Little by little, Terrance Henderson sees the gains his violence-prevention workers have made in persuading rival gangs to stop shooting each other in a swath of Chicago’s Far South Side.
But it’s a struggle. The group’s efforts in Roseland and West Pullman, two communities that have seen some of the city’s biggest jumps in shootings and killings so far in 2021, don’t always outpace the conflicts that erupt and spiral out of control.
Last year was billed as an outlier for violence in Chicago as tensions flared during the pandemic and civil unrest followed the police killing of George Floyd, and indeed, 2020 saw shootings and killings skyrocket to levels similar to the 1990s.
But as the first half of 2021 draws to a close and the country has returned to a sense of normalcy, the violence has not ebbed along with COVID-19. Figures show Chicago has seen a slight rise in gun violence even over 2020’s concerning tallies, despite the work of many like Henderson, who know well what they are up against.
“I do understand Chicago is Chicago and it just has such a dark past, and there’s so much hate and misunderstanding,” said Henderson, who supervises violence prevention for the community group Chicago CRED, short for Create Real Economic Destiny.
Experts said Chicago in 2021 may be dealing with what amounts to a hangover effect from the turbulence of last year.
Kim Smith, director of programs at the University of Chicago Crime Lab and Education Lab, noted how mentoring programs for those at risk of becoming involved in violence and the normal routine of violence prevention groups took a hiatus due to the pandemic. They have since resumed their work, but relationships those workers toiled to secure may need to be rekindled, Smith said.
“Hopefully the worst of the pandemic is behind us, but there are certainly things that have not recovered,” she said. “It’s not just going to be like on the turn of a switch that those relationships are kind of reestablished. I think there’s just a lot of work that needs to be done to address the trauma that everyone has been through over the past year.”
Henderson said he knows his own group’s mission is about to get more complicated.
With Chicago neighborhoods open again after the pandemic, and the weather getting warmer, Henderson warned those factors create more opportunities for large outdoor gatherings and more opportunities for enemies to settle old scores.
“They are what their environment is,” Henderson said of the gangs his group tries to negotiate with. “They think it’s the norm.”
Violence increases, but not as sharply
While any increase in crime after 2020 is concerning, the increases have not been as large. Last year ended with roughly 50% jumps in homicides and shootings over 2019.
So far in 2021, homicides have risen by nearly 3% to 316, up from 308 at the same point in 2020, preliminary Chicago police statistics through June 23 show.
Shootings — incidents where at least one person was struck by gunfire non-fatally or fatally — jumped by 12%, to 1,438 from 1,283 in the same period last year, the statistics show. The numbers do not include expressway shootings.
Chicago’s rise in gun violence this year isn’t unique. Other big cities across the U.S. have seen upticks, too, including some that are far worse.
In New York, homicides were up by 13%, with 204 through June 20, compared with 180 at the same time in 2020, according to New York Police Department statistics. Shootings there have jumped by 53% from 444 to 680.
In Los Angeles, there had been 162 homicides through June 19, about a 26% rise over the same time in 2020, when 129 people were slain, Los Angeles Police Department statistics show. The total number of shooting victims in LA rose from 434 to 651 during that same period, a 50% increase, according to the statistics.
In Philadelphia, homicides and total shootings have risen by over 30% and more than 22%, respectively, according to that police department’s statistics through June 20.
The national crime wave has also gotten President Joe Biden’s attention. Biden’s administration announced on Tuesday the start of strike forces to focus on combating gun trafficking into several major cities, Chicago among them.
Despite calls from progressives to “defund” or abolish police in America, Biden is also seeking a $300 million boost for the federal Community Oriented Policing Services program for local police to hire more cops. But he’s also proposed spending about $5 billion to boost violence prevention efforts for community groups like Chicago CRED that seek to make inroads with those most at risk of becoming a victim or perpetrator, and connect them with job opportunities, therapy and other support.
Various causes
Crime experts have always cautioned against making year-to-year comparisons when trying to determine accurately how violence in a city has changed over time. And coming up with the exact reasons for violent crime spikes can be complicated, experts said.
There could be intensified gang or personal conflicts, or disputes over illicit drug sales. Some law enforcement professionals in Chicago have blamed violent crime spikes on what they perceive as a lenient criminal justice system that lets some defendants out of jail on electronic home monitoring or on lesser bail amounts.
Experts have also pointed to the side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as unemployment and other economic woes and school closures. Frustration has only worsened in urban centers that for decades have already been struggling with violence, poverty and other societal ills.
There could be lasting effects into 2021 that have an impact on violent crime, experts said.
“If you are talking about neighborhoods and populations who, even before the pandemic, were not receiving adequate support and, too, then were totally disconnected from institutions, to just try to even reengage them, it’s not a trivial lift,” Smith of the University of Chicago said. “And I think it’s going to take a really concerted effort to actually reestablish really good connections that can kind of reduce violence.”
American cities also saw a jump in shootings and homicides last year while witnessing widespread civil unrest following Floyd’s killing. There has been much discussion among crime experts over the last year about how much that contributed to the uptick in violence across the U.S.
One theory is there has been an increase in distrust of law enforcement in Black and Hispanic communities, which could lead to more street justice and retaliatory violence, experts have said. Another is that demoralized police officers have withdrawn from meaningful enforcement in the neighborhoods where they work, further emboldening criminals.
“I think each has contributed,” said Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist from the University of Missouri at St. Louis. “I do think that the full, or something like a full, explanation does lay somewhere in the relationship between the police and the communities they serve.”
