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. 

Trump used the last debate to send signals to right-wing militia. What is his plan for the next one?

Trump fave Sen. Mike Lee says, "We're not a democracy."

TRUMP: Proud Boys? Stand back and stand by, but I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you what, somebody’s gotta do something about Antifa and the left, because this is not a right wing problem, this is a left-wing problem.”

 “Standing by sir,” co-chairman Enrique Tarrio said on the platform Parler, which is known for hosting far-right and extremist groups. “President Trump told the proud boys to stand by because someone needs to deal with ANTIFA… well sir! we’re ready!!”

The Next Debate...Covid-infected and steroid-addled Trump is threatening not to show up for the next debate with Biden unless it is held face-to-face where he can do the most damage. But it's clear to me he's bluffing. 

Democrats are playing it cool, saying that Biden will participate whether it's face-to-face or zoomed. But my question is, why? Another debate under these conditions is of no benefit to Biden or anyone else. At this point, Biden's big lead in the polls is about as wide as it's going to get. 

It's Trump who thinks he needs another platform for his demagoguery and racist appeals to his shrinking and demoralized MAGA base. This even though Republicans saw voters peel away in large numbers after the first debate. 

The last debate was an abomination with Trump putting on his worst bully-boy performance against a vanilla Biden. No need to rehash the particulars, except for one. DT used the first debate platform to issue his "stand down, stand by" shoutout to white supremacist Proud Boy thugs and various right-wing militia groups who, it turns out, were already plotting and planning acts of terrorism. 

This wasn't the debating tactic of a man trying to move voters in his party's direction. After the debate, Biden's poll margin widened to double-digit with only a few weeks left in the campaign. Rather, it was part of an ongoing Republican strategy aimed at undermining democracy, discrediting the election, and blatantly moving towards an extra-electoral (read fascist) attempt to hang on to power regardless of the outcome. 

Other Republicans picked up on the signal and are justifying a possible Trump coup with polemics against democracy. Trump fave, Sen. Mike Lee for one, (R-UT) declared Wednesday,

 “We’re not a democracy...We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that."

Trump's signal to the militias... DT, despite feigning ignorance of Proud Boys and other right-wing militia groups the other night, had to know that the so-called Wolverine Watchmen terrorists were plotting to storm the State Capitol, instigate a civil war, kill police, and abduct the governor of Michigan ahead of the presidential election. After all, the group had long been infiltrated by the FBI and was under constant surveillance by AG Barr's Justice Dept.

Armed right-wing militia at MI state capitol in May.

With probable knowledge of the planned FBI arrests, Trump's debate call to "stand down and stand by" can be interpreted as more than a shout-out to the groups, but also as a warning of the impending crackdown.

He then called Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan “the lockup queen” even as his own Justice Department was announcing the existence of an anti-government group’s plot to kidnap her.

Governor Whitmer—open up your state, open up your schools, and open up your churches!"

Trump's criminal use of the debate stage to send signals to white-supremacist terrorists should certainly mean his exclusion from the debate stage, not to mention possible criminal charges in the future. 

Columnist Paul Waldman in the Washington Post writes:

We are already in an age of minority rule. If Republicans manage to hang on to their power, it will get much worse... Ask yourself this: Is there any action you can think of, perhaps outside of literally dropping nuclear bombs on cities where Democrats live, about which you could say “Republicans would never go that far”?

 No, there aren't. 

VOTE!

Violent confrontations part of Trump's game plan for holding power

Right-wing armed militiamen takes to the streets in Portland. 

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany refused to denounce armed vigilantes taking to the streets during at today's press briefing. Asked if the White House believes that citizens should stop showing up in cities, especially ones they don’t live in, with weapons to protect buildings, McEnany didn’t directly answer. -- CNN

Trump's inciting violence, including his lauding right-wing gun thugs as "patriots", isn't necessarily about winning the election. Polls indicate that Trump's approval numbers are still dropping even as mass support for ongoing protests is waning (61% in June to 48% in August) and that his standing in the polls has worsened amid outbreaks of violence and his chances of winning a normal, traditional election may be growing slimmer. 

But that doesn't mean that ongoing violent confrontations and street battles aren't feeding Trumpism or playing to Republican hands.

Jeet Heer, writing today in The Nation, surmises that

Aside from the obvious political advantage Trump is trying to extract, his incitement of violence serves another purpose that goes beyond simple electoral calculation. Trump is trying to make the United States ungovernable in order to rob his political foes of any meaningful victory.

Inciting violence is Trump’s Samson option. Like the biblical hero who famously brought the Philistine temple down on his head, Trump would prefer that everything collapse around him rather than to surrender.

But his encouragement for increased violent confrontations can be more than a testimony to DT's personal narcissism and racism. It may also be part of the Republican strategy for holding onto power in the face of a predictable electoral defeat or as an excuse for suppressing the vote through intimidation and even cancelling the election and maintaining control of the state apparatus indefinitely, ie. a coup d'etat.

America's most senior general, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, told members of Congress the other day, that the military wouldn't play a role in November's election and won't help settle any disputes if the results are contested. But the very fact that Milley felt compelled to make such a statement shows the pressure for intervention is there.

Furthermore, Trump has shown that he doesn't need or necessarily want official military or "deep state" backing for any extra-constitutional moves. He has in place his loyal (he assumes) white supremacist militia groups like the kind we currently see in Kenosha plus trained paramilitary and mercenary groups at the ready thanks to his relationship with Betsy DeVos' brother and Blackwater founder, Erik Prince.

