#CrisisInChicago. More people, 274, have been murdered in the city of Chicago in the first six months of 2012 than U.S. soldiers in killed in Afghanistan, 157, in that same period. This includes non-combat related deaths.
The homicide rate in Chicago is currently quadruple the murder rate in New York City. The recent homicide spike in Chicago is the worst since 2003. Yet there would appear to be no sense of heated urgency or national attention on the crisis.
On June 16, Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy commented that the situation was actually improving and that there was a “perception problem.” McCarthy said this following a June weekend that left 8 Chicago residents dead and 46 wounded by gunfire. McCarthy made this point about a week after a 16-year-old Chicago resident, Joseph Briggs, who was shot standing on the front porch of his home by a stray bullet. On June 27, Heaven Sutton, 7, was shot to death in a similar incident as she sold sno-cones in the North Austin section of the city. Her funeral was July 6.
For the next seven days Politic365 will examine several issues around the murders in Chicago. Have we become use to a certain level of violence? Are our political leaders acting with sufficient urgency? Have we effectively given up on trying to stop gang violence? Why isn’t the media outside of Chicago paying attention? Can the police adequately combat violence? Why isn’t the situation in Chicago a national crisis that holds the attention of the entire country?
We will also examine some of the solutions to violence in the U.S. — many of which have been around for years.
[...] is why President Obama did not make an official statement about the 274 murders in his hometown of Chicago so far this year, but he had to make one about the shootings in a movie theater in [...]
[...] Maybe he was thinking of all the children who were slaughtered on the streets of his hometown this past summer. And, maybe, just maybe, he was overwhelmed with the weight of it all. [...]