He noted how these factors, their impact on violence still to be determined, were also debated as possible contributors to the extreme rise in violence in Chicago in 2016 following the city’s public release of video showing a white police officer fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was Black.
Rosenfeld said he believes it’s important to note that Chicago’s homicide statistics currently are comparable to the city’s tallies in 2017. And that year was the start of consecutive years of declines in violence until 2020’s increases.
Experts have suggested there may be a correlation between a jump in gun sales at federal-licensed firearm dealers during the pandemic and the number of illegally obtained guns confiscated by law enforcement. Those guns can wind up on the street through straw purchasing, thefts or failure to conduct background checks.
“The more guns out there, the more shootings are likely to occur, and the more lethal the arsenal on the streets, the higher the probability that a shooting will end in a victim’s death,” Rosenfeld said.
Through June 23, Chicago police officers have confiscated 5,647 guns, 25% more than at this time last year, statistics show.
Last year, Smith’s team analyzed why Chicago police were recovering a similar number of guns as in past years, even as they were stopping fewer people on the street. The belief is more people are illegally carrying guns, she said, as opposed to cops getting better at spotting gun offenders.
“We think it’s a pretty solid assumption,” Smith said.
Hot spots and mass shootings
A district with one of the biggest jumps in homicides so far this year is the Wentworth District, which covers areas such as Bronzeville, Washington Park and Hyde Park.
Through June 23, 21 people had been slain in that police district, more than double the nine killed by this time the year before, statistics show. Shootings in the district this year also jumped by 27%, going from 48 to 61.
Also enduring an increase is the Calumet District, which covers Roseland and West Pullman, with 27 homicides through June 23, up from 15 last year, statistics show. Calumet has also posted one of the largest increases in shootings with 111 in 2021 compared with 74 last year.
This year has been marked in part by a series of mass shootings on the South Side.
One happened in March, when 15 people were shot, two fatally, at a pop-up party in the Park Manor neighborhood. Another on June 15 in Englewood saw eight people shot, including five who were killed.
On Jan. 9, 32-year-old Jason Nightengale shot seven people, killing five, in a spree that stretched from the South Side to beyond the city’s northern border, authorities have said. Nightengale was eventually shot and killed by Evanston police.
Police response
When homicides and shootings in Chicago were climbing last summer, police Superintendent David Brown created two mobile citywide units, one of which was tasked with responding mainly to protests or large gatherings and the other to crime hot spots across the city.
Hundreds of officers were moved to the latter, the community safety team, to saturate neighborhoods dealing with sudden eruptions of violence.
While the unit was meant to be used for aggressive enforcement action, Brown promised there would also be officers in the unit who would work on community service projects as a way of building a rapport with residents.
But the homicides and shootings haven’t let up. In recent weeks, Brown has tried to put a positive spin on the statistics, explaining how they’ve begun to level off since the beginning of the year.
For instance, January ended with 51 homicides, about a 46% climb over last year. The number of people shot in January also jumped by about 53% over the previous January.
Now the homicide increase over last year is running at 2.6%, while shootings are up 12%.
Brown’s staff did not make him available to be interviewed for this story. But at a news conference at police headquarters on Monday, his staff displayed charts showing different crime statistics, communicating that the size of this year’s increase is going down month by month.
“The country is under a violent crime wave,” Brown said, and crime in other cities seems to be peaking as the arrow in Chicago could be headed in the right direction.
On Thursday, a spokesman for Brown said officers would be concentrating their efforts on the 15 police beats with the most violence so they can “address the root causes of violence and prevent it from happening in the first place.”
But trying to protect the city has come at a price. Officers have had stretches where they were forced to put in longer hours and forfeit their days off. The department’s largest union, the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, supported a vote of no confidence against Brown and other city officials.
“I’m worried about the officers who come to work without enough officers at work. What about them and their families?” Brown said Monday in response to a question about his officers’ extended shifts and day-off cancellations. “And would you rather have more officers at work during violent weekends for officer safety, or less?”
The department has also seen a higher-than-usual number of retirements so far this year. According to data from the Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago, 311 officers of all ranks retired with a pension from January through May, a figure that’s close to surpassing the total number of cops who retired with pensions in all of 2018.
Support for violence prevention
Aside from Biden’s $5 billion proposal for violence prevention, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration has set aside over $30 million for groups in the city, like Terrance Henderson’s, that mediate gang conflicts and provide other support for people immersed in the street life.
For Henderson, one of his workers’ biggest challenges now is expanding on a peace agreement that Chicago CRED helped broker between gangs in a small part of West Pullman. One gang hasn’t bought in to the agreement, a huge cause for concern.
“We’re consistently showing a presence over there, but we can’t really be sitting ducks,” Henderson said. “So, it’s kind of difficult to have guys sitting over there, trying to patrol the areas, trying to do outreach in the areas, and (the gang’s) not looking at those guys as peace-engagers. They’re just looking at them as opposition.”
After a year, there’s one peace agreement in the area that’s still intact, something Henderson hopes can serve as an example to others still involved in tense conflicts. But his group has other spots to keep tabs on, especially in an era where back-and-forth wars of words between groups over social media can lead to unpredictable violence.
Sometimes Henderson’s workers watch over these groups, move them out of the neighborhood and pay attention to blocks with homicide memorials for past victims’ birthdays or death days, opportunities for rivals to ambush large gatherings of celebrants or mourners.
But even going into summer, when Chicago’s violence typically worsens, Henderson is cautiously upbeat as the city emerges from the pandemic.
“I’m hopeful,” he said, “but I do understand that things can turn around for the worst at any given moment.,”
jgorner@chicagotribune.com
