Last week we posted on the continued lawlessness and outright evil observed in three American cities on a single day – 14 May 2022. The most horrific of the incidents occurred in a Buffalo supermarket. But, evening lawlessness in the entertainment and downtown areas of Milwaukee and Chicago also stood out. Less than a week later, Chicago’s downtown was the scene of yet another mass causality shooting incident. The latest mass shooting left two people dead and seven others wounded outside a major subway stop and a popular McDonald’s restaurant on Chicago Avenue. That shooting incident happened on Thursday night, 19 May 2022. Today, Chicago Alderman Raymond Lopez (15th Ward) gathered the signatures of 29 other council members to call a Special Meeting of the Chicago City Council. The focus – Chicago violence and the city administration’s plan to address lawlessness. [Click the link below to read more.]
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Since May of 2020, the nation has witnessed growing lawlessness. Compared to 2019, violence in cities like Chicago drove the year-over-year national murder rate higher by nearly 30 percent in 2020. That single-year murder-rate increase is the largest ever recorded. While the final 2021 national murders statistics will not be released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) until later this year, we already know that last year lawlessness and violence remained at elevated levels. Saturday, in Chicago and Milwaukee the nation witnessed more lawlessness in the centers of those two cities. A 16-year-old boy was murdered near the Bean (Cloud Gate) sky sculpture in Chicago’s Millennium Park. Two others were also shot in downtown Chicago as the night progressed. In downtown Milwaukee, 21 people were shot in three separate shootings, in the blocks surrounding Fiserv Forum, following the NBA playoff basketball game between the Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics. In Buffalo, lawlessness does not begin to describe the tear in the social fabric. Pure evil was on full display with the deliberate taking of ten lives. The Buffalo carnage was streamed live on the Twitch social media site by the attacker. For those who are apt to find social forces as a ready excuse for criminal acts of cruelty, the streamed video is definitive proof of the existence of pure evil. Hateful, demonic evil. Not only must law and order return to the nation’s cities, this one nation under God must seek revival and renounce all such evil. [Click the link below to read more.]
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It has long been said, “knowledge is power.” It is important to note that the pronouncement is not “information is power.” In the “Bizzaro World” of the news media, so much of what passes as the “news” is little more than information. The rise of 24-hour cable news has provided more time to pass more information. But, often the platform simply passes the same information in a mind-numbing extended loop whose output does not foster actual knowledge. Pseudo-knowledge is advanced through the frequent use of split-screen commentators and political operatives advancing their own narratives. These often competing narratives generally distort true factual analysis, and they often end in an incomprehensible mash of over-talking and shouting. This phenomenon crosses the spectrum of political, social, and daily-life topics, particularly when there is an overlap into politics. Lawlessness is one of these topics. Even the local – allegedly straight news – news programming runs a steady flow of lawless incident-of-the-day segments, particularly when the incidents are violent with shock-seeking video. These segments are generally little more than sensationalized information, and rarely is their presentation one that advances knowledge. Secure 1776 offers this “cops ask questions” question in Latin: “Cui bono?” Translation: “Who benefits?” [Click the link below to read more.]
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Well not surprising actually. On 10 February 2022, Newsday posted their article, “Report: Nearly half of 16-year-olds arrested under RTA committed new crimes in NYC.” Some background. What is “RTA?” RTA, stands for “raise the age,” and concerns the oldest age at which an offender is considered a juvenile. RTA measures seek to push older and older individuals away from the criminal courts and under the jurisdiction of our juvenile (or family) courts. Many advocates have pushed for raising the juvenile court age to 21 or even older. These efforts tend to go hand-in-hand with the assertion that our juvenile courts are ineffective, and there should be a complete diversion from all formal court processes. The problem – absent a formal court response mechanism, the youth most at-risk of continued and deepening delinquency do not actually participate in needed interventions. Oh, and absent both accountability and intervention, they are at a substantially increased risk of violent crime victimization themselves. The Newsday article covered a research report from the New York City Criminal Justice Agency (CJA), a non-profit, pre-trial services and “court-involved” (aka offender) advocacy organization. Their report was released in December 2021. [Click the link below to read more.]
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Last November we posted an editorial on how the City of Chicago, under the administration of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, closed its only Juvenile Intervention and Support Center (JISC). In December, Secure 1776 followed up with an analysis of carjackings and the connections to juvenile crime. Carjackings have spiked across the country since 2020. An escalating carjacking problem has been particularly noteworthy in urban areas. Many cities have experienced a continuing surge. But the problem is particularly evident in Chicago. Yesterday, 7 February 2022, Mayor Lightfoot held a press conference with Chicago Police Department (CPD) Superintendent David Brown, a representative from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office and other officials. In the press conference, Mayor Lightfoot indicated that half of those arrested in connection to Chicago’s carjackings are juveniles. She also made an interesting statement on the cause of the rising juvenile crime connection – “remote learning.” [Click the link below to read more.]
