The Emerson Poll: Perception vs. Reality

Crime is once again the hot-button issue here in Chicago and in cities across the country. Yesterday's funeral following the killing of Chicago police officer Ella French has understandably amplified the anger, fears, and frustrations many feel about violent crime. 

At the same time, a poll was released showing crime to be the overwhelmingly top concern of Chicagoans, dwarfing worries about the spiking covid pandemic, the reopening of schools, and every other issue. But let's take a deeper look and see if there's a gap between that perception and reality. 

What's wrong with this statement?

A WGN-TV/Emerson College poll of Chicago residents found that crime is on the rise, with 62% saying there is more crime now in Chicago than there was a year ago. Twenty-four percent (24%) feel that the amount of crime has stayed the same, and 14% feel that there is less crime today.

Well, for one thing, you can't determine whether or not a city's crime rate is going up or down by taking a poll. Polls like Emerson may give us a sense of people's changing perceptions of crime, or the favorability or unfavorability of certain politicians, but those most often depend on how questions are asked, who's being asked, and who's doing the asking. 

Case in point: Chicago crime isn't really on the rise , although it's completely understandable why so many feel that it is, given local media's attention paid to daily crime reports. While crime rates have been falling steadily over the past two decades, homicides so far this year have risen. 

An NBC News analysis of Chicago Police Department data going back 20 years shows that overall, violent crime continued its slow decline during the pandemic. When all categories of violent crime are added together, the total declined by 46 percent over 20 years and held steady between the first half of both 2019 and 2021.

There's some  research showing  that public demand drives coverage of bad news — that people have a “negativity bias.” But I think it's the other way around, with the media driving the bias. 

It's not that I doubt the veracity of the poll itself. I don't. I just think that polling and news groups tend to overstate the significance of their results and blur the distinction between perception and reality. Polls shape and influence perceptions as well as measuring them. That's something we've all come to recognize in the last few national elections. 

According to the Emerson poll, crime, and especially violent crime, is the number-one concern of Chicagoans. 

Respondents were asked what the number one issue facing Chicago today is. A plurality of residents (44%) feel that crime is the number one issue facing the city.... Compared to the WGN-TV/Emerson poll in June, crime has risen six points as a top issue, from 38% to 44%.

What happened in the city in June and July to cause a six-point jump in perception is not clear from WGN's report. I would guess that it's the daily coverage of the recent wave of horrifying carjackings or the terrible rise in summertime gun violence that has put all of us on edge lately. 

While crime dominates popular concern, all other issues were below 12%: Covid-19 (12%), education/schools (8%), jobs (8%), police reform (7%), healthcare (7%), housing (5%), and homelessness (2%). Six percent (6%) of respondents said something else. 

The widening poverty gap isn't on the list of concerns offered in the poll, although homelessness is and ranks at the very bottom. There's no connection made by the pollsters between this widening gap and crime or contextualizing crime in the way questions are asked. There were no questions either, regarding the easy flow of illegal guns into the city.

Many people around the country perceive Chicago as the number-one crime city in America. But the actual numbers paint quite a different picture. Trump repeatedly criticized Chicago, saying it was “worse than Afghanistan.” I myself engaged in similar hyperbole a few years ago, referring to Chicago as "Chiraq" a la Spike Lee, just to make a point. But it turns out that our city hasn't even made the top-30 list when it comes to urban crime rates. 

A recent New York Times quiz revealed some common misperceptions about crime trends, the most widely held of which involved Chicago. Readers were asked to rank Chicago nationally in murder rate. The options were first, third, fifth, or seventh. Most picked “first,” and only 8 percent chose the right answer (seventh).

I was also a little surprised to learn that even with Chicago students about to return to school in a matter of days in the midst of a surging pandemic, only 8% had education/schools at the top of their list of concerns. In fact, the surging pandemic only made the top of the concern list for 12% of Chicagoans. Is that because Chicago is doing so much better than other big cities in containment? I don't have an answer on that one.

Another surprising (to me) result showed a majority (70%) of respondents having at least a somewhat positive opinion of the Chicago Police Department, while 23% have a somewhat or very negative opinion, and 7% are unsure. 

I'm only surprised at how that perception has changed since its low point, following the police murders of Laquan McDonald in 2014. The fallout from that killing and the political cover-up that following drove then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel from office. Polls at the time showed: "nearly two-thirds of African-American voters in the city said they didn’t trust him, and half of all likely voters thought the mayor should resign. The Emerson poll shows concerns about police reform now dropping into single-digit. 

