CHICAGO —The latest gun violence that spanned the south side, including a shooting this week in front of a funeral home that left 15 people injured, has baffled city leaders and community members calling for an end to the bloodshed.
“Lay down your arms,” Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown said at a press conference after a 3-year-old girl was shot in the head early Wednesday morning.
“We all had restless nights last night, including myself,” added Mayor Lori Lightfoot. “But I woke up this morning with even more determination to do everything possible to stop this violence.”
The effort to stem the increase in the shootings will now include support from the federal government, the Justice Department announced Wednesday afternoon. “Violent Crime Task Forces” to be Deployed in Chicago; Kansas City, Missouri; and Albuquerque, New Mexico, cities where the Trump administration believes its federal agents can help with unsolved murders and gang violence.
The task forces are being deployed under “Operation Legend,” named after a 4-year-old boy who died in a shooting last month in Kansas City.
But community activists and criminologists in Chicago say they are concerned that tensions, reinvigorated protests and questionable arrests involving federal agents in Portland, Oregon in recent days may erupt in the third-largest city in the United States.
“Sending federal agents without any specificity and clarity about their presence is a very slippery slope,” said David Stovall, professor of African American Studies and criminology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “If they are only going to increase what exists, that could mean more arrests and, in the worst case, more deaths.”
Stovall added that “an offensive against crime and weapons only arrests more people, and does not really address the central issue behind the violence.”
The task forces will be comprised of FBI agents, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the US Marshals, and the Department of Homeland Security. More than 200 federal agents have already been dispatched to Kansas City, and a similar force is expected in Chicago and more than 35 officers in Albuquerque.
About $ 3.5 million in federal funds would also go to Chicago to compensate local authorities for overtime, equipment and other expenses that support federal agents, Barr said.
A Chicago police spokesman said Wednesday that if federal agents are deployed, “it is critical that they coordinate with the Chicago Police Department and work with us to combat violent crime in Chicago.”
Lightfoot suggested Tuesday that it would support the possibility of a “real partnership” with federal agencies that can provide more resources to “help manage and suppress violent crime in our city.” She said “there are some things the feds are uniquely qualified for, and that would be welcome.”
But he warned that “the Trump administration will not foolishly deploy anonymous agents on the streets of Chicago.” She did not immediately comment on Barr’s announcement Wednesday.
But it was not clear Wednesday night what role federal agents would play, making their arrival more puzzling to people in the communities with which they can interact.
“I need to understand what their [federal officers’] the real purpose is and to know how it is different from what is currently happening because what is currently happening is not working, “said Asiaha Butler, a South Side community activist and executive director of the Greater Englewood Residents’ Association.” I don’t know how you add more to what doesn’t work. “
The city is beset by high levels of gun violence and gang activity and has been reeling in recent weeks due to an increase in crime.
There were 559 shootings in the last 28 days before July 19, compared to 137 shootings during roughly the same period in 2019, according to crime statistics analyzed by Christopher Herrmann, a former crime analyst supervisor with the New York Police Department and professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
Their analysis also found that Chicago killings reached 116 during the 28-day period, an increase of nearly 200 percent from the previous year. For the year to date 2020 during the same period in 2019, shooting increased by 47 percent and murder by 51 percent, Chicago crime data shows. However, reported sexual assaults, robberies and robberies have decreased.
The increase in shooting and murder is not relegated to Chicago. Other cities Herrmann examined, including New York and Atlanta, also showed increases.
Herrmann told NBC News this month that a combination of unique circumstances could be attributed to the increase.
“Not only is it summer violence, but there is COVID-19, police protests and job loss,” he said. “All of those factors are going to exacerbate violence, especially in communities that were already vulnerable.”
In more recent years, the police have credited adding more than 1,000 officers to the streets, as well as gunshot detection technology and predictive analytics, to help prevent shootings and killings.
But Brown said Wednesday that conflicts between Chicago’s more than 117,000 estimated gang members and their warring factions are fueling the “cycle of violence.”
“Someone is shot, leading someone else to pick up a gun,” said Brown. “This same cycle repeats itself, over and over and over again. This cycle is fueled by street gangs, weapons and drugs.”
But criminal experts feel that the problem is much deeper.
“As tragic as the shooting is, we have to connect it to what it means to live historically under conditions of not having a quality education, quality health care, a living wage and access to nutrition,” Stovall said. “The best way to address violence is to have a relationship with people before the event occurs.”
Arthur Lurigio, a professor of criminology and psychology at Loyola University in Chicago, said the police should be involved, but it is never the main solution.
“There has to be a programmatic response that involves community members, and most importantly, an understanding of why these mostly young men are raising weapons and shooting each other,” he said.
Many community activists say reinforcing law enforcement or adding more federal agents is a short-term solution to a long-term problem.
“We just cut the weeds, but that doesn’t stop the weeds from coming back,” said William Calloway, a community activist against violence.
Calloway said he is open to helping from different avenues, including the federal government, but he believes the most important issues of poverty and deprivation of rights are being overlooked.
Jahmal Cole, activist and founder of a community organization on the south side called My Block, My Hood, My City, said the violence is largely the result of divestment from the hardest hit communities, including racial injustice, poverty and poor performance. schools and high unemployment.
“I don’t think the solution is to add more officers,” he said. “It is not about more police, it is about more resources and investments, giving us the money we need so that we can put it into our communities. If you are not willing to do that, then you cannot change the violence.”
Safia Samee Ali reported from Chicago and Erik Ortiz from New York.