It may well be that it's Joe Biden and the Democrats who will need Milley's help if they win in November, rather than the MAGAs.

Biden during a June interview on The Daily Show when he was asked what would happen should Trump resist leaving office after an election defeat. His response:

"I promise you, I'm absolutely convinced they will escort him from the White House with great dispatch," Biden said, referring to the US military's Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Me, I'm not so sure.

After the broken glass has been swept

Looting... An inevitable, spontaneous reaction to the widening wealth and racial inequality gap which has been expanding at a record pace globally during the COVID pandemic.

Sunday night, there was another police shooting of a young black man in Englewood. The details of the shooting weren't immediately clear and still aren't. Why not? The cops weren't wearing their body cameras in clear violation of the federally imposed reform consent decree. CPD claimed it was because of "budget constraints". What a load of crap? Rumors about the shooting spread. Things got hot and carloads of people headed to the Miracle Mile to voice their anger.

Yes, the community is frustrated, they’re demanding reform and, sadly, some people are looting.

But loot-pillage-and-burn is more the strategy of  Donald Trump and his grifter family than that of the urban poor and working class. Just take as an example, his move yesterday to loot the U.S. postal service of $25 billion rather than give COVID-free voters a chance to remove him from office.

Looting has never been the way of the Freedom Movement as the Rev. Jesse Jackson reminded us, and it's somewhat disheartening to hear a young, movement militant holding forth in front of the TV cameras, dangerously (to themselves) calling on people to "take anything they wanted to take" and rendering looting more profound by describing it as "reparations."

Predictably, fascist FOP President John Catanzara was armed and ready with a hand-delivered  letter to U.S. Attorney John Lausch's office at the Dirksen Federal Building Thursday morning, asking the federal prosecutors to step in to pursue charges against "looters" meaning the BLM protest leaders. I'm sure Catanzara's pals, Trump and Atty. Gen. Barr are ready to comply.

Catanzara obviously wants to misdirect fire away from the police violence which set off this unprecedented wave nationwide protests in the first place, and onto Mayor Lightfoot and State's Attorney Foxx for supposedly "letting suspects cycle through the system without consequences."

Currently, a gaggle of downtown business groups, Chicago's corporate media, with the Tribune editors and Crain's Greg Hinz leading the way have joined Cantazara in attacking the city's Black leadership and even threatening elected officials, who he claims have "lost control" of the city. He's ordering them to "do their job" and restore law and order, or else...

Who are these guys?

Hinz expects Lightfoot and Foxx to keep the city's downtown safe for investment, suburbanite shopping, and tourism.

This has to stop. Now. Downtown is the economic hub of the Midwest, with 600,000 jobs, including mine. It’s home to a quarter of a million people. And we are tired of having our neighborhood trashed because our mayor and our state’s attorney can’t seem to control things.

Note the emphasis on "our neighborhood". The people on the south and west sides are tired of life on the bottom as well. But "control" is an illusion under the current conditions. Police or even Trump's federal troops only play their role after the fact and have been the purveyors of violence rather than protectors. Take Portland as an example.

It's also worth remembering that the Mayor and State's Attorney don't just work for your patrons, Mr. Hinz. They're elected officials who ran and won in opposition to your machine candidates.

 Remember, Mayor Lightfoot defeated your law-and-order guy Bill Daley who threatened to put camera-equipped drones on every street corner in Chicago. It was Daley who you proclaimed was, "the best guy for business." Obviously, Chicago communities didn't agree.

Kim Foxx is doing just what she was elected to do. She prosecuting violent crime while reforming the racist mass incarceration policies which have been plaguing Chicago Black and Latino families and communities for decades. To think that looters are looting because of her lowered bail policy is preposterous.

I'm especially glad to see that Foxx and Lightfoot are working it out after their initial falling out following Monday's looting. We need that unity.

According to Politico:

By afternoon, Lightfoot and Foxx were on the phone. During the conversation, they agreed to work together to come up with solutions for moving forward to avoid another night of destruction. It was “a very productive call,” Lightfoot said in a statement.

“They both have to navigate this really complex terrain — with intense scrutiny from every direction — and find a way to get the unrest and violence under control while still executing on the reform agendas they ran on,” Joanna Klonsky, a comms consultant with close ties to both women, told Playbook.

Remember, the Miracle Mile was built by the city's working people who now can't afford to shop in those stores. People will find a way.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Beto O’Rourke

...asked by a reporter on Sunday what President Donald Trump can do "to make this any better".

"What do you think? You know the shit he's been saying," said O'Rourke, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. "He's been calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. I don't know, like, members of the press, what the fuck? Hold on a second. You know, I—it's these questions that you know the answers to." 

"I mean, connect the dots about what he's doing in this country," O'Rourke continued. "He's not tolerating racism, he's promoting racism. He's not tolerating violence, he's inciting racism and violence in this country. So, you know, I just—I don't know what kind of question that is." 

Sandra Beyda-Lorie, dean of the College of Education at NIU

“Stagnant salaries that have not kept pace with other professions, under-resourced schools that contribute to stressful working conditions and the climate of teacher bashing." -- WBEZ

 Angry Dayton, OH crowd to Republican Gov. DeWine

"Do something...“We are tired of vigils!”...“What do we want? Gun control! When do we want it? Now!” -- Washington Post

NYT Editorial

White supremacy, in other words, is a violent, interconnected transnational ideology. Its adherents are gathering in anonymous, online forums to spread their ideas, plotting attacks and cheering on acts of terrorism. -- We Have a White Nationalist Problem

Trump obfuscates

“If you look at both of these cases, this is mental illness. These are really people that are very seriously mentally ill. -- Slate

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled a plaque marking the location of the newest settlement in the Golan Heights on Sunday.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 

"Mr. President, you're from Queens. You may fool the rest of the country, but I'll call your bluff any day of the week."  -- Newsweek

D.T.

