Chicago Mayor blames massacre on guns

[kbsooner21]

That is freaking NUTS!!!

[Spark]

I thought this stuff was near Wrigley. It's not?

No, South Side ...


Wrigley-ville is a very nice area. Not as safe as it used to be but still very nice. There is no comparison

[Spark]

Chicago experienced its 500th murder of the year on Thursday night, when a 40-year-old man was shot to death in the Austin neighborhood. It was only the second time in the last ten years the city has reached that mark. In 2008, 513 people were murdered.


However, this year’s violence has attracted unprecedented national attention to Chicago. In October, Diane Sawyer held a town hall meeting at St. Sabina’s Church, hosted by Father Michael Pfleger. The killings have earned the city the nickname “Chiraq” and have been inspired an emerging Chicago rap form known as drill.

“The toughened reality of living in these neighborhoods is what shaped Drill music, a slang term for retaliation and a new style of hip-hop that represents a turning away from Chicago’s socially conscious wave represented by Kanye West, Common, Lupe Fiasco, the Cool Kids and others to a darker, more hard-core sound, recognized by sinister keyboards, brittle beats and voyeuristic tales involving girls, Kush smoking, but primarily violence,” Salon wrote in an article on rapper Chief Keef, who was investigated for his connection to the shooting of a rival named Lil Jojo.

The city’s murders have also made it a case study in the debate on gun control. Second Amendment defenders point to the fact that Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation as proof that gun control is not only ineffective, but causes more violence.

“The reality is that the only people being denied guns under Obama's scenario are law-abiding citizens,” wrote Breitbart.com, in an article titled “Obama‘s gun control not working out in Chicago.” “And this means criminals are beginning to understand they can carry out their misdeeds with a impunity, as the citizens they accost or attack have no weapons with which to fight back. As a result, Chicago is on track to have more than 500 gun-related deaths for this year alone.”

Probably the most read article in the history of Ward Room is a piece entitled “The Deadliest Global City,” which pointed out that Chicago has a higher murder rate than any other Alpha world city. It’s been popular with conservatives who believe gun control is responsible for the murders.

Whatever is causing it, as we move into 2013, the most important issue facing this city and this state is not education, or the pension crisis, or the parking meters -- it’s murder.

[Spark]

By Jeremy Gorner and Peter Nickeas

Tribune reporters

5:24 p.m. CST, December 28, 2012
Chicago reached “a tragic number” today, according to Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy: Its homicide total for the year hit 500, the highest annual total since 2008.

The city's latest homicide occurred around 9 p.m. Thursday when Nathaniel T. Jackson, 40, an alleged gang member with a lengthy arrest record, was gunned down outside a store in the Austin neighborhood.

As of Thursday night, homicides were up 17 percent over last year in Chicago and shootings had increased by 11 percent, according to police statistics. Earlier this fall, Chicago already exceeded the number of homicides that occurred last year, but this is the first time the city has had 500 or more murders since the 512 in 2008.

Largely contributing to the spike was the unusual number of homicides that occurred during the early part of the year, when the city experienced unseasonable warmth. In the first three months of the year, homicides ran about 60 percent ahead of the 2011 rate.

The police department went back and forth for much of Friday over whether Jackson was the 500th murder so far this year, at first confirming it, and then denying it, saying a murder last week had been reclassified as a death investigation, therefore making Jackson the 499th homicide. But by late afternoon, the department once again confirmed there had been 500 murders.

McCarthy issued a statement declaring: “The city has seen its 500th homicide for 2012, a tragic number that is reflective of the gang violence and proliferation of illegal guns that have plagued some of our neighborhoods.”

While saying every homicide is unacceptable, he went on to laud the department’s overall crime reduction.

He also said that gang violence reduction strategies the department adopted this year have slowed the increase in violence.

Jackson was shot in the head outside Noah Foods at Augusta Boulevard and Lavergne Avenue, police said. Afterward, police tapped on apartment windows and knocked on doors looking for witnesses.

A few bullet casings, which police believed were from a .45-caliber handgun, were found near the blood-stained sidewalk in front of the store. Police had no motive, and no one was in custody.

Jackson's family sat for three hours in a waiting room at Stroger Hospital when staff members finally walked in and told them Jackson had died. Relatives stood up and exchanged tight embraces.

Jackson grew up on the West Side, a few miles from where he was gunned down, and had been released from prison this past summer after serving a sentence for robbery. He had been shot several years ago, after an earlier stint in jail, and a cousin said she constantly warned him to be careful on the street.

"The last time he was out, someone had shot him several times, in the back," Gave Bates said as she stood outside Stroger Hospital, where Jackson was pronounced dead shortly after midnight. "He was a fighter, he was a survivor."

Bates smiled through tears as she swiped her hand across her phone, flipping through pictures of her cousin playing around and striking goofy poses.

"He was a lot of fun, very good at imitating people," Bates said. "He just had so much fun all the time. And we all grew up together in the same house."

[Spark]

I love when the Mayor and Police Chief McCarthy say "crime is down". It is the worst it has ever been..

[Spark]

Up to 5 already this year.







