Teen mobs looting, vandalizing, and generally causing chaos, have overwhelmed the police force in Chicago.
By Eileen Griffin
A Chicago commission is tasked with finding a police superintendent with experience in dealing with teen mob crime.
Newly elected Chicago Mayor Brandon Jonson (D) will be assisted by The Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability in the search for a new police superintendent, Chicago Tribune reports.
Recent incidents where large crowds of teenagers gather have disrupted the city causing chaos and destruction.
The large number of individuals looting, vandalizing, and generally causing chaos, have overwhelmed the police force. The new police superintendent will be expected to address this issue.
During a mob gathering on Saturday night, April 15, a group of over 100 teenagers and young adults blocked streets, attacked random people, and engaged in general mayhem.
Lawlessness is growing in Chicago, as well as other Democrat-run cities. Heartland Daily News previously reported on similar anarchy in cities such as Austin and Houston where teens gather for street takeovers and street racing.
Teen mob crime is new to Chicago, but violent crime rates have been rising for many years. At the end of 2022, CBS reported that violent crime had been up for the past three years.
Crime was one of the major issues in the recent mayoral election resulting in a resounding repudiation of Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D). However, the runoff winner, Brandon Johnson is a progressive with lenient views towards crime. His approach invests resources in community programs and prevention, as opposed to additional funding for more police officers.
As a candidate for mayor, Johnson told Block Club Chicago that his plan focused on “root causes” of crime. His plan makes no mention of the 1600 current vacancies in the police department, nor does he address any recruitment or retention efforts.
Johnson’s plan includes community-based interventions and conflict resolution. He makes no mention of crime victims and the need for additional police officers to prevent violence and protect residents.
“I just got back in town a few years ago,” resident Sunny Kennedy told ABC. “I got back here after the riots. My city has changed…I’m scared actually.”
Although Johnson is not yet mayor, he made a statement after the recent teen mob incident defending youth and discouraging “demonizing” young people. He made a pitch for “safe spaces” for youth.
Johnson’s liberal views on crime and policing were known to Chicago voters prior to the election.
“It seemed baffling,” writes Byron York in an opinion for Town Hall. “There were analyses in the press trying to explain why Chicagoans had made such a choice.”
“Meanwhile, Chicago’s already terrible crime rate is becoming more terrible,” York writes. “If more bad things happen in the future, the city’s voters will know who to blame: themselves.”
Defeated mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) acknowledged that Democrats do not acknowledge the truth about violent crime in cities.
While addressing the African American Mayors Association Conference, Lightfoot told Democratic mayors that it was important to address the growing crime and respond to the fear in communities.
“What do we say to, not only the victims of crime, but the people who are terrified about crimes in their neighborhood, most of whom look like us,” Lightfoot said. “If we say, ‘yeah, the police department is spending all this time and resources to arrest, put a case on,’ and the judges and the prosecutors say, ‘you know what? We’re going to let you out on electronic monitoring to wreak havoc again.’ You’re telling them that the criminal justice system doesn’t care about victims and witnesses.”
Some Chicagoans expressed concern for the excuses made for the mob youth violence.
“We know we are currently living in a world of difficult and oftentimes harmful distractions for our youth, including social media and guns,” Wilmette resident Barbara Statland wrote in a letter to the editor of the Chicago Sun Times. “But once right and wrong is replaced with excuses, we lose our sense of morality and democracy.”
“This is no longer a political position of the left or the right, but a human position of right and wrong,” Statland writes. “If we lose this, then we will lose our youth and our cities.”
Additional teen mob events were anticipated, yet none occurred the weekend after the first incident in Chicago.
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