"There's never been a time in the history of our country where somebody was so mistreated as I have been." -- Interview with George Stephanopoulos

Eliot Higgins, of the investigative group, BellingCat

While we cannot be sure whether this is a Gulf of Tonkin-style incident, we can say for certain this is not the slam-dunk evidence that some would like to claim it is. -- New York Times

Baltimore police Sgt. Ethan Newberg

After more officers arrived, Dotson struggled with the sequence of events and asked why he was being taken to jail. “Just go to jail and take your charge like a man,” Newberg called out. -- Washington Post

Political analyst Don Rose

 As we approach next week's Democratic debates, recent polling shows that despite Joe Biden's consistent double-digit lead, a majority of Democratic voters prefers a clear-cut progressive rather than a mainstream, institutional liberal candidate as personified by the former veep. -- Chicago Daily Observer 

'Flooding the zone' with cops didn't work. It never does.

There were multiple accidents involving police cars as cops raced from one shooting to another. In one collision in the Austin neighborhood involving two patrol cars, 10 officers and two civilians were injured and a woman killed.

It's hard to blame Mayor Lori Lightfoot for this Memorial Day weekend's rash of gun violence and deaths. After all, she's only been in office for a week. But I can say that her strategy of pre-weekend preventive mass arrests and then of "flooding the zone", concentrating 1,200 extra cops in targeted neighborhoods in the black community, was a bust -- as it always is.

The body count from Friday afternoon to Monday is reported to be at least 42 people shot, five fatally. This, even with severe storms keeping people indoors yesterday.

Several of the victims were shot within five hours on Sunday at the ABLA housing project on the northwest side. The second shootings occurred on the same block as the first while cops were still present and resulted in five more people being shot and two of them dying.

The Tribune's account presents a scene right out of a dystopian movie:

On Monday night, felony charges were announced against two men in the second shooting. Tevin Covens, 25, was charged with aggravated discharge of a firearm and Lawrence Wilkins, 29, was charged with unlawful use of a weapon by a felon after police found him carrying a gun at the scene, authorities said.

Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Covens will not be charged with murder after he shot and killed one of the two men at the scene in self-defense.

According to police, Covens was shot in the face at the scene by 28-year-old Antonio Green, who also shot and killed another man, 27-year-old Martez Cox, after Cox fired a TEC-9 machine pistol into the air.

Covens, also armed, opened fire on Green, killing him in self-defense, Guglielmi said. But he said Covens also unintentionally fired shots that wounded two female victims at the scene. Guglielmi said Covens was only charged with aggravated discharge of a firearm and not aggravated battery with a firearm, which is a more serious crime, because the female victims did not want to press charges.

There were slightly more shootings this year than last, despite yesterday's storms and police saturation. But the toll was somewhat lower than in 2017 when 45 people were shot, seven of them killed, or in 2016, when 71 people were shot, six of them fatally. But I doubt that people in the community or the mayor are taking much comfort in that this morning as funeral preparations are being made.

There are viable, tested, long-term strategies for reducing gun violence, strategies that have been successful in other big cities like New York, Boston and L.A.. They begin with gun control and stopping the sale, manufacturing and easy flow of guns into the neighborhoods. If the image of a young man getting shot to death in "self-defense" while firing an assault weapon into the air, doesn't move us to action...

A recent Sun-Times article by Kim Foxx and Arne Duncan (Chicago must learn from L.A. and New York that murder is more than a policing problem) gets it mainly right.

Both New York and Los Angeles have coordinated, holistic, and publicly-funded plans to dramatically reduce gun violence centered on prevention, intervention, and community coordination and support. As a result, New York reached a new low of 287 murders in 2018 and Los Angeles has experienced a 30 percent reduction in homicides since instituting a comprehensive community-based strategy in 2007.

Historically, the response in Chicago to a violent night or weekend is to put more police officers on the streets. The presumption is to deter through police deployment, but the focus should be on prevention — and that happens before criminals become criminals. We all recognize policing has its place among the tools to reduce violence, but we also know increased police presence is not the solution.

A lot more could be added about community engagement, ending poverty with jobs jobs that pay a living wage, community re-investment and and end to mass school closings (pointing at you, Arne Duncan) and neighborhood clinics. Lightfoot understands the need for long term, wholistic strategies but can she put them into action? Certainly not by herself.

But one thing is certain and needs to be reconsidered by the mayor. "Flooding the zone" with cops and filling the prisons with young people of color, are proven failed strategies.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

We are the people,” Gearah Goldstein said as she opened Sunday’s program in Chicago. “As we stand here together, we must hold love and light in our hearts because those are the forces that will extinguish the darkness and hate that has been called up in our country and around the world.”

Rev. Michael Pfleger, of St. Sabina Church

"When we stand up and when we unite together across all faith lines and race lines, when we do that, we will win.” -- Sun-Times

Progressive Pittsburgh Jewish leaders to Trump: 'Stay away!'

"In our neighbors, Americans, and people worldwide who have reached out to give our community strength, there we find the image of God," the authors write. "While we cannot speak for all Pittsburghers, or even all Jewish Pittsburghers, we know we speak for a diverse and unified group when we say: President Trump, you are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you commit yourself to compassionate, democratic policies that recognize the dignity of all of us." -- You can read the full letter here.

