The ex-cons and criminals at CeaseFire, recipients of a million dollars in “tribute” money – or “protection” money from the City of Chicago earlier this year has re-branded itself as Cure Violence in an effort, we suspect, to escape CeaseFire Illinois’ criminal reputation.
What is CeaseFire Illinois and how in the world did they get a cool million from Chicago?
CeaseFire Illinois is a bunch of criminals – ex-cons and “reformed” gang members who use their “street cred” to prevent crimes and violence and mediate gang-related disputes.
Yeah, sounds good in theory to do-gooders, but in reality it’s just like criminals would turn in the tools of the trade at gun buy backs. Yeah, it just isn’t going to happen.
In the real world, Chicago Police have made multiple arrests of CeaseFire street-pharmacist representatives for drug-related charges (dealing, not consuming) and these individuals claimed to be CeaseFire “Interrupters” as though that was going to be some sort of “get out of an arrest” street cred with the police. One man claimed CeaseFire was paying him $100 a day as an Interrupter. (Details here).
Oh yeah, and they printed up a bunch of bumper stickers!
So now, CeaseFire Illinois is trying to escape their public reputation as a bunch of hoodlums and thugs with this new website with a middle-aged, learned businessman/researcher white guy playing the role of a researcher in the effort to “cure” criminal violence.
In our opinion, nothing short of bringing back public hangings the morning after criminal convictions will “cure” the sort of violence Chicago has completely but a good start at sharply reducing it would be to pass right-to-carry in Illinois and allow law-abiding residents in Chicago and the rest of Illinois carry the means with which to defend their homes, families and themselves against violent criminal attacks.
IN the meantime, the rebranding of criminal organizations and posting a fascade website to obscure their real nature is about as sophomoric as believing criminals are going to prevent crime.
Hat tip to Second City Cop.
Just another feel-good, useless exercise in futility – like those gun “buy-backs” sponsored by ghetto churches. If they’re getting guns “off the streets”, why are the killings still going on?
According to reports from the Department of Justice and Johns Hopkins University, the Cure Violence/CeaseFire program has been shown to reduce violent crime by 40% in neighborhoods they’re located in. What is Guns Save Life’s interpretation of this data?
Also, has the author of this article watched “The Interrupters?” It’s a documentary of the daily work of 3 interrupters, and has received a score of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. I’d really like to hear what your thoughts were of the film, and if you watched the whole thing. If you haven’t seen it, you can watch it for free here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/interrupters/
Thanks for reading, and I’d appreciate hearing from you. I am not opposed to right-to-carry laws by the way.