DNC Chicago 2024

Chicago Tribune photo

Haven't really had the time to watch the DNC this week. Got a lot going on at home right now.

I did at least see Doug Emhoff, Michelle Obama and former Pres. Barack Obama speak last night. Will share at a later time.

I also understand that IL Gov. J.B. Pritzker spoke last night at the DNC will also share that.

On Monday Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson spoke to the DNC. And also so did outgoing President Joe Biden who dropped out of the 2024 race just last month.

Of course all of our local politicians - especially the high profile ones - will be speaking at a nat'l political convention. From Governor on down. However, expect me to share remarks by the Vice President's running mate MN Gov. Tim Walz and of course Vice Pres. Kamala Harris.

How these usually go Walz will likely speak tonight and then the Vice President will speak on Thursday night , the last evening of the convention.

Thankfully there weren't a lot of problems outside of the convention. I see police were shown in riot gear and of course arrests were made because well some people don't mind pushing the limits. People were expecting Chicago to be out of control and I'm not seeing that yet.

Then again admittedly I'm not following a lot of coverage on whatever protests are going on. Let's hope things don't go to out of control. However, I'm encouraged that Chicago Police will step in before things go too crazy.

"Black men deserve to grow old"

 I wanted to share this meme recently and ask how many of you are contributing to this for the men in your lives. Whether we're talking significant others, fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers, nephews, uncles, brothers, cousins, or even friends.

This meme emerged in the outrage over the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, TENN. Well I overstated that, he was badly beaten by police officers and no one is characterizing this as a case of excessive force. The officers involved have been fired and charged with second degree murder. Sadly three days after being stopped & brutally beaten by Memphis Police in January Mr. Nichols died.

Nichols from some of what I read had crohn's disease and wasn't in robust health. He was over six feet tall but has been described as underweight compared to some of the officers involved with this incident. He leaves behind a son, who is now without a father. He was known as a free spirit who was into landscapes, paid no attention to stereotypes as a Black male, and he liked to skateboard. This is the kind of man you want to see grow old. It was sad to see him beaten and pepper sprayed by these officers call out for his mother.

To further interpret this meme, I had focused on say if the women who shared this meme have Black boyfriends or husbands. How would they contribute to the Black man in their lives to growing old? Is this something they believe beyond the current public outrages?

I suppose these meme, has a much deeper meaning to me. This shouldn't come out for the latest major story, especially when it comes to a case of police brutality. This should be an everyday thing.

Yes, Black men deserve to grow old. They deserve to be happy, treated with respect, and be surrounded by people who love them. That's my answer.

Wednesday's Board of Ed. vote on police in schools

Chicago Tribune:

The Chicago Board of Education will enter into another yearlong contract with the Chicago Police Department, this time not to exceed $12.1 million.

In the meantime, the board gave Chicago Public Schools seven months to come up with a comprehensive plan to help schools develop alternative school safety strategies.

As students continued to protest the use of school police outside CPS’s Loop headquarters Wednesday, the board voted 4-2 to approve the contract that will pay for officers to be stationed in more than 50 high schools when they reopen. Elizabeth Todd-Breland and Amy Rome voted no, while Board President Miguel del Valle, Vice President Sendhil Revuluri and members Dwayne Truss and Lucino Sotelo all voted in favor. Luisiana Melendez abstained.

As soon as the votes were in, some of the protesters began chanting the names of the members who favored the contract, cursing them along with Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Chicago Police Department. Youth leaders put out calls for more supporters of police-free schools to show up to CPS headquarters, saying the school board had ignored their voices for too long.

And after reading the rest of this article, probably still a long way from a resolution of this issue. Those who want police out of schools want them out now, they don't want the schools to plan alternate strategies. 

Tribune: Chicago police arrest 13 people after tents are set up outside CPS headquarters to protest officers in schools

It seems the demonstrations continue as far as protests with regards to having police officers in school. And it seems that there was a clash involving tents at Chicago Public Schools HQ - 42 W. Madison St.