David Simon, creator of "The Wire" to Israeli Minister

"Go home. [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s interventions in US politics aided in the election of Donald Trump and his raw and relentless validation of white nationalism and fascism. The American Jewish community is now bleeding at the hands of the Israeli prime minister. And many of us know it." -- Haaretz

President Donald Trump this morning...

 ...attacked the “fake news media” as the “true enemy of the people” following a week of terror and violence in the United States. Five days after a pipe bomb was sent to CNN, a network frequently bashed by the president, Trump tweeted that “inaccurate” reporting is partially to blame for the “great anger in our country.” -- Huffington

Former President Jimmy Carter to Brian Kemp

In Georgia’s upcoming gubernatorial election, popular confidence is threatened not only by the undeniable racial discrimination of the past and the serious questions that the federal courts have raised about the security of Georgia’s voting machines, but also because you are now overseeing the election in which you are a candidate. -- AP

The new Brazilian president's pledge to wreck the Amazon is a tragic reminder that environmentalists need to win a fight forever, while the other side only needs to win it once.

— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) October 29, 2018

CPD's 'Bait Trucks'

Chicago police parked a truck filled with Nike sneakers in front of a basketball court where underprivileged kids played, with the goal of entrapping them. When the kids went to take shoes out, the police surprised them and arrested the teens. (🎥: @therealremyredd ) pic.twitter.com/pipSw2AhrC

— Atlanta Black Star (@ATLBlackStar) August 7, 2018

You would think that by this time in my life, nothing the CPD did would surprise me. I mean, I came of age politically at the time of the Chicago police murders of Black Panther leaders and my friends, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, shot dead while asleep in their beds on the west side of Chicago. Not to mention the police killings of dozens of other unarmed black men and women since that time.

It was less than a week ago that my brother and I interviewed CPD frame-up victim Ronald Kitchen, a survivor of  the Jon Burge's "Midnight Crew" torture machine. Kitchen spent 21 years in the penitentiary, 13 on death row before having his forced-confession, murder conviction overturned. You should read his book, My Midnight Years, to get the whole story behind this atrocity.

So I don't know why hearing about CPD and Norfolk Southern Railroad using "bait trucks" filled with Nike shoes to entrap young black kids playing hoops on a playground in Englewood, has pissed me and got my blood boiling. But it did.

Maybe it's because, as a former high school basketball coach, I had to spend time, away from the court, begging for donations and even coming out of pocket so my players wouldn't have to hoop in their street shoes -- an embarrassment, especially when playing against wealthy, over-resourced suburban schools.

Or maybe it's because I just heard about Mayor Rahm Emanuel's obvious election campaign-inspired deployment of 600 more cops to communities being ravaged by gun violence while attacking the morals and values of black parents. If they were so badly needed in west and south-side city neighborhoods, why were these cops out initiating petty crime at playgrounds, rounding up dozens of entrapped kids for incarceration and branding them with an arrest record?

It's the mayor who needs to shape up his own values system.

If he was really interested in reducing youth violence and building better police-community relations, he could start by having these same cops out in the community giving away those same Nike-donated shoes and organizing community basketball leagues for young men and women, rather than having them work for Norfolk Southern to manufacturing crime. .

“This bait truck operation is an unacceptable and inappropriate use of police resources,” said Ald. Roderick Sawyer, 6th, chair of the City Council’s Black Caucus. “In a moment where police capacity is clearly under extreme strain, these sort of tactics are the last thing we should be spending manpower and energy on.” (Tribune)

And what's Nike's role in this entrapment scheme? Haven't they been profiteering off of Chicago's young basketball talent for years.

Had to ask.

Rahm blames gun violence on 'low morals' and 'too many with criminal records on the street'.

"This is a Trump-free zone," Mayor Rahm Emanuel boasted in June. 

It was only a few weeks ago that Mayor Rahm Emanuel and top-cop Eddie Johnson were patting themselves on the back while claiming credit for the reported 15th consecutive month of declining gun violence. The good news came just in time for Rahm who used it as a jumping-off point to his re-election campaign.

He even used the occasion to thumb his nose at Trump, who is fond of making Chicago his punching bag whenever he wants to whip up his deplorables into a racist, anti-urban frenzy.

"This is a Trump-free zone," Rahm bragged. "We have facts. What matters ... is what happens on the street."

And the facts are that at least 75 Chicagoans, nearly all black and Latino, many of them children, were shot and at least a dozen killed on city streets last weekend. Now Rahm has turned his fire away from Trump and on to victims of street violence.

By Monday, there was no more back-patting. No more shit-talking Trump. Instead, the mayor started pointing fingers at parents and community residents, blaming them for low morals and a shortage values.  Trumpism without Trump, if you will.

Diverting attention from the burning issues of poverty, education and joblessness Emanuel scolded his critics.

“You can talk about jobs, and they count, but in parts of the city where there aren’t jobs, people did not pull the trigger."

Then moving from bad to worse the mayor echoed Trump's racist lock-'em-up demagogy.

“There are too many guns on the street, too many people with criminal records on the street, and there is a shortage of values about what is right, what is wrong, was is acceptable, what is condoned and what is condemned.”

Yes, there are way too many guns on the street, most of them flowing in from across the Indiana line. Remember, it was Rahm himself, as Obama's chief of staff in 2009, with a Democratic majority in congress, who put the kibosh of what was probably the last attempt at national gun-control legislation.