A revered Chicago muffler shop owner became the city’s fifth homicide of 2013, but not before calling his son to let him know he was shot, MyFoxChicago.com reported.

"They shot me in the back," Michael Kozel, 57, the owner Independent Muffler Shop in the city's Southwest Side, told his adult son. Those were his last words he said.

The son, who wished to remain anonymous, said he raced to his dad's shop, only to find Kozel in the back of an ambulance. Kozel was pronounced dead shortly after 9 p.m., according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's office.



Investigators say two men pretending to be customers walked into the shop Wednesday at about 5:25 p.m. The men attempted to rob Kozel and one of his employees. One of the robbers shot Kozel in the back, as he was trying to get to safety.

Kozel's son said his father was a very generous person. He said if you didn't have money to pay for the work on your car, he was the kind of person that would just work out some kind of deal for you, because he understood that's how people were


"My dad would fix the car and say, ‘I'll see you in a month.' What shop does that in Chicago these days?" his son said.

Kozel and his wife were married for more than three decades.

"He had a lot of plans to travel — wherever my mom wanted to go," the son said. "As long as it was with my mom, and it made her happy."

Kozel had a life-long love of fast cars with big engines.

"He liked cars that went from zero to 60 and just threw you back in the seat," his son said.
Police reported no arrests in the case Thursday morning.

Chicago is still reeling from more than five hundred murders in 2012, and the homicides are already out-pacing the days of this new year.


Beloved Chicago muffler store owner city?s fifth homicide of new year | Fox News

[Ldawg]

Sadly This IS The World We Live In Today

Criminals run the streets and the Corporate Board Rooms !

http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/pre...cember-14-2012

[Ldawg]

Old Texas saying ....

WHEN GUNS ARE OUTLAWED .... ONLY OUTLAWS WILL HAVE GUNS !

[Ldawg]

Criminals run the streets and the Corporate Board Rooms !

FBI — FBI?s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending December 14, 2012

Regardless of what you may think of George Michael, his "Pray for Time", sums up the times we find ourselves living in ..... IMO


George Michael on American Idol - YouTube

[ToDaClub]

Add one more to 2012 total

CHICAGO — A Chicago medical examiner says he plans to exhume the body of a lottery winner poisoned with a lethal dose of cyanide. Cook County Medical Examiner Stephen Cina said Tuesday that paperwork is being prepared for a judge to approve and he hopes to exhume Urooj Khan's body in the next few weeks.


Khan's death on July 20 was initially ruled a result of natural causes. But a relative's request for a deeper look resulted in the startling conclusion months later that Kahn was killed with the highly toxic poison as he was about to collect $425,000 in winnings.

[Spark]

Gun Ban in Chicago is really helping to keep murder rate low. Great job!!

Chicago's 2013 Murder Rate Outpacing 2012's

We aren't even eight days into 2013 and the murder rate is already a news story. NBC Chicago's Ted McClelland noted that, through the first six days of 2013, the city has recorded 12 homicides—an average of two per day. If that rate holds, 2013 could wind up having the highest murder total since 1997.

We can add another murder to that tally, as a 24-year-old man was shot multiple times in East Garfield Park and later died at Mount Sinai Hospital. It was one of eight shootings that happened in Chicago overnight.

McClelland pointed out some consistencies between 2012's murder tally and the early goings of this year: Most of the homicides are happening on Chicago's South and West sides and black Chicagoans are more likely to be murder victims.

Chicago already has twice as many murders as Detroit and is easily outpacing New York City, which didn't record its first homicide until Jan. 3. With the Illinois General Assembly opting not to work on an assault weapons banso that they can focus on pension reform in the lame duck session that ends Wednesday, calls from gun control lobbyists and neighborhood groups for a ban will intensify. The pressure will be on Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy to be even more proactive in quelling the violence. Our balmy weather means we can see more people out and about. With that comes the possibility for more violence.

[jmarty6969]

lets see drunk drivers have killed more people then guns......................ok i understand lets get rid of cars and we will save more lives wtf

[ToDaClub]

lets see drunk drivers have killed more people then guns......................ok i understand lets get rid of cars and we will save more lives wtf

For a second I thought you were gonna say let's get rid of alcohol.

[jmarty6969]

For a second I thought you were gonna say let's get rid of alcohol.

no then what would kbsooner do

[Spark]

Chicago's 2013 murder rate on pace to be worse than 2012

Twelve people were killed in the first week of January, putting Chicago on pace for 720 murders in 2013.


Last year 526 people were murdered in Chicago, but 2013 is already on pace to break that record. In the first six days of the new year, 12 people were murdered, NBC Chicago reported. That's two ahead of last year's six-day total and a rate of two a day, putting Chicago on pace for 730 murders in 2013.

Chicago is fairing much worse than other large cities, NBC notes. Nine of the 12 murders have occurred on the South Side.

More from GlobalPost: Chicago's homicide rate up 38 percent despite focus on 'safe streets'

The New York Times reported last week that the majority of the shootings are taking place west and south of downtown Chicago.

“It’s two different Chicagos,” a local pastor told the Times. “If something like that had happened at the big cathedral in downtown Chicago or up north at a predominantly white church, it would still be on the news right now, it would be such a major thing going on.