Chicago Tribune - Under pressure on weekend crime, Emanuel touts drop in 1st quarter killings
By Jeremy Gorner and John Byrne, Tribune reporters
12:41 pm, April 2, 2013
After a rough 2012 defending their actions as homicides soared past 500 killings, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and police Superintendent Garry McCarthy had what they billed as good news to share Monday — violence in the first quarter of 2013 fell sharply from a year earlier.
But the two found themselves somewhat on the defensive after disturbances downtown over the weekend by large groups of teens captured national attention and reignited concerns about mayhem along or near the city's tony Magnificent Mile as warmer weather appears on the horizon.
The latest contrast shows once again how difficult it can be for Emanuel and his team to get ahead of Chicago's seemingly pervasive violence — an issue of incredible complexities that despite short-term success can quickly be eclipsed by a high-profile murder of a teenage girl or a scary robbery on a popular CTA train line.
Emanuel and McCarthy held the news conference at a Far South Side police station to detail dramatic drops in homicides and shootings for March as well as the first quarter of 2013. Last month, homicides fell to just 16, the lowest total since 1959, from 52 a year earlier, they said. For the first three months of the year, homicides totaled 70, a 42 percent drop from 120 for the same period of 2012.
McCarthy said it was the best first-quarter performance since 67 homicides in 1959. But the Police Department's records also show that Chicago recorded 70 in the first quarter of 2009, the same as this year. In 2010 and 2011, 75 homicides were recorded in each year's first quarter.
Crime experts said it's more appropriate to make comparisons over multiple years and noted that the start of 2012 was so uncharacteristically violent — perhaps in part because of unseasonably warm weather, particularly in March. They also said that it's inevitable for extremely high homicide numbers one year to go down the following year — as much as it would be typical for them to go up if they had been well below average.
They also said that weather can greatly affect violence, bringing more gang members outdoors and into potential conflicts with rivals.
James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston, said the police walk a tough line when it comes to crime statistics.
"When crime numbers go up, invariably the police take too much blame. And it's really unfair when they're criticized," Fox said. "And then when it goes down, they tend to take a little too much credit too."
Police strategies, he said, have a role, but what cops do on the streets generally doesn't have a great impact on the numbers in a matter of a few months.
For Emanuel and McCarthy, putting a focus on homicide numbers represented a change from last year. When the those figures soared early in 2012, bringing unflattering attention to the city, the two consistently emphasized the drop in overall crime.
Some law enforcement sources have said McCarthy's disbanding of two strike forces not long after he took office in 2011 had contributed to the increase in violence last year. The success of the specialized units relied on swarming the streets, intimidating and harassing gang members, and clamping down on any violence in targeted neighborhoods.
McCarthy moved those officers to beat patrols, hoping they would have more meaningful and positive interactions with the community. He's replaced the strike forces with "area teams," smaller than the old units but deployed by commanders for saturation missions closer to the problem.
While the union representing rank-and-file officers has long criticized department manpower as too low, McCarthy said the city has more cops than any other major city in the country on a per-capita basis. And more recently, he has offered overtime to more than 400 officers to work on their days off to increase visibility in crime-ridden areas. Newly trained officers also started walking foot patrols recently in those same neighborhoods.
Chicago violence has been a perplexing problem for Emanuel and McCarthy.
National news outlets focused on the bloodshed in President Barack Obama's hometown under the stewardship Emanuel, his former chief of staff. The drumbeat reached a crescendo in late January when 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton was fatally shot about a mile from Obama's South Side home.
On Monday, Emanuel insisted he knows that the buck stops with him on crime. "All of us are, I'm accountable," he said when announcing the lower homicide numbers. "And it's not about credit. And it's not about anything else but being accountable."
But Emanuel and McCarthy also faced questions about Saturday's disturbances downtown. Eleven teens were arrested after two women were attacked and robbed on the Red Line in the Loop. In a separate incident, 17 teens were arrested after disturbances along the Magnificent Mile.
It raised concerns of a repeat of unprovoked mob attacks that took place over the last two years downtown, leading to fears by businesses of an impact on tourism.
When a reporter suggested the Michigan Avenue incident would hurt Chicago's image nationally, McCarthy was quick to issue a stern response before his boss could answer.
"I want to be clear about something ... that we were there. We were on top of it, and we dispersed it immediately. And I also want to be clear that there were no assaults, robberies or property damage that was reported," McCarthy said.
Later, Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, praised the police response but called on the department to increase its visibility downtown "to prevent these events from occurring in the first place." In a letter to constituents, he promised to try to schedule a meeting this week with McCarthy.
Reilly previously proposed hiring off-duty cops to patrol North Michigan Avenue.
jgorner@tribune.com
jebyrne@tribune.com
COMMENT: Interesting that this article doesn't advocate for more stringent gun control measures in the city of Chicago? It's probably because it has some of the most restrictive laws in the country - essentially banning citizens from owning or carrying handguns. Guess what? Criminals and gangsters do NOT care! More cops on the street won't stop criminals from criminal behavior - they'll just do it somewhere else or some later. In the meantime, they have it "under control" - the press? The political messaging? It certainly isn't the criminals or the crime rate.
