A Chicago police officer has been killed in the line of duty
A police officer has been killed in Chicago and another officer is fighting for his life:
One Chicago police officer was killed and another was critically wounded during an exchange of gunfire with at least one suspect during a traffic stop Saturday night in the West Englewood neighborhood on the South Side.
Police, family and the Cook County medical examiner’s office identified the officer who died as Ella French, a 29-year-old who had worked as a Chicago cop since April 2018. She was the first Chicago police officer to be shot and killed in the line of duty since Mayor Lori Lightfoot took office in 2019.
As I read the story, certain elements stood out [emphasis mine]:
The shooting happened just after 9 p.m. Saturday near West 63rd Street and South Bell Avenue when the officers conducted a traffic stop on three people in a vehicle, First Deputy police Superintendent Eric Carter said at a Sunday morning news conference.
During the stop, someone opened fire on the officers and at least one officer returned fire, Carter said…
Both French and the officer who was critically wounded were members of the community safety team, a citywide unit formed last summer under police Superintendent David Brown to respond to crime hot spots.
Was this “community safety team” tasked with using different methods of policing than what is customary? Here’s an article from last September about such teams:
The Community Safety Team was unveiled in July. It is tasked with supplementing efforts by district commanders, while also reaching out to community leaders in an attempt to forge stronger relationships between police and residents on the South and West sides…
“While we will continue fighting violent crime with every resource at our disposal, it’s also important to note that [the] Community Safety Team’s core aspect is community service,” [Team leader] Barz said at a Monday press conference…
That’s very vague. I can’t find much more detail than that, so it’s hard to know whether team protocol had anything to do with what happened or not.
More:
Lightfoot, meanwhile, lamented the pro-law enforcement world’s complaints that society doesn’t do enough for cops, who feel there are roadblocks to doing their jobs effectively. She also lamented critics of the police who have long denounced officers’ treatment of neighborhoods of color.
“Stop. Just stop,” Lightfoot said at the news conference at police headquarters in a stern message to the opposing voices on policing issues. “This constant strife is not what we need in this moment.”
“The police are not our enemies,” she said. “They’re human, just as we are.”
But hasn’t Lightfoot herself fed at least some of this enmity?
More [emphasis mine]:
But the alleged shooter, who was believed by police to be a passenger in the vehicle, has a robbery conviction for a case from around 2019. Brown said that case was adjudicated through the court system, and he may have been sentenced to a probationary-type term, but he provided no further details.
And this is how one of the suspects was caught [emphasis mine]:
One of those neighbors told his wife and two kids to get into their home when they heard gunshots, according to a relative of that neighbor who was acting as his Spanish-language interpreter. They told the Tribune they did not want to be identified due to the sensitivity of the investigation.
Moments later, one of the suspects scaled that neighbor’s fence not far from the site of the shooting in an apparent effort to get away from the police.
That’s when the neighbor and two of his other relatives confronted the suspect in the backyard near a swing set, the neighbor’s relative said, translating for him. The suspect struck one of the three people trying to stop him, and the trio forced the suspect to the ground shortly before police arrived and took over, the neighbor said through his relative.
“He wants to protect the family,” the neighbor’s relative said.
“I’m happy because they (the police) were quickly here,” the neighbor said through his relative.
Chicago police said 73 people were shot, 11 fatally, across the city over the weekend, more than half during a 10-hour span that saw a police officer killed and three mass shootings that wounded 16 people.
That article makes for depressing reading. Chicago is out of control, something we already knew – but reading the lengthy list of violent incidents, injuries, and deaths brings it home even more clearly.
The criminally incompetent (and entitled) Lightfoot is very fond (like her equally odious ideological allies AOC, Cori Bush, and countless others in the party of corruption, anti-rationality, and, perhaps above all, fondness for totalitarian control) of spending massively on her own protection whilst favoring measures which reduce the security of ordinary city-dwellers. We are rapidly approaching the full implementation of a Soviet system of nomenklatura, with commissars and apparatchiks enjoying unmerited privilege at the expense of the citizenry.
Chicago is out of control, something we already knew – but reading the lengthy list of violent incidents, injuries, and deaths brings it home even more clearly.
The question is, do Chicago voters actually care? Will the voters choose to hold the people accountable who are so clearly responsible for the current state of affairs? Specifically, will they remove Lightfoot and the rest of the leadership and replace them with a group of leaders who are significantly different in terms of their policies? Or will they choose to simply continue down the path of chaos, from civilization to anarchy?
An online buddy posts the weekly Chicago death toll each Sunday night.
“Semi-final Chicago Weekend Shooting Count: 86 shot; 13 fatally. Total includes a dead policewomen and her partner in critical condition”
Normally he concludes “They often find more bodies so this is an interim number”
Beyond the deaths of the officers, this is an appalling, on-going tragedy. How can the Dem Party be given slack for allowing this to continue week after week, month after month and year after year?