Not surprising was a strong majority (70%) indicating support for a reinstatement of an indoor mask mandate in Chicago, with 21% opposed and 9% unsure. Such a mandate goes into effect citywide, tomorrow. 

Finally, the poll shows that Chicagoans appear pretty evenly split on Mayor Lightfoot's performance so far, with 46% disapproval and 43% approval. While her approval ratings are down about 20% from a year ago, I'm surprised that they're as high as they are, given the divisive nature of current politics, extremely negative City Hall press coverage, and an unrelenting hate campaign organized by both FOP and CTU leaders who have never gotten past Lightfoot's defeat of their candidate in the last election. 

Cops in schools revisited and a good compromise on community oversight

“By shifting the conversation towards more holistic approaches to safety, we believe that the new plans will enable schools to use strategies that are more proactive and supportive in keeping our students safe.” --Jadine Chou, CPS’ chief of safety and security.

I'm glad CPS, the City Council, and the mayor opted to allow Local School Councils (LSCs) to have a say over keeping cops in their schools or using meager discretionary funds to pay for alternative security options. 

Yesterday, more than 30 Chicago high schools voted to redirect money spent on uniformed police officers towards alternative behavioral and mental health supports a year after intense student-led protests put a microscope on the role of cops in public schools.

The votes will shift about $2 million from policing to restorative justice programs, with a total of 31 high schools choosing to remove at least one of the two officers typically stationed inside their buildings. 

In this case, those school communities made the right decision. But more importantly, it was their decision.

This should reaffirm our support for LSCs, a democratic reform we fought for and won more than 30 years ago, and my long-held belief that most basic decisions about the conduct and content of schooling should be made locally by teachers, parents, and students. In Chicago, top-down reform imposed on schools by the board, the mayor, state legislators, or the aldermen, has always been a failure. 

Austerity -- It's shameful that this choice, like most others within our public school system, had to be made primarily on the basis of austerity rather than on principle or best practices.

A WIN FOR COMMUNITY OVERSIGHT

Yesterday, another good decision regarding community control of the police was made by city political leaders. Mayor Lightfoot and a City Council majority came together at long last on a police oversight ordinance that establishes a seven-member Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability. 

The City Council voted 36-13 to pass the ordinance. The compromise represented a defeat for the FOP and the pro-FOP caucus of aldermen who want less, not more community oversight of CPD. They included no-voters: Brian Hopkins (2nd); Anthony Beale (9th); Patrick Daley Thompson (11th); Marty Quinn (13th); Edward Burke (14th); Matt O’Shea (19th); Silvana Tabares (23rd); Ariel Reboyras (30th); Nick Sposato (38th); Samantha Nugent (39th); Anthony Napolitano (41st); Brendan Reilly (42nd) and Jim Gardiner (45th).

While it's a far cry from the original CPAC proposal demanded by some left activist groups, both the mayor and many of her die-hard council opponents are cheering the compromise.

Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th), a strong advocate for civilian oversight, said “democracy is messy” for good reason. Ordinary people need to have “great involvement” at all levels.

“There’s a disconnect between police and our communities as it relates to solving crimes. In order for us to get back to that, we have to get the community involved. This takes a strong step with re-engaging, resetting our relationships between the community and the police,” Sawyer said.

And listen to the leader of the anti-Lightfoot caucus from day-one, Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th): 

“Sometimes, we were at odds. But we came together because we knew that our city had to get something right ... to ensure that people in every single community feel safe. That they are safe. No one should be afraid of violence — whether by another citizen or by those tasked to protect and serve them." 

Lightfoot called the debate “one for the ages” and made passing reference to the contentious negotiations that set the stage for the compromise. 

“We’ve come a long way. We’ve had some stumbles. We’ve had some disagreements. But because of the hard work [of so many], we are on the precipice of making history,” the mayor said.

A little over-the-top? Maybe. But I'll take it for now.  

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

 Already there have been more global cases in 2021 than in all of 2020, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Dr. Anthony Fauci 

“We don’t want to declare victory prematurely because we still have a ways to go." -- Guardian

Elizabeth Todd-Breland, Chicago school board member

"Turnaound is a relic..." -- Chalkbeat Chicago 

Rebecca Solnit

Stop glorifying ‘centrism’. It is an insidious bias favoring an unjust status quo. -- Guardian

Sen. Robert Peters, D-Chicago, the bill's sponsor

“For years, folks were showing up to Chicago Police Board meetings for their civic duty and every citizen who showed up experienced a background check. That’s a violation of so many people’s rights.” -- -- Capitol Fax

Fred Klonsky

We live in a country where the state legislature must mandate play but congress doesn't need to approve a war. -- Tweet

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

The Biden administration set aside $4 billion to help minority farmers. White farmers, echoing some old-guard Chicago journalists, complain that leveling the playing field amounts to "reverse racism."