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Journalism and politics are supposed to be two professions comprised of smart people. Smart people that have the ability to correctly connect the dots. However, a divided political landscape has encouraged a deliberate blindness. The result, some of the smart people do connect the dots, but they don’t want you to do so. Instead they rely on the old magician’s trick of distractions. For example, their most recent go to: “it’s the pandemic.” An answer big enough to cover nearly every failure. Failing schools. The pandemic. A crashed economy. The pandemic. But, even with these issues it would be more accurate to say the failures were the response to the pandemic, not the pandemic. Covid didn’t, month after month, close schools or lockdown the economy for most Americans (lest we forget, big pharma and Amazon did great). Politicians, unelected bureaucrats (one in government for 50-plus years), and a complicit media led that charge. To say Covid is the cause for the rise in gun violence AND reckless driving? Please. Even a magician would be embarrassed by that sleight of hand. No, the dots to be connected there do not end at “the pandemic.” The “connect the dots” answer is that our political elites and the media have sought to blame a virus for their increasing acceptance of lawlessness. [Click the link below to read more.]
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In our New Year’s Day editorial, we made clear that 2021 was not a “happy new year” relative to public safety. Our founder also made clear that for 2022 to be a “happy new year,” resolve would be required. On 29 December 2021, Bradley Police Sergeant Rittmanic’s last known words were to her attacker, as her own gun was pointed at her head. “Just leave, you don’t have to do this. Please just go. Please don’t. Please don’t.” Yet, her attacker was determined to kill her anyway and did. Yesterday, Illinois buried Sergeant Marlene Rittmanic. Today, we ask whether our community is fully resolved to say: “Enough!” In 2022, will we demand our elected officials and the media stop demonizing the police? Will our courts be the place where consequences occur, or will the streets continue to be the place where the truth about consequences are most visible? [Click the link below to read more.]
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“Good morning” is a greeting that is commonly shared early in the day. The expression acknowledges the start of a new day, as well as a statement of hope. Yet we have also heard the greeting shortened to just “morning.” The shortened expression makes no claim beyond a statement of time. Fatigue and a discouraged sense of what the new day has in store can often explain why the shortened greeting is used. The greeting “Happy New Year” is similar to “good morning,” and it too seeks to express hope for the time ahead. As a nation we lived through 2020, the year like no other. The year 2020 was one with many issues, including significant public safety disappointments. Sadly, relative to violence, 2021 was also a disappointing year. A “happy” new year in 2022 will require resolve beyond the mere use of an optimistic greeting. [Click the link below to read more.]
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As we noted in our 13 December post, “The Chicago 800, a Deadly Race,” murders in Chicago continue to climb. We highlighted that the city would likely reach 800 murders this year. Baby-boomers, and many Gen-Xers, remember family car trips as children. At some point mom or dad would inevitably be asked: “Are we there yet.” Is Chicago “there yet?” Well, it depends on how you count. Yesterday, 16 December 2021, the Chicago Sun-Times declared, the city had experienced its 800th murder. The official Chicago Police Department (CPD) count says “no.” The official count as of midnight was 778. That number is bad enough. 778 is also more murders than the city’s full-year 2020 updated count of 772. Secure 1776 provides some clarity on the murder counts. [Click the link below to read more.]
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In auto racing, Indianapolis is legendary for the Indy 500. Indianapolis and many other cities continue to struggle with a race of a different kind – murders. It should be noted that Indianapolis has had a bad year. Already, as of 12 December, 258 people have been murdered in that city. This year’s Indy murder count is 13 more than 2020’s full-year total, and 25 more than a year ago on this date. Here in Chicago, this city is a day or so away from topping its 2020 full-year total. In fact, the Chicago 800 is underway. Such is a deadly race to see whether this year’s Chicago murder count stays under, hits, or exceeds 800. [Click the link below to read more.]
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In September, following the release of the final 2020 national crime statistics by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Secure 1776 published our post, “Truth and Consequences, 2020 Murders.” In 2020, America’s murder rate increased about 30 percent from 2019. Even though four weeks remain in 2021, as of 30 November, and compared to all of last year, the nation has already passed three key “truth and consequences” thresholds. First, more police officers have been ambushed. Second, more police officers have been hit by gunfire. Third, more police officers have been murdered. The truth, the nation, particularly in its urban areas continues to suffer from increased lawlessness. The nation’s police officers are among those suffering the consequences. [Click the link below to read more.]
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A week ago in our “Editorial: Spectacle Chicago and the Death of the JISC,” our readers were provided several key insights regarding juvenile delinquency. First, the connection between early delinquency and the risks of future violence are clear. Second, the closing of the Juvenile Intervention and Support Center (JISC), without any alternative, weakened the city’s response to juvenile delinquency. It remains another spectacle Chicago moment. Yes, large social forces lay a complex macro-level foundation for crime – particularly juvenile crime. But, we should not be fooled, even in areas where crime and violence are the worst, most youth do not become gang members, and most do not engage in violence. Chicago loses children to gang activity, delinquency, and violence one young person at a time. The explosion of carjackings in Chicago provides us with an opportunity for some clarity relative to juvenile crime. [Click the link below to read more.]
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