Chicago has some of the toughest gun-control laws in the nation and yet homicides and shootings in the city have doubled so far this year compared with the same period in 2015. Meanwhile, despite, or some would say, because of its liberal politics, a quarter of Chicago’s 77 communities remain as racially and socioeconomically segregated as ever and undeniably unequal, according to the Chicago Urban League.
Segregation within black and white communities is so deeply rooted that even those neighborhoods that somehow achieved diversity are re-segregating, according to sociologists at American University who analyzed race and housing patterns in 10,000 neighborhoods in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and New York.
Chicago, long a bastion for Democratic Party politics, seems to be the poster-city for gun violence and segregation. The Chicago Police Department is seizing fewer guns and arresting fewer suspects due to intense internal pressure resulting largely from the investigation of that police department by the Obama-led Department of Justice. Adding to a sense of chaos in the city, the Chicago Teachers Union is threatening to walk out of classrooms on April Fools’ Day over proposed pension cuts meant to remedy an unfunded, heavily indebted pension account.
Illinois politics are notoriously edgy; six of the state’s governors have been charged with crimes during or after their governorships; four were convicted, and of those, one (Blagojevich) was the first to be impeached and removed from office. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a former aide to Pres. Barack Obama, is under fire for his alleged role in a police cover-up over the shooting of an unarmed black suspect.
As Emanuel struggles to restore public confidence for his part in the delayed release of a video showing a white officer fatally shooting suspect Laquan McDonald, the department’s 12,000 officers and its interim police chief are struggling to maintain control of violent crime in the Windy City as shootings and unrest escalates.
The net result has been a precipitous drop in morale among Chicago police officers, according to Chicago Tribune interviews with numerous officers of different ranks. The cops described confusion over how they are supposed to do even basic police work, frustration over mixed messages coming from bosses and concern that they will be the next headline.
“Those of us who really care and are trying to do something for the city, we’re walking the tightrope,” a gang-control officer told the Chicago Tribune, explaining how he ordinarily would have patted down a driver who recently cursed him out, but decided not to risk a complaint of harassment. “Everything we do is perceived as rogue right now.”
Meanwhile, Chicago remains one of the most segregated towns in the US, and statistically it is getting worse not better.
