The first weekend of Lori Lightfoot’s tenure as mayor was bloody in Chicago: at least 42 people shot, seven fatally, over the Memorial Day holiday. By Tuesday afternoon, yet another horrific homicide had been reported: A mother shot while holding her baby.
Then began the countdown to Friday. That’s the thing about summer weekends in violence-wracked Chicago neighborhoods. They just keep coming, one dangerous Friday-through-Sunday after another.
Lightfoot entered office knowing that many Chicagoans, at some level, dread summer. It’s outdoor season, meaning more opportunities — especially over weekends and holidays — for gang conflict and drive-by shootings. More chances for disagreements on street corners and in parks to become armed battles, for sprayed bullets to strike unintended targets.
A new mayor takes on the burden
Anticipating the worst over Memorial Day, Lightfoot put 1,200 extra Chicago Police Department officers on the street and ramped up community activities in the hopes that doing so would keep some kids safe. The new mayor surely wanted to see a noticeable decline in gun violence compared to previous years, as did everyone in Chicago. Claiming that early victory would have been satisfying. But chaos is not easily tamed. 42 shot, seven dead.
One of Lightfoot’s best decisions was to dedicate part of her first weekend on the job to visiting high-crime neighborhoods and spending time among officers. That way she could absorb the scope of the devastation armed street gangs and drug dealers unleash, and make clear to Chicagoans that she now owns this crisis. Because she does.
Ten days into the job, Lightfoot sounds appropriately exasperated by the carnage. She is a federal prosecutor with a background in Chicago policing issues, yet she acknowledged being stunned by the stream of email notifications she receives detailing each shooting. “That is just an unacceptable state of affairs,” she declared.
Lightfoot devoted part of a City Club of Chicago speech this week to gun violence. In her talk, she picked up on another critical theme: how relentless shootings destroy the fabric of neighborhoods. Constant bloodshed creates generations of young people who are so brutalized by violence, she noted, they act like war-weary soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. “You see it on the faces of the kids, you see it in the way they are engaging with others,” Lightfoot said. “There’s no question in my mind that’s part of what’s driving the violence in the city.”
Murder on The 606 — and a mother shot holding her baby
One of the last shootings of the long Memorial Day weekend occurred in the first hour of Tuesday on The 606 trail in Logan Square, a pedestrian and biking amenity that’s thought of as part of the beautified, safe North Side.
A trio of friends on a late stroll were confronted by three men who demanded to know the gang affiliation of Alejandro Aguado and his companions. None were in a gang. Aguado, 22, worked at a Burger King and as a delivery driver. He would have had no good answer to give. He and his friends tried to run. Aguado was shot in the chest and back and died. His two friends were also hit by bullets. “I understand all the families that have lost loved ones to gun violence now,” Aguado’s father told a Tribune reporter. “You don’t realize it until it happens to you.”
Hours later, just before 9 a.m., a Chevrolet Impala cruised down a street in North Austin, its occupants apparently taking an interest in two men talking to 24-year-old Brittany Hill. She was holding her 1-year-old daughter Ja-Miley. Two gunmen in the Chevy began firing. The shooters evidently hadn’t targeted Hill but she was in the line of fire, still holding Ja-Miley. Brittany Hill died. “By the grace of God the baby wasn’t hit,” Larry Jones, the great-grandfather of Ja-Miley, told a Tribune reporter.
How to reduce the body count in Chicago
Lightfoot’s mission — Chicago’s mission — is to reduce the number of shootings and killings. How to do that? Putting violent offenders in prison and keeping them there will help. So will confiscating illegal weapons.
Yet some of the most effective responses have to originate in the neighborhoods: partnerships that involve police, residents, educators, community groups. The dire to-do list encompasses fighting crime in order to get dangerous people off the streets while keeping everyone else safe. All Chicagoans, including employers and volunteers, can play a role.
A 2016-17 spike in gun violence came amid fallout from the police shooting of black teenager Laquan McDonald. That incident capsulized CPD’s abominable record of abuse and misuse of force in minority neighborhoods, eventually leading to a federal consent decree supervising police reforms. The level of violence has come down but remains catastrophic. Lightfoot sounds convinced that reestablishing trust between South and West side residents and the police is crucial. She’s right. Law enforcement — what she’s called respectful, constitutional policing — is key.
Another pillar is intervention for the benefit of boys and young men in these neighborhoods who are at risk of committing violence or becoming victims. Anyone who can help keep a kid away from gang activity is potentially saving a life. We know there are parents, grandparents and other family members doing what they can, or who want to do more. We know there are programs that work. We know there are committed clergy and block club members trying to keep their communities safer. We know there are aldermen who want to step up. Let everyone who can contribute do so.
Lori Lightfoot’s opportunity
A new mayor brings a unique energy level to City Hall. Lightfoot faces the prospect of leading Chicago through another summer of ungodly mayhem. Gang warfare and drug-related gunplay are intractable problems in isolated, impoverished neighborhoods. City resources are limited.
But Lightfoot has the chance to rally Chicagoans to her cause, to focus City Hall and be creative in the battle to reclaim the streets of Chicago.
Summer is here. The toll of killed and injured is rising. These early days matter.