“We’re getting the short end,” said John Wesley Boyd Jr., a Virginia bean and grain farmer who is also the founder of the National Black Farmers Association. “Anytime in the United States, if there’s money for Blacks, those groups speak up and say how unfair it is. But it’s not unfair when they’re spitting on you when they’re calling you racial epithets when they’re tearing up your application.” -- NYT 

Columnist Laura Washington

Harold Washington, Chicago’s first Black mayor, frequently called out the media for the whiteness in the City Hall press room. -- Sun-Times

Tucker Carlson

"Equity is racism..." -- Fox News 

Siva Vaidhyanathan, Professor of Media studies at UVA

What is at stake with Nikole Hannah-Jones being denied tenure?

...The 1619 project sparked a furious blowback from conservatives who don’t like to be reminded that Black people are allowed to tell the story of America as well and that history is always under revision as new knowledge emerges and new questions rise. -- Guardian

Father Michael Pfleger

After nearly 5 months of being removed from St. Sabina because of False Accusations, I am overjoyed to announce that the Archdiocese of Chicago has said " there is insufficient reason to suspect Father Pfleger is guilty of these allegations "  I am being reinstated as Senior Pastor of  St Sabina. -- FB Post

Journalist Jamie Kalven on police complaint database

Kalven told aldermen that a city-run database would represent a “paradigm shift” in how the city discloses complaints against officers and “significantly reduce demands” on city staff charged with providing documents via the Freedom of Information Act. -- WTTW

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

 Multiple funeral pyres of those who died of COVID-19 burn in New Delhi.

Bill Gates

Directly asked during an interview with Sky News if he thought it "would be helpful" to have vaccine recipes be shared, Gates quickly answered: "No." -- Salon

Moustafa Bayoumi

Officials talk about “catch and release” as if they are chatting about fish when they’re really talking about people’s lives. -- Guardian 

Simon Balto

A single guilty verdict or a single justice department investigation do not in and of themselves have the capacity to topple and replace violently oppressive systems that are generations in the making. -- Guardian

Paul Krugman

“Change is coming, whether we seek it or not.”

So declares a remarkable document titled “Preserving Coal Country,” released Monday by the United Mine Workers of America. -- NY Times

Labor attorney Thomas Geoghegan 

...described the NLRB process which hampered the Amazon workers union drive, as akin to a “bloodless bureaucratic death squad.”  -- Capital & Main

"We are not a match..."

A New York man bragged about storming the Capitol to his Bumble match. The prospective date replied, "We are not a match," and reported him to authorities. https://t.co/SlhpKKZtCO

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) April 26, 2021

Real reform vs. sham reform

 

Some readers misread my previous post on MN's sham police reform as an indictment of reform efforts in general. That certainly wasn't my intention. I know there are some who maintain that police reform (and all reform) is a waste of time and "has never worked". I'm not one of them. As I pointed out in that piece, there are meaningless, lollipop reforms that are simply diversions, as well genuine, deep-going, comprehensive reforms that arise directly from people's struggle and are worthy of our support. Consider the current George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. 

While the racist and repressive character of our criminal justice system remains a constant, the movement in the streets, combined with strong and committed political leadership, can drive change and force constraints on racist policing. A good example is Newark, where cops did not fire a single shot during  calendar year 2020, and where the city didn’t pay a single dime to settle police brutality cases. That’s never happened, at least in the city’s modern history.

From 2015 to 2019, the Newark Police Department killed eight Black men, according to The Washington Post, more than any other department in the state. 

The changes in Newark were partly the result of strong leadership from Mayor Ras Baraka and from the constant pressure applied by the city's historically strong community and youth organizations. Newark is also operating under also a federally enforced consent decree. Under Baraka, the police have met with community groups, giving residents some control over law enforcement. Pressure from below, from the Black Lives Matter movement, has constrained police shootings. Meanwhile, serious crime in Newark has dropped by 40% in the last five years dispelling the notion that constraining the cops will increase crime.

Larry Hamm, long-time Newark community organizer and  head of the People’s Organization for Progress, points out:  “Police brutality is still a problem, but it’s fair to say the consent decree has had a real impact." Hamm was a protege of the late Amiri Baraka, the writer/activist who helped shape Newark's modern history.