As for "too many people with criminal records on the street" -- that's a line right out of Trump's repertoire, at a time when there are more than two million people in prison with African Americans being incarcerated at more than 5 times the rate of whites, that's racist scapegoating at it's worst.

Current policies make it difficult for those coming out of prison to find employment. For example, it's extremely difficult or impossible to get records sealed or expunged, especially those of juveniles. This adds to the problem and drives crime and violence numbers upward. A criminal record can reduce the likelihood of a callback or job offer by nearly 50%, says the NAACP. The negative impact of a criminal record is twice as large for African American applicants.

Last weekend's explosion now has Rahm, still in campaign mode, promising to put 600 more cops and detectives into the neighborhoods hardest hit. The “strategic deployments” will add 430 officers to five South Side and West Side police districts: Calumet, Gresham, Ogden, Harrison and Austin.

But there is no correlation between police saturation of a neighborhood and violence prevention. Cops enter the picture (and usually not in a good way) only after the fact. And the siege strategy rarely includes beat cops and relationship building. Rather the focus is crisis deployment.

I know it's too easy to blame Rahm for last weekend's shooting. It's easy because after six years in office, his policies still favor investment downtown and in wealthy areas of the city and the deprivation and lack of investment, closing of schools, libraries and social-services in the neediest neighborhoods. But the problems predate go beyond Rahm Emanuel.

The isolation and destabilization of neighborhoods, particularly on the south and west sides of the city, began long before Emanuel came to power. They are a big part of the black exodus from Chicago and play a major role in generating violence and crime. And so far, I've heard little beyond tweaky reforms from his top mayoral contenders.

'Who do you serve? Who do you protect?': The Killing of Snoop the Barber

TWITTER/BYP100

Officers assigned to a foot assignment observe "a man exhibiting characteristics of an armed person".  -- Anthony Guglielmi, the Chicago Police Department’s chief communications officer

It's hard to say what it is that will finally push a community to the breaking point. I lived in L.A. in 1965 when the Watts riots (rebellion) began as a reaction to a police assault on a black motorist pulled over for a traffic violation. LAPD needed help from 4,000 members of the National Guard to quell the uprising. By the time the smoke cleared they counted 34 deaths and over $40 million in property damage.

In '68 it was the assassination of Dr. King in Memphis.

1992 brought the Rodney King riots.

But all these singular events were only sparks that lit the prairie fire of anger and rage. The real tinder box was years of oppression and suffering within a system of enforced racist violence, segregation, joblessness, broken schools and mass incarceration -- a political system leaving those oppressed communities voiceless and without hope for the next generation.

I was considering all this when I heard the news about yesterday's deadly shooting by police of Harith Augustus ("Snoop the Barber") on Chicago's south side. Harith was the father of a 5-year-old daughter and was a well-known barber in his South Shore neighborhood. One of his customers told local media the barber usually “brings his daughter with him wherever he goes, but she wasn’t with him today.”

Police said they encountered a man “exhibiting characteristics” of being armed. Wait, what?

There was a confrontation and Augustus was shot in the back five times and killed. An angry crowd gathered shouting,  "Who do you serve? Who do you protect?", and a confrontation ensued, a few water bottles against cop batons. Witnesses said the cop who did the shooting was quickly whisked away from the area in a police cruiser. As of this writing, she has not been named.

Wasn't no "scuffle." CPD beat organizers with batons for throwing water bottles. This is an violent occupation. #FTP #StopTheCops https://t.co/E8Audl3cz0

— BYP100 (@BYP_100) July 15, 2018

Shortly after, the streets erupted in the neighborhood with residents turned demonstrators demanding answers from police. Police claimed a weapon was recovered at the scene. People who knew him said, Harith had a permit for the gun, that it was holstered and that he never reached for it. So much for all that Second Amendment bull crap.

By midnight, demonstrators were still in the streets, police and residents clashed and a number of people were arrested. Sun-Times reporter, Nader Issa was caught up in the chaos and was assaulted by police.

I don't know if Harith's killing will turn out to be one of those moments in time. If nothing else, this is one more brick in the wall for a mayor running for reelection and still being dogged by his role in the cover up of the Laquan McDonald killing. His only saving grace is that none of the other candidates seem to have a meaningful response to the ongoing and systematic police abuse in this city's black communities beyond calling for a new $95M police training academy.

But at the risk of being repetitive, the pumping of five bullets into the back of a man accused of no crime except running for his life, is not a training problem.

Here's some of Issa's tweets from the scene.

A very large crowd is gathering at 71st/Chappel, where Chicago Police say they shot and killed a person this evening. It's hard to put in words how tense the scene is. Witnesses say a female officer shot the man in the back while he was running away. He was a local barber. pic.twitter.com/aaV6smY07V

— Nader Issa (@NaderDIssa) July 15, 2018

Witnesses say the incident started when the officer told him not to sell loose cigarettes. He supposedly told the officer he wasn't selling them, just handing a couple to his aunt. An argument started, and he began to run. That's when the officer fired, per police and witnesses.

— Nader Issa (@NaderDIssa) July 15, 2018

I had my press badge held up in one hand and my phone in the other while I was saying "I'm a reporter." Two Chicago Police officers repeatedly pushed me, then smacked my phone out of my hand and threw me back. I lost my balance but can't remember if I hit the ground or not. pic.twitter.com/vhi4gjlNla

— Nader Issa (@NaderDIssa) July 15, 2018

 The situation has gotten as bad as its been a night. Police charged into the parking lot and started hitting people. Two officers smacked my phone out of my hand and shoved me to the ground. Don't know how many arrests, but at least a dozen from what I could see. pic.twitter.com/L7Q5xQyWSe

— Nader Issa (@NaderDIssa) July 15, 2018

Did Chicago cop really say he's entitled to collect from his victim's family? Depends on which paper you read.