More than a dozen people were arrested, including two minors, after protesters set up tents outside the Loop headquarters of Chicago Public Schools on Monday to protest the stationing of police officers in schools.

Police said they gave protesters several warnings that the tents outside 42 W. Madison St. were blocking the streets. Those arrested were charged with “illegally obstructing the roadway,” they said.

The protest was the latest call by activists for the removal of Chicago police officers in Chicago public schools. It came days before the Chicago Board of Education is to consider a resolution that could phase out use of officers.

The resolution, up for a vote Wednesday, would “require that the CEO and district leaders, in consultation with school communities, identify and recommend an alternative plan to ensure safe and supportive school environments.”
...
Monday’s protest drew about 60 people and was organized by the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, Assata’s Daughters, FYSH Youth — HANA Center, STOP Chicago, KINETIC Youth — Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Logan Square Neighborhood Association and Enlace Chicago.

Tweets contained from the write-up at the Tribune

WBEZ: Vote Leaves Black Students Far More Likely To Have Police In School Than Other Teens

For a second we're going back to the latest in having Chicago Police in CPS schools. In the news a good number of schools have voted to have police taken out of the schools. However this WBEZ report is interesting:

After weeks of voting by elected school councils on whether to keep police in schools, only about 24% of 72 Chicago public schools with officers will be removed, leaving the vast majority of school police officers in place after a summer of intense protests advocating for their removal.

The Board of Education considered ending the school resource officer program in June, but the measure was narrowly defeated. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, the schools chief and some board members said the decision should be left up to local councils, made up of parents, teachers and community members.
...
The result: The percentage of white and Latino students at schools with police officers will drop significantly in the coming school year. Now, about 48% of white students and 54% of Latino students at traditional city high schools will go to schools with police.

Meanwhile, about 73% of Black students will continue to be at schools with police. (The school district’s SRO program does not include charter schools.) Last school year, about 85% of students — regardless of race — went to a school with police officers.

After what happened at the end of May it's suspicious that this issues is getting attention. It's correct that schools should decide whether or not they should have police officers posted. It also should be up to school what other personnel needs to be at the schools for the students. 

Chicago looted by BLM

[VIDEO] So after Mayor Lightfoot crashes a gathering of people on a north side lakefront beach we get another mass incident of looting locally. The basis for this is said to be a shooting that took place in Englewood on Sunday afternoon. From there, an organized caravan of people go into downtown Chicago and start looting not only there but also the Magnificent Mile. We already experienced some major unrest and now we got more.

Instead of showing some footage from our local news outlets, perhaps we watch someone outside of Chicago analyze what happened overnight through Monday. Anthony Brian Logan is a conservative YouTuber that has taken aim at BLM recently.

I did some posting with regards to this latest development at The Sixth Ward.

Terry vs. Ohio - Stop & Frisk

[VIDEO] Allow me to introduce you to Mr. Beat, a social studies teacher out of Kansas who is an "edutuber" who among other things looks at important Supreme Court rulings. This video was uploaded to YouTube on July 10, 2020 and had wanted to share this with you all.

We're still under some form of unrest over the issue of "racial justice" and this is a case worth looking at since, many citizens want authorities to look at the issue of "stop & frisk". In this video we also learn they can also be referred to as "Terry stops".

The subject Terry was stopped by a Cleveland police detective in 1967 just as he was about to commit a crime. This case is pretty interesting there were three men who were arrested by the detective, however, two were arrested they were Black. The one who got off scott free was white.

I started Googling what happened to all the subjects of this case. What happened to the Black suspects, and what happened to the detective. Found this article it's very interesting that everyone who was related to the people involved with this case are now police officers. Unfortunately the Terry of this ruling met a very sad end, having died while incarcerated.

Protests in Homan Square at CPD facility on the city's west side

[VIDEO] The video you see above is from Ghetto News Network - welcome back J-Hustle - showing what happened in Homan Square last night on the west side.

