Tribune's disgusting editorial on gun violence. Did McCarthy's people plant it?

City Council Black Caucus chairman Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th), at podium, and members on Monday call for the firing of Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy. | Rich Hein/Sun-Times

In August, you [aldermen] had more than 40 people shot on four consecutive weekends. In the deadliest September since 2002, you had 60 people killed. Aldermen, for too long you've avoided wearing a jacket for Chicago's mayhem. -- Tribune editorial

The Tribune's Oct. 1 editorial, Aldermen, own Chicago violence, strikes the same divisive tone as their previous ones calling for a "Mussolini-type dictator" to run the schools and for a "Katrina-like disaster" to hit Chicago.

This time though, they've actually outdone themselves, shifting blame for the dramatic rise in gun violence that has occurred during the Rahm/McCarthy years, onto black and Latino communities and their aldermen. It reads as a total ass-covering attempt for the mayor and police officials. And if you can read racist code language [substitute gang banger and terrorist for young black men] it becomes clear exactly which of the city's 50 alders the Tribune is aiming at.

The gangbangers sleep somewhere. Have you insisted that parents in your ward search their dwellings for guns?

The criminals understand that, if they don't act out too much, they can flourish in your neighborhoods because you — the supposed mayors of your 50 little cities — will not make life difficult for them, for their friends, for their parents. You could help identify the terrorists in your midst. You could organize your wards to help cops, instead of complaining about cops.

Is it just me, or does this one read like it came right out of Supt. Garry McCarthy's Office of Propaganda?

Remember, McCarthy is no stranger to juking politically-charged crime stats and trying to make it look like gun violence had suddenly and magically decreased under his watch.

From Chicago Magazine:

McCarthy called 2012’s homicide total a “tragic number” and vowed that things would be different in 2013. The mindset inside police headquarters, recalls one officer: “Whatever you gotta do, this can’t happen again.”

To help gauge each city’s overall crime level, the FBI tracks eight “index crimes.” From 1993 to 2010, Chicago’s annual total dropped by 47 percent. But from 2010 to 2013, it dropped a stunning 56 percent, or nearly 19 percent per year, according to data from the Chicago Police Department.

Garry McCarthy, who became police chief in May 2011, accomplished that huge reduction in part by changing how certain crimes are categorized. 

No one, of course, is "blaming the cops" for the gun violence epidemic, as the Trib editors charge. In fact, it's Rahm's critics like his election opponent, Chuy Garcia, who have pleaded with him to put more cops out in the neighborhoods. They've also hit Rahm for disbanding many of the city's community policing programs.

Rahm & McCarthy. They juked the crime stats. 

And as for the big dust up over the name of Spike Lee's film, Chiraq, it was basically the mayor and two of his city council yes-men, Will Burns and Anthony Beale, who were silly enough to tell Spike what to do. You can't blame the whole council for that.

And it's been Rahm who, after every high-profile shooting, comes out with media attacks directed at the black community and families for supposedly "not cooperating" with the cops. A quarter million stop-and-frisks of young African-Americans may have had something to do with that.  Trib of course, never mentions. 

But when all is said and done and election campaigns aside, more and better policing are only a small piece of the gun violence puzzle. With the collapse of community policing programs, cops role comes into play at the back end of things. There job has been directed at arresting the shooters and put them (or someone they think is them) in prison. 

So now you've got 2 million, most black and Latino males in prison -- the largest prison population in the world -- and Chicago gun violence shooting up again to record levels. 

The Tribune piece never mentions that the city is saturated with guns, crack and heroin. That there's large areas of concentrated poverty in racially segregate and isolated neighborhoods of the city where no jobs exist and where schools, clinics, and business stand boarded up.

That's a recipe for gun violence.

The Tribune's attempt to cover that up and blame the victims, rather than the real causes of gun violence deserves to be dissed. If indeed, this piece of crap journalism came from McCarthy's people, it's just another reason he needs to go.  There are plenty of others.