Hamm and the POP want state lawmakers to pass a bill that would make civilian complaint review boards with subpoena power possible for all municipalities in New Jersey. He also called on state legislators to pass another bill that would make police disciplinary records public.

The Star-Ledger reports:

The reforms are the results of a federal consent decree, the billy club used by the Department of Justice after a long investigation concluded in 2014 revealed the rot that had infested the department for decades. It found a rogue department that tolerated widespread brutality and racism, with no accountability, and zero training on how to de-escalate confrontations with civilians.

Questions remain as to whether the reforms in Newark can hold. Cops are still using force against Black residents, and activists remain split on the future of public safety there. Newark is a majority-Black city with a poverty level above 63%. Black people are still disproportionately stopped, frisked, and arrested. The new year also brought Newark’s streak to an abrupt end. At 12:03 a.m. on January 1, 2021, plainclothes cops shot and killed Carl Dorsey, a 39-year-old father. The state’s attorney general is investigating the incident. 

But it's wrong to ignore or minimize the gains that have been made and the victories won, especially in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder and a string of others. Yes, there's still a long, difficult road ahead but it's one worth taking. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Weaponized gossip. It's designed to undermine the credibility and marginalize the person who is the target. It often has no basis in reality. I know - it happened to me as an elected official. It's got a name. It's a tactic. Recognize it when you see it, and push back.

— Rep. Ann Williams (@RepAnnWilliams) April 18, 2021

Benjamin Crump, civil rights attorney

“The outcome that we pray for and Derek Chauvin is for him to be held criminally liable for killing George Floyd, because we believe that could be a precedent,” Crump told ABC’s This Week on Sunday. “Finally making America live up to its promise of liberty and justice for all. That means all of us - Black people, Hispanic people, Native people - all of us.” -- Guardian

Dr. David Williams

Dr. David Williams, Harvard public health professor 

“There are racial disparities in health in the United States. Over 200 Black people die prematurely every single day." -- 60 Minutes

John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua 

"China and the United States are committed to cooperating with each other and with other countries to tackle the climate crisis." -- China-U.S. Joint Statement Addressing the Climate Crisis

Eliot Cohen, Dean of SAIS at Johns Hopkins

In important aspects of foreign and national-security policy, the Biden administration is really the Trump administration but with civilized manners. -- The Atlantic

Is anybody buying this oft-told tale?

Following the police killing of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in Little Village on March 29th, CPD began spreading a story to local media alleging that a Chicago street gang was planning to avenge Toledo's death by murdering cops. Will this rumor be enough to legitimize Officer Eric Stillman's shooting of Toledo who had his hands up with no gun present at the moment he was gunned down.

In case the cops weren't already operating with a hair-trigger response mentality, CPD leaders immediately began issuing a “officer safety alerts” to street cops claiming that the department’s narcotics unit had learned that factions of the Latin Kings in the Ogden patrol district on the Southwest Side “were instructed by ranking members to shoot at unmarked Chicago police vehicles.”

They offered no evidence to back up this tale. Neither have any LK leaders been identified as part of the alleged conspiracy or charged. This was on April 3rd. Today is the 17th and still not one reported revenge shooting which leads me to believe the planted story was a load of FOP crap.

It's too soon to tell if the story is credible, you say. Give it time to see if any of these attacks actually occur.

Well actually, I have given it some time because this same story has been popping up after police shootings for years.

First, check out this NY Post story from Sept. 2020 where the FBI warns of a supposed plot by Chicago gangs to ambush cops.

Dozens of Chicago street gangs have made a pact to “shoot on-sight any cop that has a weapon drawn on any subject in public,” according to an FBI warning.

The FBI’s “Potential Activity Alert” warns that almost three dozen gangs have reached the agreement, including the Vice Lords, Black P Stones and Latin Kings, according to ABC7 Chicago, which obtained a copy.

Then there's this FOX News story from 2016. 

Leaders from three Chicago gangs reportedly met last week to discuss plans to kill police officers in response to the officer-involved shooting death of 18-year-old Paul O’Neal.

The Chicago Sun-Times, citing an alert issued to Chicago officers, reported Monday that the meeting took place on Thursday between the gangs Vice Lords, Black Disciples and Four Corner Hustlers.