12:41 pm, April 2, 2013
After a rough 2012 defending their actions as homicides soared past 500 killings, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and police Superintendent Garry McCarthy had what they billed as good news to share Monday — violence in the first quarter of 2013 fell sharply from a year earlier.
But the two found themselves somewhat on the defensive after disturbances downtown over the weekend by large groups of teens captured national attention and reignited concerns about mayhem along or near the city's tony Magnificent Mile as warmer weather appears on the horizon.
The latest contrast shows once again how difficult it can be for Emanuel and his team to get ahead of Chicago's seemingly pervasive violence — an issue of incredible complexities that despite short-term success can quickly be eclipsed by a high-profile murder of a teenage girl or a scary robbery on a popular CTA train line.
Emanuel and McCarthy held the news conference at a Far South Side police station to detail dramatic drops in homicides and shootings for March as well as the first quarter of 2013. Last month, homicides fell to just 16, the lowest total since 1959, from 52 a year earlier, they said. For the first three months of the year, homicides totaled 70, a 42 percent drop from 120 for the same period of 2012.
McCarthy said it was the best first-quarter performance since 67 homicides in 1959. But the Police Department's records also show that Chicago recorded 70 in the first quarter of 2009, the same as this year. In 2010 and 2011, 75 homicides were recorded in each year's first quarter.
Crime experts said it's more appropriate to make comparisons over multiple years and noted that the start of 2012 was so uncharacteristically violent — perhaps in part because of unseasonably warm weather, particularly in March. They also said that it's inevitable for extremely high homicide numbers one year to go down the following year — as much as it would be typical for them to go up if they had been well below average.
They also said that weather can greatly affect violence, bringing more gang members outdoors and into potential conflicts with rivals.
James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston, said the police walk a tough line when it comes to crime statistics.
"When crime numbers go up, invariably the police take too much blame. And it's really unfair when they're criticized," Fox said. "And then when it goes down, they tend to take a little too much credit too."
Police strategies, he said, have a role, but what cops do on the streets generally doesn't have a great impact on the numbers in a matter of a few months.
For Emanuel and McCarthy, putting a focus on homicide numbers represented a change from last year. When the those figures soared early in 2012, bringing unflattering attention to the city, the two consistently emphasized the drop in overall crime.
Some law enforcement sources have said McCarthy's disbanding of two strike forces not long after he took office in 2011 had contributed to the increase in violence last year. The success of the specialized units relied on swarming the streets, intimidating and harassing gang members, and clamping down on any violence in targeted neighborhoods.
McCarthy moved those officers to beat patrols, hoping they would have more meaningful and positive interactions with the community. He's replaced the strike forces with "area teams," smaller than the old units but deployed by commanders for saturation missions closer to the problem.
While the union representing rank-and-file officers has long criticized department manpower as too low, McCarthy said the city has more cops than any other major city in the country on a per-capita basis. And more recently, he has offered overtime to more than 400 officers to work on their days off to increase visibility in crime-ridden areas. Newly trained officers also started walking foot patrols recently in those same neighborhoods.
Chicago violence has been a perplexing problem for Emanuel and McCarthy.
National news outlets focused on the bloodshed in President Barack Obama's hometown under the stewardship Emanuel, his former chief of staff. The drumbeat reached a crescendo in late January when 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton was fatally shot about a mile from Obama's South Side home.
On Monday, Emanuel insisted he knows that the buck stops with him on crime. "All of us are, I'm accountable," he said when announcing the lower homicide numbers. "And it's not about credit. And it's not about anything else but being accountable."
But Emanuel and McCarthy also faced questions about Saturday's disturbances downtown. Eleven teens were arrested after two women were attacked and robbed on the Red Line in the Loop. In a separate incident, 17 teens were arrested after disturbances along the Magnificent Mile.
It raised concerns of a repeat of unprovoked mob attacks that took place over the last two years downtown, leading to fears by businesses of an impact on tourism.
When a reporter suggested the Michigan Avenue incident would hurt Chicago's image nationally, McCarthy was quick to issue a stern response before his boss could answer.
"I want to be clear about something ... that we were there. We were on top of it, and we dispersed it immediately. And I also want to be clear that there were no assaults, robberies or property damage that was reported," McCarthy said.
Later, Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, praised the police response but called on the department to increase its visibility downtown "to prevent these events from occurring in the first place." In a letter to constituents, he promised to try to schedule a meeting this week with McCarthy.
Reilly previously proposed hiring off-duty cops to patrol North Michigan Avenue.
jgorner@tribune.com
jebyrne@tribune.com
COMMENT: Interesting that this article doesn't advocate for more stringent gun control measures in the city of Chicago? It's probably because it has some of the most restrictive laws in the country - essentially banning citizens from owning or carrying handguns. Guess what? Criminals and gangsters do NOT care! More cops on the street won't stop criminals from criminal behavior - they'll just do it somewhere else or some later. In the meantime, they have it "under control" - the press? The political messaging? It certainly isn't the criminals or the crime rate.
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