Let’s have a conversation about the 175% rise in shootings in the River North/Near North neighborhoods. Oh, wait we can’t. According to Superintendent of Police, David “Tex” Brown, discussing violent crime in those areas is a divisive issue. He shut down reporters for bringing the issue up three times during a daily press conference last week. Evidently questioning or publicly discussing violent crime in specific neighborhoods is inappropriate in our city.
Since when is discussing violent crime in any of the 77 neighborhoods in Chicago “divisive?” Inquiring minds want to know. Most of the other alderpersons are silent on violent crime in their neighborhoods. They do not care about their constituents.
Aldermen Brendan Reilly and Brian Hopkins are not happy about the lack of police resources in their adjoining 2nd and 42nd Wards. For fourteen years, Alderman Reilly complained to three Chicago mayors, Daley, Emanuel, and Lightfoot about the “lawless zone” on a two-block section of State Street between Kinzie and Illinois. Little was done.
Brown used the word “divisive” as a pathetic excuse to cover for his total incompetence and lack of knowledge about Chicago neighborhoods. He is a disgrace. Every one of his plans, strategies, deployments, and responses has been and continues to be epic failures.
But, hey, let’s bring a NASCAR race to the streets of Chicago. Maybe the mayor can label next summer as the Summer of Giddy Glee. Before that happens, she better order Tex Brown to giddy up and ride his high horse back to Texas.
The Good Book says, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” Tex Brown is haughty. His pride in his know-nothingness has no bounds. Human lives are being destroyed. How long is Mayor Lori Lightfoot going to allow Brown to keep riding his high horse? When will he fall? Yesterday is not soon enough.
When will more alderpersons like Reilly, Hopkins, Lopez, O’Shea, and too few others get serious and rebel against the failure of Brown and Lightfoot to keep Chicago safe? When will the mayor realize Brown is a failure? Or is she, like most of the news media in this city, overly impressed by his daily recitation of meaningless manipulated metrics, data, and data analytics?
When will people start speaking up? There should be a hue and cry from every neighborhood in this city. A loud verbal revolt is the only thing politicians understand. It puts fear in their hearts. They fear not being reelected and forced to actually work for a living.
It is pathetic that people in Chicago can be outspoken about incidents that happen in other cities or states yet remain mute about the killing fields on Chicago’s streets. They are silent on the chaos, anarchy, and havoc, especially on the weekends. There should be mass protests demanding change in front of City Hall. There should be scorching editorials in the news media. Oh, never mind. They are the PR weasels for this administration. They should be reporting their PR work as in-kind donations to the mayor to the Illinois State Board of Elections.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot made history as the first Black, gay woman to be elected mayor of Chicago. She will go down in history as one of the worst, if not the worst, mayor in the history of Chicago. That will be her legacy.