According to the paper, the Four Corner Hustlers have “provided guns” and pinpointed a “sniper in place.” However, authorities are still unsure where the alleged sniper spot is placed. The gang is also funneling weapons to the other two gangs

 What is true is that dozens of cops have been shot in the line of duty. But so far there have been no verified links between any of those shootings and these alleged conspiracies. It's time to stop spreading these potentially deadly rumors. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

R.I.P. Ramsey Clark

“A right is not what someone gives you; it’s what no one can take from you.” (1927-2001)

Honduran immigrant Maria Ana Mendez

“I have no idea where my daughter is,” Ms. Mendez said in an interview on March 26. “No one is telling me anything at all.” -- New York Times

Katie Wright

Daunte Wright's mother, Katie Wright

"He got out of the car, and his girlfriend said they shot him," she said. "He got back in the car, and he drove away and crashed and now he's dead on the ground since 1:47. ... Nobody will tell us anything. Nobody will talk to us. ... I said please take my son off the ground." -- Star Tribune

Fareed Zakaria

Welcome to the new age of bloated Pentagon budgets, all to be justified by the great Chinese threat...The U.S. has 20 times the number of nuclear warheads as China. -- CNN

Letter to Biden signed by more than 100 state and local officials 

Now is the time for your administration to fulfill its commitment to human rights and refugee protection; only then can we urge the global community to also do their part.” -- Washington Post 

 

Georgia politicians are leaving nearly 2 billion dollars on the table and denying affordable health care to nearly 500,000 Georgians by refusing to expand Medicaid.

That’s a moral and economic failure. We must expand Medicaid.

— Reverend Raphael Warnock (@ReverendWarnock) April 11, 2021

Chauvin's murder conviction should be an easy one. But it won't be.

Chauvin (right) with his defense attorney, Eric Nelson. 

“Today starts a landmark trial that will be a referendum on how far America has come in its quest for equality and justice for all." -- Floyd family attorney, Ben Crump

 From Tamir Rice to Michael Brown to Eric Garner, a long series of non-indictments in high-profile killings of Black men and women make plain that prosecutions of police officers are rare, and convictions rarer still. -- Bloomberg Law 

Police reform? Where is it?

The Anjanette Young case is one more brick-in-the-wall story about a racist political system. It's a system that reproduces racial inequality, criminalizes and incarcerates Black people, allows cops to "legally" bust down doors and invade homes in the middle of the night, abuse, and even kill women like Young and Breonna Taylor. 

The raid occurred nearly two years ago when CPD cops broke into the home of Young, a social worker who was undressing when they barged in looking for a suspect. Young, standing naked and handcuffed, cried repeatedly that the officers had the wrong address.

So now the city's council has "resigned". The former police chief has been fired and Mayor Lightfoot is rightfully taking heat for her mishandling of the aftermath. 

But Mayor Emanuel, on whose watch this racist assault took place, is up for a Biden cabinet position, and the CPD perpetrators are still on the job, and with easy warrants obtained via informants' misinfo, are still breaking down doors. 

Where is Reform? 

Fraternal Order of Police Chicago Lodge 7 President John Catanzara

Meanwhile... The head of Chicago's FOP, who calls Muslims "savages" and says "they all deserve a bullet..."  He's still on the city payroll. 

Police & Mental Health: A Bad Mix

For weeks, Brandon Hayes wandered around Baton Rouge during a mental health crisis, spray-painting nonsensical messages along the way before finally checking himself into the hospital for treatment. police officers soon showed up at the behavioral health center where Hayes was being treated, placed him under arrest and in the midst of the COVID pandemic, transported him to the parish jail — an outdated and overcrowded detention center that even the warden has called "deplorable" for mental health patients... Read the whole story here.

In L.A., Tulsa, Seattle, and several other cities, there are new pilot initiatives to partner cops with mental health experts and social workers. Even though activists' demands to "defund" the police seem to have lost favor with voters -- Democrats won't touch the issue -- it's clear that the new collaboratives have been driven in large part by public reaction to unabated police killings and brutality towards the mentally ill. 

Studies show that 1 in 4 people with mental illness have a history of police arrest. The Treatment Advocacy Center, a nonprofit that studies mental health issues, has calculated that the odds of being killed during a police encounter are 16X higher for individuals with untreated serious mental illness as they are for people in the broader population.

The new collaboratives are a small, but significant victory for police reformers as well as for the Black Lives Matter movement, although few will admit it.   

As you might expect, Trump is mocking the new pilot collaboratives at his campaign rallies. 

At his illegal Oct. 10th rally at the White House, DT claimed that Biden said, “When you call 911, a therapist should answer the call.” 