LaTarsha Jones, center, a daughter of Bettie Jones, is comforted by family and friends in front of Jones' apartment building in the West Garfield Park neighborhood Dec. 27, 2015. Jones was shot and killed by police the previous day along with 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier. Now killer-cop Rialmo is suing LeGrier family, saying the incident "changed him".

The Sun-Times and Tribune both had reporters at the second day of the trial over lawsuits stemming from Chicago cop Robert Rialmo's shooting of 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier and his neighbor, 55-year-old Bettie Jones following a report of a domestic dispute. But each paper reported a crucial part of the testimony differently.

The city’s lawyers this month avoided a trial with Jones’ family by reaching a proposed $16 million settlement, but the city made no such deal with LeGrier’s family.

The shootings were part of a long, recent string of CPD killings of unarmed African-Americans and took place just a month after a judge forced Mayor Rahm Emanuel to release footage of a white officer, Jason Van Dyke, shooting black teen Laquan McDonald 16 times. That trial could have great implications for the upcoming mayor's race.

COULD IMPACT MAYOR'S RACE...The trial of three Chicago Police officers charged with filing false reports on the McDonald shooting to cover for Van Dyke has been pushed back to late November, after the election.

Rialmo, who is on paid desk duty, also remains under investigation for a December 2017 bar fight in which he punched two men in the face in an altercation caught on video.

After killing LeGrier and Jones, Rialmo turned around and with support from the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) filed a counter-suit against the LeGrier estate and a cross-claim against the city, alleging he should collect because he was "poorly trained" and that he was psychologically damaged ("changed") by the event.

If you read each paper's coverage, you wonder if they were covering the same trial or if we're reading the same testimony. See if you can tell the difference.

Sun-Times reporter Sam Charles had it this way in this morning's edition:

“On Dec. 26, 2015, you shot Quintonio LeGrier?” Foutris [LeGrier family lawyer] asked.

Yes,” Rialmo responded.

“You shot him multiple times?”

“Yes.”

“You shot him intentionally?”

“Yes. 

Referencing Rialmo’s cross-claim against the city and countersuit filed against the LeGrier estate, Foutris asked:

“You want this jury to give you money for killing Antonio [LeGrier]’s kid?”Rialmo paused, shrugged and said, “Yes."

But here's the way that last exchange was reported in the Tribune by reporter, Dan Kinkel:

 “You think you’re entitled to money for killing Antonio’s kid?” Foutris asked. Rialmo did not answer as opposing lawyers quickly raised objections.

So, did Rialmo answer, "yes", he thought he was entitled to money for killing Antonio LeGrier's son? Or did he not answer the question?

Depends on which paper you read.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Photo: Sporting News Archive, Sporting News Via Getty Images

Dave Zirin

It’s not for us to forgive Jack Johnson. The opposite is the case. -- The Nation

Ben Green, a fourth-year PhD student in applied math.

“The main thing that we [Harvard grad students] really want is to have a greater say, greater democracy, in our working conditions. By joining with UAW, we’re also joining with these other universities organizing with them. We’re building power not just for graduate workers at Harvard, but for graduate workers across the country.” -- Boston Globe

Colin Kaepernick on winning AI's Ambassador of Conscience Award

“In truth, this is an award that I share with all of the countless people throughout the world combating the human rights violations of police officers, and their uses of oppressive and excessive force." -- Guardian

Franklin Bynum

“Yes, I’m running as a socialist. I’m a far-left candidate. What I’m trying to do is be a Democrat who actually stands for something, and tells people, ‘Here’s how we are going to materially improve conditions in your life.’” -- New York Times

Leonard Pitts, Jr. 

 But racism is more than prejudice. It is, rather, the system by which prejudice is encoded into the laws and customs of a society so that, to take an example not quite at random, two black men can be arrested for waiting quietly on a prospective business associate to arrive for a meeting at Starbucks. -- Miami Herald

Mark Rudd

 The central role played by the Student Afro-American Society has never been acknowledged in accounts of Columbia ’68. The story has been about the white kids of the New Left, the S.D.S. and myself, as a singular protest leader. Ray Brown called the media’s erasure of the black students’ role “strategic blindness.” -- New York Times

Another look at school size and the Parkland shooting

A year ago, after taking $30M from NRA, Trump signed order loosening Obama-era gun sale restrictions.

Broward County, FL -- School's back in session here today and it will be interesting to see if the student protests continue to gain strength and capture prime media space. National anti-gun school walkouts are being planned for March 14 and again on April 20th, the anniversary of the Columbine shooting.

One thing I've learned is that my original comparison of Marjory Stoneman Douglas with Columbine doesn't hold up across the board. It's true that both were large schools -- Columbine had about 2,000 students while Douglas has more than 3,000 -- and that large school size correlates with increased incidents of violence and often breeds the kind of anonymity that prevents intervention before a Parkland-type event can take place.

A closer look makes me think that school size wasn't the big problem at MSD. While the FBI may have botched handling the tips they received about shooter Nikolas Cruz, the school's teachers and administrators didn't. Despite the size of their school, they were in touch with students well enough to anticipate Cruz as a potential violent actor and intervened in his case as best they could. Interventions took place going back to his middle-school days. Cruz faced a long string of escalating disciplinary measures throughout his academic career for insubordination, profanity, disruption, fighting and assault. Those attempts ended with Cruz's expulsion from high.