You might have seen this on your local news last night, protests have converged on the west side of the city to protest a Chicago Police detention facility. It's something I have to do more research on, however, it appears there is a history of police abuse of citizens here.

That facility that exists there and it appears to be near the old Sears complex on Homan Avenue, it also doesn't appear to be a police station. At first glance seeing how the protests took up the whole streets on the news last night near this complex I automatically had concerns of a CHAZ situation here in Chicago or even what happened to that police station in Minneapolis, Minn in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd.

The Chicago Police had an interesting past week there was a shooting in Auburn-Gresham at a funeral home on 79th Street where reportedly 15 people were wounded and made national headlines. Chicago Police were successfully able to defend a Christopher Columbus statue in Grant Park which was later removed by the city on early Friday morning as a slap in the face to those officer who were hurt in that standoff with the protestors rioters.

At least for the past month - aside from an uptick in shootings and homicides here in the city for most of the past month - things in the city had settled down as far as unrest. I just hope any protests remains peaceful. 

Capitol Fax: Move beyond the slogans to focus on what works

I've been wanting to share this once I saw it on CapFax on Monday. So I share this with you now.

It's a good story and a way to make our schools safer. Of course each school will need their own solutions, but you want to hear about successes. In this case Fenger High School in Roseland once had a principal that turned around the school. Especially as far as behavioral issues.

Move beyond the slogans to focus on what works https://t.co/NRihRoTupc

— Rich Miller (@capitolfax) June 29, 2020

While I wanted to share the link from Capitol Fax, I also want to share the link to the Sun-Times' Mark Brown column on which it references. As Miller, states in his headline move beyond slogans to focus on what works. With that I agree, back to reality and roll up the sleeves

Chicago Board of Ed. continues CPD contract

Ald. Roderick Sawyer (Ward 6) discussed this issue last week and I would say he made some good points as far as why police are in CPS schools and what CPS could replace police with in their schools. It's interesting that even the 2nd City Cop blog seemed to support removing police from CPS schools at one point.

Then Wednesday's Board of Education votes and the contract continues [VIDEO]

And 2nd City Cop discusses this some more

The obvious answer is that the four votes don't want to face the political fallout when schools become uninhabitable for the good kids along with the three or four hundred teachers who would resign instantly should their last modicum of safety was removed. That makes them reasonably intelligent....for public school employees that is.

Also from the above video, Miguel del Valle noted that LSCs can make the decision as far as whether they want police officers or school resource officers in their individual schools. I suppose if each school can make that choice then so be it as opposed to making this a system wide mandate. It was noted in this article that Minneapolis' schools made their decision to end their contraction with Minneapolis police. They also voted to abolish their police department.

I wanted to show you this video of the protest on Wednesday in downtown Chicago. I drove right through it at least before Dearborn Street got shut down. Even saw a car with "Defund the police" in big letters and a huge figure of a pig on top of it - fill in the blank on that one though no need in this case I know their point. In this 1 min 30 sec video I don't see that car but we do see the protest. [VIDEO]

CapFax: CTU slammed for “clearly racist” tweet

I found out about this tweet from the Chicago Teacher's Union at Capitol Fax today. He's noted what if Chicago's Fraternal Order of Police had tweeted this out. And I'm guessing the police would be universally condemned for this.

Y’all too much sometimes. 😂😂💀#DefundthePolice #PoliceFreeSchools #CopsOutCPS (IG: @electricstripe) pic.twitter.com/I4ryy3vOvM

— ChicagoTeachersUnion (@CTULocal1) June 18, 2020

EDIT 7:53 PM: That tweet has since been taken down so therefore I was prepared with this below screencap. 

Does CPS need police officers at their schools?

[VIDEO] Alderman Roderick Sawyer (Ward 6) speaks with WGN on a proposal to remove Chicago Police from CPS schools.

