Alfred Hemsworth, the Rupert Murdoch of his time, once quipped “When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news.”
Chicago has gone nearly a day, 22 hours, without anyone having been shot. From the Chicago Tribune:
No one was shot in Chicago for more than 22 hours Friday, according to police. But two men were wounded in separate shootings early in the morning and late at night.
Between 12:35 a.m. and shortly after 10:55 p.m., shootings citywide did not result in any reported deaths or injuries.
Then a 39-year-old man walking down the 5200 block of Lake Street in South Austin heard gunshots, police said. A bullet grazed his right leg. He went to West Suburban Hospital, where he’s in good condition, police said. No arrests had been made, and no further information was released about the shooting.
That this should make the news at all is testimony to decades of governmental malfeasance that has led to a half dozen of Chicago’s neighborhoods on the South and West Sides having become shooting galleries and the city reaching its highest per capita homicide rate in history even as other major cities rates decline. And, make no mistake, governmental malfeasance is a major cause. Police have tortured suspects for years with impunity, the city has had massive judicial corruption, and the abuses have persisted right down to the present day. There is presently a trial in progress in which a police officer is accused of executing a young man, the events caught on video. The abuses go all the way to the highest levels of Chicago government. It is not credible that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel did not know about the video or connive in its concealment until after election day.
Chicago has among the highest rates of pay among American cities and the number of police officers per 100K population is higher here than in New York, Los Angeles, or Philadelphia so it’s not that there are not enough police or they are underpaid.
There is a solution but it’s one that won’t be taken. Stop voting for the same schmucks year after year after year. Don’t kid yourself. None of the leading candidates are a bit better than the one presently in office.
Knowing, having the power to act, yet using and discarding Chicago as a mere stepping stone to personal grandeur, makes me wonder how any honest person can respect Barrack Obama. Or Emmanuel for that matter.