This past January, the Task Force on Missing and Murdered Chicago Women (MMCW) Act took effect in Illinois. The act was passed by the Illinois General Assembly in June of 2022. The legislation created a task force seeking to examine the issue of missing and murdered women in Chicago. Under the act, the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police (ILACP) was among the agencies and organizations authorized to nominate a task force member. The ILCAP nominated former Chicago Police Deputy Chief Thomas Lemmer to serve on the task force. In April, Executive Director Delrice Adams, from the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (ICJIA), formally approved Lemmer’s appointment. The first session of the task force was held on 24 May 2023. [Click the link below to read more.]
Read More
The Chicago Police Department (CPD) will take the lead in paying respects to slain Police Officer Areanah M. Preston. Sadly, the department has considerable experience in how to render honors to a fallen member. Police Officer Preston was the second CPD officer murdered this year. The pain of the loss of Police Officer Andres Vasquez Lasso is still raw. Areanah is due our respect for how she lived, and for her willingness to be a peacemaker. She and her family are owed our unending thanks and prayers for the cost she paid for being a police officer. We encourage all who can attend the wake or funeral to do so, and if you cannot to at least pause, reflect, and sincerely pray for her and her family. But what else? [Click the link below to read more.]
Read More
Going back to the height of THE pandemic, polling by Gallup showed public confidence in key institutions was low. Even as the news media has pushed narratives focusing on other institutions, the public held the media in very low regard. Like trust in Congress low. There are many reasons to hold the media in low regard. A leading choice since 2020, THE pandemic excuse. That excuse was a favorite for the Associated Press (AP) and others in the media. While ridiculous, the beyond simplistic cover story was used to explain away huge problems caused by horrible public policies. Issues like a crushed economy. Well sure. But also rising violence and even reckless driving. But, this week National Public Radio (NPR) read from a new script. Rising traffic deaths just may have more to do with the consequences from lessened traffic enforcement by the police than Covid. Shocking. Well not really. [Click the link below to read more.]
Read More
In Illinois, state’s attorneys are the elected county prosecutors. They represent the people of their respective counties in court. When 100 out of 102 elected state’s attorneys have a warning, then the people are wise to listen. The coming full implementation of the SAFE-T Act in January 2023 will make Illinois far less safe. On 5 August 2022, AM560’s Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson, from Chicago’s Morning Answer, interviewed two county prosecutors from the Chicago area. One Republican, Robert Berlin, from DuPage, County. One Democrat, James Glasgow, from Will County. They are agreed. Public safety will be jeopardized. Law-abiding citizens will be confronted by emboldened criminals, and the police and prosecutors will be far less able to do much about it. The full interview is a highly-recommended resource. [Click the link below to read more.]
Read More
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.]
Read More
At Secure 1776 we have tried to completely ignore the Jussie Smollett hate-crime hoax circus. Why? Because it all started with a minor television actor attempting to gain notoriety for purposes of career advancement. After Smollett completes his 150 days in jail we can expect he will again be aggressively looking to ca$h in on his notoriety – although not on the exact “heroic-victim” trail he planned. Sadly, there is little doubt that his chances for career advancement have not ended. With that said, we can move on to why we felt compelled to write at all on this topic. The answer is the latest prosecutor politics of Kim Foxx in the Smollett circus. Here is the short version. Ms. Foxx, the Cook County State’s Attorney, in the hours after Smollett’s sentencing, published an opinion piece ostensibly about the case. While with a lofty title about the justice system, the revisionist approach of the piece reveals that the true focus for Ms. Foxx is really centered on how “Kim Foxx” came out in all of this. In her “opinion,” she is a victim in this drama. Seriously? Like Mr. Smollett, Ms. Foxx is not a victim in this case. [Click the link below to read more.]
Read More
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.]
Read More
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.]
Read More
“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.]
Read More
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.]
Read More
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.]
Read More
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.]
Read More