Washington Post reports:

The real problems started at least as early as middle school and quickly intensified. There were the vocal outbursts, disturbing drawings of stick figures with guns, constant disciplinary issues. There were threatening statements written on his homework and scrap paper, including a reference to killing President Barack Obama, saying he should be “burned alive and eaten.”

His middle school and high school teachers referred him to individual and family counseling, the records show. They held parent conferences and called social workers. They sent him to in-school suspension, and they sent him off campus. For a time, they sent him to a school for emotionally disturbed youth. Finally, after he was disciplined for an assault at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, they asked for an assessment of the threat he posed to his school, and ultimately he was expelled, about a year before he returned with a gun.

Up until the time of the attack, teachers were actively engaged with Cruz and acted professionally. During the attack, many acted heroically and were instrumental in saving student lives. This included football coach Aaron Feis who gave up his own life while shielding students from the gunfire.

Even if the FBI had properly followed up on tips they received about Cruz, it's unclear what actions might have been taken. The point here is that nothing the 19-year-old Cruz did up until the time of the shooting, including his purchasing of an assault rifle at local gun store, was illegal. Keeping an automatic weapon out of his hands would have been the only way to prevent the massacre in Parkland.

Pres. Trump's attempt to blame the FBI and even the student victims themselves is indicative of his own sociopathy. It was Trump who one year ago, after accepting more than $30 million from the NRA, signed an order loosening gun sale restrictions.

In a vapid response to the mounting student protests both parties are offering up meaningless bills which, even if passed (doubtful) will do nothing to prevent more massacres of this type, let alone the daily deaths from gun violence in cities like Chicago. The GOP bill simply tweaks existing state rules on gun registration.

Sen. Diane Feinstein and the Dems want to raise the legal age for buying AR-15s from 18 to 21. Democrats once again seem willing to snuggle up close, but slightly to the left of Trump and the GOP.  Nothing they could do could breed more cynicism among the protesting students and potential young voters. It seems the Dems have once again come up with a recipe for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in 2018.

From Littleton to Parkland, lots of hand wringing... [Updated]

I've been closely following the wave of school shootings like the one in Parkland, Florida since my days as a member of Pres. Clinton's Advisory Commission on Youth Violence, following the 1999 mass shootings at Columbine H.S. in Littleton, Colorado.

The Parkland shooting is reportedly, the 208th since Columbine. An ongoing Washington Post analysis has found that more than 150,000 students attending at least 170 primary or secondary schools have experienced a shooting on campus since then.

The similarities between Littleton and Parkland are striking. Both mass school shootings took place in large high schools. Columbine had 2,000 students. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, 3,000.

I'm in no way blaming the school size or the educators inside the buildings, many of whom acted heroically and saved many lives during the assaults. Just noting that large high schools have a high degree of anonymity. That is, students are rarely known well by adults in the building, unless they are super-high achievers or "trouble makers". The result is, on average, large high schools have nearly ten times the violent incidents as smaller ones.

Whether it was shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold at Columbine or Nikolas Cruz at Parkland, their fellow students were more aware of their potentially dangerous environs and threats of violence within their schools than were school administrators. In both cases and in the many cases in between, school leaders may have missed opportunities to intervene before the fact.

Pres. Trump wasted no time in blaming the Douglas students themselves for the killings. Trump has been in bed with the NRA in opposing any and all gun legislation and it is unclear what if anything he or law enforcement officials would or could have done, even if fellow students and neighbors of Cruz would have reported him to officials or if the FBI had followed up on the many tips they are reported to have received. Everything Cruz did, up until the time of the shootings, was perfectly legal.

In this case, some Parkland school officials were aware of Cruz's violence issues. They even expelled him from Douglas after a fight he had with a fellow student. But this didn't raise any flags when Cruz walked into a local gun shop and bought an assault rifle. By law, it couldn't.

The shooters at both Columbine and Stoneman Douglas were reported to have contacts with neo-fascist or white supremacist groups. Klebold and Harris were white supremacists who carried out their horrific act intentionally on Hitler's birthday. Following the Parkland shootings, a local white supremacist group Republic of Florida (ROF) claimed to have ties to Cruz.

In both cases, the shooters had serious mental problems, mainly severe depression. Klebold and Harris were each heavily medicated and had suicidal tendencies.  After the Columbine massacre, a team of psychiatrists and psychologists determined they were psychopaths, in touch with reality but filled with hate and bent on mass devastation that would outdo even that caused by the Oklahoma City bomber(s).

In a society where guns and bomb weren't so readily available, the pair's names may have ended up on a list of patients receiving treatment for their mental problems, rather than on a list of mass murderers.

We don't know enough about Cruz's mental condition yet. He reportedly also suffered from depression. The point here is not about people suffering from mental illness. But rather, the conditions that enabled them to caused such horrific destruction.

In both cases, the shooters had easy access to guns (including semi-automatic weapons) despite their troubled histories. Thank gutless politicians, often the beneficiaries of huge donations from the NRA, who are afraid to pass reasonable gun control legislation, for that.

News of the Parkland shootings, which left 17 students dead, was met with prayers and lots of hand-ringing by Florida politicians like Sen. Rubio and Gov. Scott, each of whom received A+ ratings from the NRA. Rubio has received more than $3million in NRA campaign donations.

The Republican ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ cliche is so empty of meaning, it mocks the dead. #ParklandShooting

— Charles Fulwood (@Brown_Woofer) February 15, 2018

Gov. Scott signed 5 Pro-gun bills in 2014 making Nicolas Cruz fully able to purchase a gas mask, smoke grenade and an AK-47 with extra magazines. All while under the age of 21 and still in high school. He was too young to by beer but old enough to purchase an assault weapon.