He didn’t of course, although it's not such a bad idea. What Biden has said is that mental health experts should accompany police on some calls. No, it's not a very radical concept. Plus, although DT probably doesn't remember, it's a policy even he supported in a June executive order.

What a dick!

This from Amanda Klonsky on FB:

It's been 7 months, and winter is looming. Mental health issues related to our lock down and the pandemic are especially hard for people with depression and other mental health disorders. NAMI, The National Alliance on Mental Health has a helpline: (800)950-6264. The relapse and overdose rate has increased by 30% since March 2020.

The 24 hr suicide prevention hotline is: (800)273-8255

Thanks Amanda. 

Barr, take your law-and-order shit show out of our city

AG Barr, who has turned the Justice Dept into accused rapist Trump's personal defense attorney, get the hell out of our city!

Trump's protector and faithful sidekick, Atty. Gen. William Barr is in Chicago to tout his so-called Operation Legend, which has so far resulted in the mass incarceration of thousands of mainly Black and Latino young men in cities across the country.

Barr claims the operation is responsible for reducing the city's gun violence. But that claim is bullshit (not her words), according to Mayor Lori Lightfoot. 

In contrast, Barr is using the Justice Department to aid and abet the international gang of criminals that now occupies the White House. The latest outrage is Barr's move to replace  Trump’s private legal team with DOJ lawyers to defend the accused rapist in a defamation suit brought by author E. Jean Carroll. Last year, Carroll credibly accused Trump of raping her in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s.

In Chicago, FBI sweeps have led to the arrests of more than 500 people, many on federal gun and drug charges so those arrested can be held without bail. The DOJ operation involves federal agents conducting large scale, counter-gang investigations using police informants and covert aerial surveillance. This at a time when Chicago's crime rate is on the decline and when area prisons have become COVID hot spots. 

But Operation Legend has more to do with Trump's election campaign than it does with crime-fighting. Barr has used his appearance here to blame the supposed "wave of violent crime" on the ongoing nationwide protests since the police killing of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor, as well as on "anarchic and far-left extremist groups."

Using Wednesday's announcement in part to criticize ongoing efforts pushing for racial justice and police reform, Barr blamed those protests in part for a spike in crime nationwide earlier this year and repeated a "law and order" refrain often employed by President Donald Trump as he campaigns for reelection. -- 5 Chicago

With the election only weeks away, Trump is counting on a new law-and-order surge to energize his base and spread fear among white suburban voters while painting Democratic-run cities, especially those with black mayors, as crime-ridden "shitholes." 

To her credit, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, while offering to work with the feds to control the worsening gun violence in the city, slammed the Trump/Barr political assault on Chicago, leaving Barr to complain that Lightfoot excluded federal efforts in their own discussions on the decrease in crime--adding that Chicago police had been invited to Wednesday's announcement but declined to attend, with Barr citing "politics" as the reason.

"They were certainly invited and could have attended," Barr said, when asked why members of CPD were not standing with federal law enforcement on Wednesday.

Lightfoot responds:

"Nearly two months ago, the mayor sent a letter to the President outlining areas where the federal government has the unique ability to help us fight the epidemic of gun violence... While the president continues to make factually inaccurate comments about Chicago from the political stump, almost two months later, we've received no response to the letter and worse, no results from him for Chicago. We hope Attorney General Barr's visit is part of an effort to help make these actions a reality as opposed to using our city and its residents as a political prop, as his boss regularly does."

It wasn't.

Omar Muhammad (formerly known as Omar Saunders), from left; Marcelias Bradford, Larry Ollins, and his cousin Calvin Ollins were arrested and falsely convicted as teens in the abduction, rape, and murder of a woman. Advanced DNA testing more than a decade later cleared all four. Foxx's opponent, former prosecutor Patrick O'Brien led the frame-up. 

Along with the black city mayors, the law-and-order Republicans' main target has been Cook County States Attorney Kim Foxx. Foxx is currently locked in a close campaign battle with Republican great-white-hope former prosecutor Patrick O'Brien who has attacked Foxx for being "soft on crime," particularly in her handling of the Jussie Smollett case, as a centerpiece of his campaign. 

But it was O'Brien who led a Barr-like charge in a rushed effort to convict four West Side teenagers on trumped-up rape and murder charges more than 30 years ago. It is clear now that torture was used in obtaining a confession that led to their false conviction.

All. four were cleared by DNA evidence after a decade in prison. 

