MEDIA WATCH: While Mayor Emanuel continued teacher bashing (saying teachers had 'shafted' the kids) and tried to destroy police, firefighter and teacher pensions — Chicago's massive drug gangs went on a rampage across the Humboldt Park area and south across the city
No sooner had Mayor Rahm Emanuel gotten off his most recent scripted one-liner attacking teachers and scapegoating public worker unions in Chicago (the largest of which is still the Chicago Teachers Union) for both the educational and fiscal woes of the city than another eruption of violence from the drug gangs should have been a warning about where the real problems facing the city are coming from. By the evening of June 19, 2011, police radios (and police blogs) across Chicago were erupting with reports of gang violence.
The corner of Spaulding and Beach in West Humboldt Park in Chicago. For more than 30 years, the area has been called the "Motherland" by the Latin Kings street gang. Three generations of Chicago gangsters and Chicago police and teachers have known about Spaulding and Beach, but the fact that it remains a center of Latin King northside enterprises in Chicago tells a major story about how the city has allowed the major gangs — the Latin Kings and Maniac Latin Disciples, the Black P. Stones and the Black Gangster Disciples, and the Gaylords and Simon City Royals (to name gangs from the three major ethnic groups) — to thrive in Chicago. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.Those who want to stay updated during the first summer of Rahm can get Second City cop at the following URL: http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com
But while the shooting (including firing at cops) was going on across the inner city, from Humboldt Park out to 87th and Damen and beyond), Mayor Emanuel was silent about the gangs. City Hall reported that he was in Baltimore, giving a speech to the National Conference of Mayors on the need for infrastructure repairs. If so, it was an almost perfect irony.
Three days after Emanuel said that Chicago's teachers and unions had "shafted" the kids, he was in the city where "The Wire" was made while the gang problems in his own city escalated to the point where the corporate media was having more and more trouble ignoring it. One of the reasons why Chicago's drug gangs have become the largest and best-organized in the USA is that Chicago's political leaders, now including Rahm Emanuel, have chosen to scapegoat teachers and other public workers, while allowing the drug gangs (which often flourish with political protection) to grow in size and influence.
The area in and around Humboldt Park on Chicago's north side (North Ave. and California to North Ave. and Kedzie, south to Augusta) has long faced gang problems, with Latin Kings to the west and various Disciples gangs to the east. The problems that arose during the weeks before June 19 were widely known in the schools, on the streets and to the police, but Mayor Rahm Emanuel was too busy trying publicity stunts against the city's unionized teachers to even speak out against the gangs his predecessors had allowed to take over large parts of Chicago. Substance photo June 19, 2011, by George N. Schmidt.Overnight between June 18 and June 19, gunfire could be heard in most parts of Chicago, and it wasn't a rehearsal for the July 4 fireworks. Probably the only communities where you couldn't hear the rapid sounds of automatics firing was the Gold Coast, which had received extra police protection after the gangs headed there a week earlier for an afternoon of text-based activities. But after throwing a brief scare into Chicago's wealthiest (and the business that cater to them along the Magnificent Mile), most of the city's thousands of drug gang members were back in action on the home territories they have long claims — with the help of the city's political and economic leaders — as their "turf."
But Emanuel won't be interested in stopping the gangs, which on election day will be part of the political process. Instead, he's working on destroying the teachers' union and privatizing schools. That this will only lead to more violence and destruction (as it already has) isn't part of the public discussion. Everyone must remember that chaos is what the ruling class wants so they can make a profit.
Interesting how crime get s covered up until the ruling class needs the information to create and call for emergency measures to fix the problem! Just like the $65 million "Culture of Calm" crony money that disappeared under Ron Huberman and Terry Mazany. First, from a police blog.
Humboldt Park Chaos?
Saturday, June 18, 2011. http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/2011/06/humboldt-park-chaos.html
Our comment section started lighting up just before 9 PM, but there doesn't appear to be any coverage on the networks, radios or websites.
We're getting unconfirmed reports of stabbings and massive gang fights across the entire [Humboldt] park. Supposedly, TAC [tactical squads], Gang and Response Teams are being called out from districts across the city to go to the Puerto Rican festival in full riot gear, even gas teams being assembled?
From one end of Chicago to the other, well organized and often massive drug gangs have been operating for generations. With support from politicians and other powerful people, they replicate their activities and symbols now into the fourth generation. Above, Maniac Latin Disciples graffiti adorned a garage across from Gage Park High School on the South Side in December 2009. Gang Park was victimized and its teachers slandered by the Daley administration, which allowed the gangs to proliferate across the south and west sides. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.Anyone have the actual story? We can't imagine anyone missed this one coming. Its been building for days and the weather is only going to aggravate it.
UPDATE: A couple of veterans saying it was normal behavior for the fest, just a couple of larger half-assed fights, mass dispersals and the like. They say it looks worse because we're undermanned and won't fill the wagons.
By 4:00 a.m. June 19, the following (again from Second City cop): An officer safety alert warning that cops are at a heightened risk of being shot in the area has since been put in place, police sources said.On Friday night, dispatchers had been instructed to send two beat cars to all calls for service in that part of town. So even though they're under siege from gang banging pieces of crap, the cops are going there en masse because you know it's all the police's fault.Time to stop the fest. Actually, the time was probably 20 or 30 years ago, but no better time than the present. Have Rahm plead poverty, we can't afford it, unwise use of resources, etc. It's outlived its usefulness. Rahm in Action
Sounds like a neighborhood under siege:
http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/2011/06/test-of-nerves.html
Following the publication of its ground-breaking work "Gangs: Public Enemy Number One" during the 1990s, the Chicago Crime Commission updated the "Gang Book" in 2003, adding a second book detailing how girls, both in larger gangs and in their own gangs, were becoming more and more a major part of the gang problem in Chicago. Despite the recognition on the part of street cops and some (like the crime commission), Chicago found its leaders scapegoating unionized teachers, police, firefighters and other public workers and ignoring the Chicago drug gangs, which made the famous HBO series "The Wire" look like Disneyworld. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.Labels: un-fucking-believable, June 19, 2011 at 4:20 AM
