Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s latest crime-fighting plan is in the realm of you cannot make this s**t up.
If the consistent failure to curb the violence plaguing Chicago citywide were not enough, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced another policy that will fail. She wants the City Council to pass an ordinance allowing the city to sue gangs and gang members.
The City Council fits the ordinance’s definition of a gang due to their history of criminality. Maybe she should start there.
This is a dumb bad joke. The mayor stopped criticizing Kim Foxx. My guess is she got slapped down hard by Machine Boss Toni Preckwinkle. Foxx has a better media presence than the mayor. Appearance is everything to the gullible voters in this city.
The proposal for the ordinance before the City Council was pushed back. A few aldermen expressed dismay. The rest are mute, as they have been during this long hot Summer Olympics of Violence.
Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown is failing and flailing, using Alphabet Soup to develop new names for his plans, strategies, deployments, precision deployments, and whatever this week brings.
Over the weekend, 48 people were shot, including 6 killed. There was another mass shooting (4 or more people), the 53rd mass shooting this year. What part of failure doesn’t Lightfoot or Brown understand? Gangs are not the only reason for this violence. Neither are drug dealers. Other social issues cause this citywide violence. Some are systemic. Others are behavioral.
The street cops and detectives are the only ones trying to stem the violence against a failing leader. The State’s Attorney refuses to do her job, prosecuting felons. The courts let felons out on low or no bail. They also allow felons to plead their cases down to misdemeanors.
The corrections system is anything but. It warehouses prisoners without reforming them. Ex-felons and felons commit many violent crimes while on parole or probation. Kim Foxx will not prosecute probation or parole violators.
The failure to prevent and curb violence in Chicago should be appalling. There is only one way left to fix this situation. The citizens must say enough is enough. The editorial boards of our news media must stop playing nice with City Hall and demand change or heads to roll.
There should be a rising crescendo of anger, outrage, protest with the threat of ballot box retribution. That is the only thing that will bring about change. Elected officials, including judges, should be quaking in their boots, fearing they could lose their positions. They would have to work for a living. Work is an anathema to them, which is why they entered politics.