Teacher talk has shifted from cops to corona

Two weeks ago, the battle was raging over cops in the schools. Who should decide whether Chicago schools get to keep or lose their SRO -- the school board or the city council? Or should it be left up to each local school council to opt-in or out, as the mayor had argued?

Should the $33M contract between CPS and the CPD be broken or renewed? And if it were broken, could that money be better spent on vital school needs like nurses, social workers, and peer mediation counselors?

Things got hot and at times personal, which is the Chicago way, it seems. As the late, great Harold Washington used to say in response to his own council wars, "Politics ain't beanbag."

While I was hoping that the school board would vote to ditch the contract, I've been more inclined to leave decisions like this one to the individual school community. Having said that, I thought the board members had a pretty good, spirited debate, with open hearings and protests taking place outside, before voting narrowly (4-3) to keep the contract and leave the decision up to the local schools.

So far, only one school, Northside College Prep, has opted out, but schools have until August 15th to make their decision.

Kenwood Academy, on the city's south side, has decided to keep their cop.

This from the Hyde Park Herald:

Interviews with local school council members, including teachers and parents, and elected student body leaders at Kenwood Academy describe a school where stationed police officers play a limited, necessary role, and all interviewees support their continued presence at the school.

The board is scheduled to revisit the issue in August when the contract runs out and the city council will also get to vote on it. By then, conditions may have radically changed.

Real life, meaning COVID-19, keeps rearing its ugly head, and the only teacher talk I'm hearing these days is not about cops in their school, but whether Chicago school buildings should even reopen in the fall. If they do open in the midst of a swelling, deadly pandemic, the SRO in the school will be the least of our worries. And if schools can't open safely, then the cop issue becomes moot, for now at least, and there will be no need for the board or the city council to renew the CPD contract in August.

The CTU polled its members and found that more than 85% of them feel they should not or might not go back to work in the fall without a detailed plan and resources that will help guarantee the safe re-opening of our schools.

“Our members have made it very clear that they are not willing to put the health—and the lives, quite frankly—of their students, or their students’ families, or their own in jeopardy under any circumstances, and especially now if the Trump administration is talking about using them as guinea pigs to help jumpstart the economy,” CTU President Jesse Sharkey said. 

Gov. Pritzker and Mayor Lightfoot each seemed to be in step with Sharkey in targeting Trump's threats to withhold funding to states and districts that resist his reopen-schools mandate.

Lightfoot pushed back on Trump's demand that schools reopen regardless of the COVID threat.

“It doesn’t make any sense” for the president to make such a sweeping announcement when he doesn’t know how coronavirus is impacting individual school districts. “I don’t put much weight into what President Trump says,” the mayor told reporters.

That unified messaging may provide a good framework for reaching some badly-needed agreement in the ongoing negotiations between CPS and the unions.

Could we stop saying “reopen schools” and instead say “reopen school buildings”? Because there were a lot of us teaching and guiding student learning, coaching, giving feedback...for months after buildings closed.

— Jennifer Ansbach (@JenAnsbach) July 9, 2020

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

"President Trump and several staff members stood backstage and gazed at the empty Bank of Oklahoma Center in horror." -- Maggie Haberman and Annie Karni, New York Times 

Poor Peoples Campaign

“The worst mistake we can make now, with all the marching, the protesting in the streets, would be to demand too little,” said the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, a co-chair of the campaign along with the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis. -- New York Times

David Massey, former SDNY prosecutor

“While there have always been turf battles between the Southern District and the Justice Department in Washington, and occasionally sharp elbows, to take someone out suddenly while they’re investigating the president’s lawyer, it is just unprecedented in modern times." -- New York Times

Laurentio Howard, father of Marshall High student

“Watching the Floyd video, I felt hurt, afraid, just thinking it could have been me because I was there at Marshall. To have to stand back, to not be able to help my daughter being brutalized by officers sworn to protect her, was one of the hardest things I’ve ever experienced,” said Howard, a sheet metal worker with the city of Chicago. -- Sun-Times

Trump's idea of a joke

 "When you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more people. You're going to find more cases. So I said to my people, slow the testing down please." -- Tulsa speech

Anne Caprara, Gov. Pritzker's Chief of Staff not laughing

There were weeks that we were begging for testing supplies. Begging. We needed them for first responders, medical workers, doctors, nursing homes. We were desperate to up our testing numbers. So this makes me especially mad. https://t.co/ihegrpqYy1

— Anne Caprara (@anacaprana) June 21, 2020

But the "lowlifes" were all inside the arena. All 6,200.

Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 19, 2020

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Hollywood Blvd. 

Mariame Kaba, organizer against criminalization 

Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police... here’s an immediate demand we can all make: Cut the number of police in half and cut their budget in half. Fewer police officers equals fewer opportunities for them to brutalize and kill people. -- New York Times op-ed

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn

... said Sunday no one is going to defund the police, and instead called for a "reimagining" of police forces across the country."

 Clyburn told CNN's Ana Cabrera on Saturday that he believes pushing a "defund the police" slogan only gives "cover" to President Donald Trump and the people opposing change in the law enforcement system. -- CNN

Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar 

"No one is saying crimes will not be investigated. No one is saying that we are not going to have proper response when community members are in danger."

Instead, she said the current policing infrastructure should not exist anymore, and echoed Clyburn's call to reimagine the system, citing changes in places like Camden, N.J.

"We can't go about creating a different process with the same infrastructure in place," she said. "And so dismantling it, and then looking at what funding priorities should look like as we reimagine a new way forward is what needs to happen." -- Politico

Rep. Bobby Rush

 “They’re the organized guardians of continuous police lawlessness, of police murder and police brutality. The Chicago Fraternal Order of Police is the most rabid, racist body of criminal lawlessness by police in the land. It stands shoulder to shoulder with the Ku Klux Klan then and the Ku Klux Klan now.” -- Politico

Remembering Medgar Evers

Bob Dylan at civil rights gathering in Greenwood, Mississippi in 1963, singing ‘Only a Pawn in Their Game'.

On this day in 1963, Medgar Evers, Mississippi’s first field secretary for the NAACP, was gunned down in his Jackson driveway just as he proclaimed, “you can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea.”

Medgar Evers

It was Byron De La Beckwith Jr., a white supremacist, and Klansman from Greenwood, Mississippi who assassinated the civil rights leader. Two trials in 1964 on this charge resulted in hung juries.  Some justice was finally achieved when Beckwith was convicted and given a life sentence by a racially diverse jury in 1994. He died in prison in 2001 at the age of 80.

The killing of Medgar Evers' inspired Bob Dylan to write, "Only a Pawn in Their Game" which he performed at the March on Washington in August of that year. 

The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool
He's taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin

The song resonated with the millions who heard it and who came to understand that behind the actual shooters and lynchers stood a whole system of oppression and racial injustice.

Today, 57 years later, only the names have changed, Floyd for Evers, Chauvin for Beckwith. 

Systemic racism goes far beyond the police

Case in point... Georgia voters, especially in majority-Black precincts, waited hours in the rain, in the midst of the pandemic, to cast their ballots yesterday. A harbinger of things to come in November in red states where racist Republicans control of the election apparatus. 

Another case in point... In Iowa, David Harkin, a white landlord stands accused of evicting a black businessman, Jeremiah Johnson, and his partners from their office in his building after seeing video of them at a Black Lives Matter protest. In a letter to his attorney, the landlord complained: "We live in a day and age where people demand rights who have never earned anything or done anything to deserve them."

Lining up to vote in Mississippi in 1965. 

For me, this embedded line of racist reasoning is as deadly as a cop's chokehold and harkens back to Mississippi and other southern states in the early '60s when African-Americans who attempted to register to vote were fired from their jobs and evicted from their homes and worse.

Speaking of Iowa...the state went heavy for Trump four years ago. But change is in the air since corona and the protests and polls are now showing the race tightening here.

According to Politico:

Since the start of the year, Democrats in Iowa have added about twice as many active voters to their rolls as Republicans, nudging ahead in total registration for the first time in years. The farm economy has been battered by the coronavirus pandemic. And though Trump still holds a small lead in the state, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average, he’s now airing TV advertisements there — a tacit acknowledgment that the campaign anticipates a contest.

Since IL is in the bag for Democrats, IA-and=back might make for some good road-tripping for Chicago campaign workers come November.

The police, the courts, and the entire criminal justice system were and are being used as enforcers of systemic white racism and supremacy. Our protests in the wake of the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor police killings are already driving some badly needed police reform and raising mass consciousness about racism and policy priorities.

But what kinds of reform and how deeply will they go? Demands for budgetary spending reforms and new priorities just touch the surface. And how do they move from slogans to successful policy initiatives?

Brother Fred and I will be discussing these questions and more on Hitting Left Friday, 11-noon CDT with our friends, the Stevenson brothers, Craig & Corey. We're still zooming but airing live at lumpenradio.com.