Two of my children, their respective spouses, and their children (my grandchildren) live in Chicago — in, supposedly, nice neighborhoods. Do I like it? No. Can I say anything about it? No.
Put the National Guard on the street corners. Bring in the FBI. Start trying these criminals in federal court.
There are things that can be done. Cornhead suggested some. Nothing will happen until the voters decide to elect someone who cares about all the citizens in Chicago. It won’t be an easy task, but it can be done. (Hint: Giuliani and New York.)
The police shootings demonstrate why traffic stops are so fraught with danger. People who want to defund the police need to see all the videos of cops being killed or wounded during traffic stops. Might change some minds.
What seems to be wrong in Chicago is there are too many gangs, too much drug use, and too many “authorities” beholden to the gangs. A serious crackdown on the gangs, with teeth (no revolving door out of jail) would do wonders, but no one is willing to do that, or to provide the force necessary to make it work (see Cornhead’s comment on National Guard).
I recently made a trip to the Midwest, and deliberately drove extra miles to avoid the Chicago area entirely.
JJ writes ” People who want to defund the police need to see all the videos of cops being killed or wounded during traffic stops. Might change some minds.”
Nope. Nada. Not one. The things among us that want to defund the police relish the fact that the police are wounded or killed. They may say otherwise if pressed in public but inside they are soaking in their sickness. Wanting to defund is only a symptom of
}}} That’s very vague. I can’t find much more detail than that, so it’s hard to know whether team protocol had anything to do with what happened or not.
And that’s the way they want it… 😛
}}} The question is, do Chicago voters actually care?
and
}}} Nothing will happen until the voters decide to elect someone who cares about all the citizens in Chicago. It won’t be an easy task, but it can be done.
NO.
The REAL question is, “Do Chicago voters actually get counted?”
This is THE city of corruption, where elections are concerned. I’d love to go out and get an independently collected sample of actual voters and see how the properly produced estimates from that compare to the official vote counts.
I’d bet it’s a LOT less connected than it should be.
Police turning their backs on Lightfoot in the hospital as she was speaking at the hospital where the one remaining police survivor is fighting for his life.
https://twitter.com/Irishlords1/status/1424394403314085890?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1424394403314085890%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fpolitics%2Fchicago-cops-turn-backs-mayor-lightfoot-hospital-officers-shot
… but … but … COVID … but … Climate Change … but … using the word ‘nice’ is sexist … anyway … Chicago is ‘mostly peaceful’
If only former Sen. Boxer knew …
The Community Safety Team doesn’t seem too safe for themselves or the community.
https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2021/05/26/chicago-police-community-safety-team-accused-of-botched-raid-after-officials-promised-reforms/
The CST, created in July 2020, and 2 months later in Sept. 2020 the mayor reported,
“Though dozens of people are shot in Chicago every weekend, a news release from Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office said murders in Chicago have decreased by 44% since the teams were created.”
I’d bet that statement didn’t hold up past the second it was released.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2020/9/21/21448909/chicago-police-adds-officers-community-safety-team
GVD, you’re probably right about the types that are marching in the streets and sitting on many city councils. Their agenda is plain – break society down into anarchy where people will be begging for authoritarian government to restore order. Hopefully, the typical suburban lib who listens top NPR might change their minds. If not, where do we go from here?
“Hopefully, the typical suburban lib who listens top NPR might change their minds”
Some, of course, ARE changing. They still talk about Trump “dog whistles” because they don’t want to be cast out. But they use verbal circumlocutions that indicate they are noticing.
There are plenty more whose thought processes seem to go like this: ‘Repubs are against policy X? Well, spend a gazillion dollars on X even though it won’t produce anything useful and will line the pockets of the well-connected. Because we have to oppose Repubs.”
California’s “train to nowhere” is one of those and Teh Woke’s new cause (homelessness, errr “the unhoused”) will surely be another.
I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one who’s thinking this…
But there are no vote-able solutions to Chicago’s ills. This is not a political crisis it is a moral one…a spiritual one. You can’t vote your way out of that.
Like Baltimore, Houston, Detroit, Compton (and the list goes on) “vote harder – vote better” is not the answer. Sure, political con artists & grifters with “D” after their names are involved & capitalizing on black inner-city woes…but it’s not going to be fixed by electing “better” con artists or grifters or even “Rs.”
Urban blacks are slaves to a master of their own choosing. Until the evils of generational baby-making, indolence, victimhood blame-whitey race-hustling, and abandoning the Christian faith (that carried their great-great-grandparents lives & hopes beyond their slave-chains) are discarded nothing in these places moves toward the good, beautiful or flourishing they’re intended to experience.
At every level truth has been exchanged for lies & birthrights sold for a mess of pottage. Until that changes, nothing changes except the daily body count.