A couple of things that resonate with me from this discussion. First, should students be concerned that some minor mischievous actions could quickly turn into a police situation. Ald. Sawyer noted that a student spent a night in jail for mouthing off to a police officer. One shouldn't get smart with police anyway, however, was it worth a night in jail?

Second, while police were stationed at schools initially to keep out bad influences could the schools find other resources to help students. Let's say CPD or CPS ended the contract for police at the schools, perhaps they could find a way to bring in resource officers. We've heard a lot about bringing in nurses, psychologists, social workers, etc into our schools. So let's say we do take police out of our schools, we can replace them with resources for our students.

What do you think?

"Say His Name" Protest, June 7, 2020 #GeorgeFloyd

[VIDEO] A protest in Lake County regarding the case of the late George Floyd. I'll allow artistmac to describe (SIC) what we're watching here.

On June 7, 2020, in light of the recent killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis policeman, citzens of north suburban Lake County, IL participated in a peaceful protest, "Say His Name", along Route 83 from Antioch on the north to Rollins Road on the south.

Patrick Krook, one of the organizers, explains the inspiration for this protest.

CBS Chicago: Some Aldermen Call For Defunding Police

[VIDEO] In light of the recent unrest and the spark that caused it the death of George Floyd in police custody many cities around the nation are looking into possible solutions. Minneapolis, Minnesota is looking into abolishing the Minneapolis Police Department. Cities such as New York, New York and Los Angeles, California have already started to "defund" their police into other initiatives with their cities.

To abolish a police department I think of as a knee jerk reaction to systemic issues within policing. I know there are people out there who doesn't like police and that's fine. At the same time we need the police and when there is a real crime wave or more civil unrest we might want to know who'll be there for the public.

In this story from CBS 2, we see some possible things worth discussing. Issues with homeless people and issues of mental health. It causes me to wonder in what ways can we remove the police's role in handling those issues. Hopefully we can find out city alderman plans to do with whatever funds - $1.78 billion for Chicago Police - they plan to divert.

Drama teacher charged with sexual assault of student

[VIDEO] I'm not going to say too much or editorial a lot about this. What's mentioned in the above report from CBS 2 states what I wanted to say he was a husband and father who is charged with sexually abusing one of his students. Now he has his mugshot in a TV report, online and perhaps even on a newspaper since I really first heard about this from the Sun-Times.

Regardless, another sexual abuse allegation out of a CPS school. CPS already has to face a number of issues and now they have to face sexual abuse allegations.

What are the feds looking for in #Ward34?

While this is old news from last week south side alderman Carrie Austin of Ward 34 has her ward offices raided by federal authorities on a search warrant. Reports seem to suggest that this might be related to the indictment of Ald. Ed Burke (Ward 11) or even a colleague wearing a wire for the feds former Ald. Danny Solis (Ward 25). Of course is it possible that the feds have been looking at Ald. Austin in the first place.

This is a topic of discussion on last weeks Chicago Tonight with Paris Shutz and Carol Marin

This is something that I did a post or two over at The Sixth Ward. However I wanted to add this from last week from Rich Millers CapFax

Could this be part of what the feds are looking at? https://t.co/EGJHZOb9eG

— Rich Miller (@capitolfax) June 21, 2019

 

I also found this through CapFax's tweets. Another link as far as what the feds are looking for in Ward 34.

Family members. Her longtime chief of staff. Campaign contributions. Even food stamps.

The federal grand jury probe is looking for all sorts of stuff on Ald. Carrie Austin - and it's been going on since 2017.https://t.co/mVQDUhNZKg

— Dan Mihalopoulos (@dmihalopoulos) June 23, 2019

The No. 1 most violent Chicago neighborhood is Austin

[VIDEO] We've reached No. 1 which is the west side's Austin neighborhood or community area. As Vic Maggio writes in the description for this vid posted March 17, 2018:

The Austin Neighborhood has the largest land area and population out of all the other top ten neighborhoods.

