ever, criticizes her. The Chicago news media should be forced to file in-kind donations with the Illinois Board of Elections for all the free publicity they give City Hall.
I was a police officer for almost 30 years. I worked in some of the most dangerous and violent areas in Chicago. I never saw it this bad. Chicago is almost a dystopian city. The violence is out of control in every neighborhood. Innocent people are being wounded and killed. More teens and even tweens are arming themselves. No one is safe in Chicago. Every citizen in this city is a potential innocent victim of violence.
The criminal element has no fear of repercussions by the criminal justice system. The system is irreparably broken. It was broken intentionally by our elected officials, Chicago Machine Boss, Toni Preckwinkle, and her mini-me minion, State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. Their so-called criminal justice reform is an abject failure. Worse, they refuse to acknowledge their policy failures. They, too, have blood on their hands. Politicians never admit they are wrong. When policies fail, they double and triple down instead of reversing course.
How many murders must be committed before the people of Chicago say enough is enough? How many more lies by elected officials and their PR weasels in the news media must people believe before Chicagoans demand better? When are the people going to say enough is enough?
Since the elected officials and Police Superintendent refuse to reverse course and crackdown, it is up to us. I said it before and will keep saying it. We need to hold the elected official’s feet to the fire. We need to make a big noise. We need to put ice-cold fear in their hearts- if they have one- that their jobs are in peril.
The problem is not “gun violence.” There is no such thing. Guns are inanimate objects. “Gun violence” is a made-up term to excuse the real problem- human beings. The correct term is human violence. “Gun violence” is a lie, the big lie.
The problem is not guns, drugs, gangs, and COVID. The problem is people- teens, tweens, and adults, who do not believe the laws apply to them. People who know there will be no repercussions for their crimes. The problem is elected officials and appointees who enable them through flawed policy decisions favoring criminality over public safety.
There should be a hue and cry for Mayor Lightfoot to fire the stumbling, mumbling, bumbling, rambling cowpoke from Texas. Send him back there on his high horse. He should be replaced with someone who knows this city and the neighborhoods. Someone who will appoint staff with the same knowledge. Someone who cares about the city more than just the big bucks.
Lightfoot, Brown, Preckwinkle, Foxx, and their PR allies in the news media think the public is dumb enough to believe all the lies they tell, justifying their failures. If people do not demand better, they will prove that deadly quartet right.