Rahm Emanuel loves to blame “guns” as the cause of Chicago’s perpetual orgy of criminal violence.
It’s a nice diversionary tactic from the true causes of violence in the Windy City. John Lott doesn’t let rhetoric get in the way of facts and excoriates Mayor Rahm Emanuel in a piece released this week. The fact is that police in Chicago aren’t solving crimes because there are fewer beat cops, fewer detective bureaus (and the remaining ones are located many miles from the highest-crime neighborhoods), and fewer anti-gang units. It’s not rocket science to figure out that with fewer cops, bad guys can feel emboldened.
Check this out:
Chicago violence: The buck stops with you, Rahm Emanuel
by John Lott
(Fox News) – Over the July 4 weekend, in Chicago alone, 16 people were shot to death and another 66 were wounded. At a press briefing on July 11, the White House weighed in, stating that Obama would “continue to make the case” that lawmakers should adopt new gun control laws. Two days later, on Sunday, Gov. Pat Quinn also called for more gun control, in particular a state ban on assault weapons, as the solution.
But Chicago’s problems lie with the city’s politicians. Nationally, police solve almost two out of every three murders – 63 percent of them. That figure is much lower in Chicago. In 2010, right before Rahm Emanuel became mayor, the rate for Chicago was 39 percent. But by Emanuel’s second year in office, it had plunged to an official rate of 26 percent. (In reality it is even lower, because Chicago has tried to hide how bad things are by increasingly misclassifying murders as non-murders.)
After becoming mayor, Emanuel did three unfortunate things to the Chicago police force:
1) He closed down detective bureaus in Chicago’s highest crime districts and moved them elsewhere, sometimes quite far away.
2) Instead of increasing the number of police officers by 1,000, as he had promised during his campaign, he actually cut the number of police.
3) He disbanded many gang task forces.
Not surprisingly, when you don’t catch criminals, the result is more crime.
Of course, if you read this article to Michael Bloomberg’s Congress(wo)man Robin Kelly, she would stick her fingers in her ears and go “LA LA LA LA LA LA LA”.
Comments are closed.