Austin's far Northwestern edge is Galewood, it was once a large Italian neighborhood. North Austin and South Austin Is the largest neighborhood in Austin, North Austin is a smaller area. North Austin and South Austin are very violent areas these two areas account for 90% of all the shootings and crime in Austin.

The Island a square mile in the extreme southwest corner of Austin, which is isolated by the Eisenhower Expressway and Columbus Park.

The racial makeup of the community is 84% Black, 10% Hispanic, and 4% White, the population was at its height in the 1980s at around 140.000, by 2015 the population seen a dramatic decrease to 97.000. Due to poverty, crime and gang violence this neighborhood lost over 40.000 residents over the past 35-years.

This year in the Austin Neighborhood, 461 people have been shot and, 83, have been killed and 384 have been wounded. These stats rank Austin at number 1, on the 2017 list of the most Violent neighborhoods in Chicago

And here's a map of Austin

No. 3 Most violent neighborhood North Lawndale

[VIDEO] The third most violent of Chicago's 77 neighorhoods err community areas is North Lawndale on Chicago's west side. Here's what Maggio writes about North Lawndale in this video posted to YouTube on February 24, 2018.

The North Lawndale Neighborhood was one of the oldest Jewish communities in Chicago. the neighborhood was home to mega businesses like: International Harvester, Sears, Zenith, Sunbeam, Western Electric. The area was also home to Martin Luther King, Jrs., base for the northern civil rights movement.

  The neighborhood has fallen into hard economic times since its heyday of the 1950s. Gangs, guns and drugs have turned this community on its head and has become a very dangerous neighborhood to live in today. The area is full of leveled blocks where businesses and homes once stood, these blocks are reminders of a once economically prosperous neighborhood. Neighborhoods like North Lawndale are under siege and are presently in a struggle for the hearts and souls of the residents.

This is a very sad struggle to witness on a regular basis, it is truly damaging to the heart and soul. I still hold out hope for all of Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods, but in the end, it is up to the residents to make final decision on the future direction of their neighborhood.

UPDATE: This year [2017?] in the North Lawndale neighborhood, 253, people have been shot and, 41, have been killed and 212, have been wounded. These stats rank North Lawndale at number 3 on the 2017 list of the most Violent neighborhoods in Chicago.

Here's a map of North Lawndale

No. 5 most violent Chicago neighborhood Humboldt Park

[VIDEO] Humboldt Park according to Maggio News posted to YouTube on February 9, 2018. Description

The Humboldt park neighborhood has one of the largest Hispanic populations in the Chicago area. Humboldt is home to the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture, the Urban Theater Company and one of the most Beautiful parks in the city.

Humboldt has an old connection to the FLAN (Armed Forces of National Liberation) terrorist organization. There is a deep divide amongst the residents over support for the FLAN.

The park is the life blood of this neighborhood. Humboldt Park was once the nation’s greatest public park, the park has tennis courts, an inland beach, baseball fields and bike paths. Humboldt is ranked number 5, on the list of Chicago’s top ten most violent neighborhoods and is one of the toughest neighborhoods in the city.

The riots of the 60s and 70s damaged this neighborhood and forever changed the economic future of Humboldt Park.

Like the other top ten hoods drugs, gangs and lack of opportunity continue to plague the area.

Here's a map of Humboldt Park

Travel Advisory: High Risk Funeral Procession #Ward09

You might have seen this from Concerned Citizen's of Chatham and I see that Ald. Anthony Beale posted this as well (at least until it was deleted).

Let me state the route of this procession

Therefore neighborhood advocates involved with peacekeeping activities are calling for all area residents, businesses and faith based organizations to be aware and cautious when using, or crossing, Cottage Grove Ave between 115th street & 67th (Marquette road) between the hours of 1pm until 3pm 2 hours), where a procession leaving the "House of Hope" will travel to Oakwoods cemetery.

From what I'm seeing as far as comments this might involve the funeral of Lawrence "Big Law" Loggins who was murdered earlier this month. Police fear retaliation in his murder.