In the rest of the world, there have been 18 school shootings in the last twenty years. In the U.S., there have been 18 school shootings since January 1--35 days.

Marco Rubio and Rick Scott—both of whom carry A+ ratings and endorsements from the N.R.A—leaned on similar, though less elegant talking points. 

 “I think it’s important to know all of [the facts] before you jump to conclusions that there’s some law we could have passed that could have prevented it,” Rubio said in an interview with Fox News in the shooting’s aftermath. He added that lawmakers “can always have that debate, but . . . you should know the facts of that incident before you run out and prescribe [legislation].” 

Over the course of his career, Rubio has received $3.3 million from the N.R.A. Scott has also bucked calls for gun control. After the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, the Florida governor infamously declared, “Let’s remember, the Second Amendment has been around for over 200 years. . . . That’s not what killed innocent people; evil killed innocent people.”

Rubio: We shouldn't "jump to conclusions" that gun control laws would've prevented Florida school shooting https://t.co/y23qCMTMaU pic.twitter.com/jMnweZ5d6f

— The Hill (@thehill) February 15, 2018

While they happened nearly two decades apart, the school shootings at Littleton and Parkland and the hundreds of others in between offer valuable lessons for creating safer schools for our children. Unfortunately, we still have a system where the NRA and other big corporate campaign donors rule congress. Until that changes radically, our children will continue to be at risk in their classrooms and on the streets.

Look for more "prayers and thoughts" coming from the politicians, but no action. Nothing from them, that is, unless Parkland turns out to be the straw that breaks the camel's back and mass protests forces some change.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Neo-nazis, white supremacists march again in Charlottesville.

Carl Bernstein, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist

“This president is the president of his base... We’ve never seen this kind of chaos in a presidency before. This is different because it goes to the character and competence — a feeling that the president of the United States, including among those on the White House staff, may be unfit to hold the office.” -- CNN

Republican senator Bob Corker 

“He’s hurt us as it relates to negotiations that were under way by tweeting things out. A lot of people think that there is some kind of ‘good cop, bad cop’ act under way, but that’s just not true.”  -- New York Times 

Erika Whitfield, St. Louis teacher

Issues of race and policing are not abstractions for my seventh-graders...I can’t ignore that my students are growing up amid high-profile police brutality. -- Washington Post 

Joshua Bitsko, Las Vegas police officer

"We were trippin' over guns. Trippin' over long guns inside. There was so many." - CBS News

Yasmin Tayag

Tom Petty is the joint they share in a starry backyard in Brooklyn the night they kiss. He’s the beer they drink brazenly on a crowded beach as cops amble by. He’s the band playing to a backwoods dive bar and the shrug when nobody stays to watch. He keeps playing anyway. -- Medium 

Questions that don't answer

Munger

Questions -- What the hell is a "deputy governor" and how many does IL really need? Don't we elect a Lt. Gov.?  How did Leslie Munger get the job when we are already cursed with Rauner-appointed Deputy Gov. Olin "Trey" Childress III? And how does Munger, who was thrashed in her last election bid by Rauner-critic Susana Mendoza, get off writing letters to the S-T calling for more unconstitutional pension theft as the "key to solving CPS funding problems"?

What is DT's one and only favorite public employees union? Why it's the FOP of course, whose boss, Dean Angelo Sr. is  attending an alt-right summit meeting today in D.C. with the Trumpies. I doubt they will concern themselves much with the blockbuster report on classified FBI documents that reveal the feds have quietly investigated U.S. law enforcement links to white supremacy and racism in America.

Question #3 is for CNN. How do you reconcile this story, Trump correctly cites rising crime rates in cities with Steinberg's column in today's S-T, "Trump twists crime numbers to demonize immigrants"? Better question might be -- how do you sleep at night?

Chicago has widest racial/wealth/income gap in the nation.

With the next mayor's race on the horizon and early stirrings around possible candidates to take on Rahm Emanuel, the issue of Chicago's gun violence pandemic and rising murder rate will once again, move to the top of the list.

And if you want to talk about Chicago violence, here's a good place to start the conversation. At least a much better place than talking about more cops or a Trump military invasion.

Our city has the widest racial income divide in the nation.

A report by the Corporation for Enterprise Development has identified the divide between the incomes of white households and minority households as wider in Chicago than the nation as a whole. And the national divide is large. Not only do Chicago's white households on average far exceed African-Americans, Latinos and Asians in income, but there is a sharp difference in the city between the wealth held by whites and that held by minority communities. -- Chicago Tribune

Medium income for whites in the city is more than double that of African-Americans.

Since whites make up only about a third of the city's residents, a continuation of the income and wealth disparity will weigh on the strength of the city, says Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, the director of the Racial Wealth Divide Initiative.

"With less ability to consume, it has an affect on businesses and it impacts taxes and the strength of city services — everything from schools to sewer services."

Factor in that nearly half of young African-Americans are unemployed compared with 20% of Latino men and 10% of white men in the same age group, according a report commissioned by the Alternative Schools Network and the numbers begin to tell a story.

Why won't Rahm go there? He and his top cops are still talking "gang-bangers", "Facebook" and police "demoralization" for the record murder rates during his watch. As long as violence in the city continues to be discussed by the mayor and the media as a police vs. gangs issue, look for crime and violence to continue and for Trump to take full advantage in his war on the cities.