“Their agenda is plain – break society down into anarchy where people will be begging for authoritarian government to restore order. Hopefully, the typical suburban lib who listens top NPR might change their minds. If not, where do we go from here?” J.J.
Suburban libs are signing a petition in support of Americans being arrested who speak out publicly of their belief that the 2020 election was stolen. Another petition calls for the arrest of people who refuse to get vaccinated.
If the 2022 and 2024 elections are as corrupt as I suspect they will be, then things continue until martial law is declared. Followed by the imposition of full authoritarian control. At which point, every adult will face a simple choice; liberty or support, however indirect, for tyranny.
Followed by rebellion and civil war.
@Cornhead:
Your FBI and National Guards mostly have other more pressing issues on their minds: people like you for example.
Cheers.
Enjoy your CCP.
John Guilfoyle:
” …there are no vote-able solutions to Chicago’s ills. This is not a political crisis it is a moral one…a spiritual one.”
You’re not wrong. There’s a (somewhat older) book by Jason Riley called something like “Liberals: Please stop ‘helping’ us”.
In the section on education he describes an urban neighborhood in which there are 2 schools. A public school and a charter school. Parents scheme to try to get their kids into the charter school. The students basically come from the same set of neighborhoods. Yet the PS kids flunk out, turn to drugs and crime and tend towards hopeless lives. The charter school kids thrive; they match or surpass the scores of similar white kids.
Riley’s description is tantalizing. Maybe this problem is solvable if we can get the profiteers and hustlers out of the picture. A successful program in one place followed by media coverage and a “preference cascade” and the whole thing could be turned around.
@JimNorCal:
Selection Bias.
Parents *schemed* to get their kids into the charter school? *SOME* parents did.
Now do you think it might just be conceivable that the more intelligent better-adjusted parents did the scheming and the more feckless stupid ones did not do the scheming and that maybe just maybe some of this is heritable? Even if they all schemed, the smarter ones would have schemed smarter and better.
GIGO until someone assigns them by lottery to each school. Which would be unethical and unfair to the deserving kids and the charter school teachers.
Gnon Rules Us All.
None of this is to be construed as saying anything positive about the public education system. That should go without saying.
Sure, but read the book and see what you think.
Or at least that section. It was a lottery, of course. My recollection is that parents were desperate to get their kids in to the charter school but that doesn’t mean many were successful.
You, Zaphod, may not easily be able to get access to the book but any middle sized town in the US is likely to have a copy. It’s worth an afternoon … or even just an hour to read the chapter on education.
@JimNorCal:
I’ll see if I can pirate it somewhere. It’s obvious that it’s possible to Do Better With Blacks — History tells us that. No golden age before Civil Rights ‘Wins’ but generally they had better educational, employment, and incarceration outcomes back when for a bunch of reasons, not all of them very PC. They sure as hell haven’t devolved in the short space of 60 years. I’m willing to believe that Charter Schools can be part of the solution. But only part. Won’t get much bang for the buck unless full spectrum approach is taken and *that* is a can of worms.
JimNorCal…that book sounds much like what I remember Malcolm X saying during an interview with a soft balling white liberal interviewer that the greatest threat to a black man was a white liberal because the white liberal knew just what would make the black man’s life turn out well & was damned sure going to force it onto the black man.
And Steve Biko made the same point about South Africa…that the white liberal wanted the black man to sit at the table but only at the white man’s table & Africa was in its essence a black man’s table so that the only solution was to re-set the whole table…
What did Golda Meir say about the Palestinians, “They have to love their children more than they hate Jews”? Black folks have to have bigger hopes & dreams for their children than living on the white liberal plantation beholden to the gimmes from white liberal folks, reparations snatched from the hands of dead not-liberals or being shot down in the streets. As a white fella…I can’t dream for them.
Carl Sandburg, 1914
No comment needed.
https://babylonbee.com/news/chicago-public-schools-to-distribute-bulletproof-masks
WRT education, see Ogbu in Shaker Heights.
As Sowell says, cultures vary and differences have consequences.
Nonapod said,
“The question is, do Chicago voters actually care?”
How can you be certain they don’t? In one of the most corrupt cities in the country-possibly *the* most corrupt city, how do we know for sure that they haven’t been voting for something different?
OBloodyHell and John Guilfoyle are correct. Who’s counting the votes?
2020 should have awakened us all regarding the state of our electoral system(s). It must be some subtype of Gell-Mann Amnesia: people acknowledge the cheating and corruption and then, for some reason, still expect their votes to matter.
Or maybe it’s a Schroedinger’s Election: It’s both honest and dishonest at the same time.
To be clear, I’m *not* saying don’t bother voting anymore. It costs almost nothing-only your time. And something positive may actually happen. Maybe. Possibly. So for such a small investment, why the heck not? Unless there’s a Black Panther waiting with a night stick to warn you away from voting. Then don’t, just go tell the FBI. Oh, wait. Don’t do that either. At this point, to expect your vote to matter and make change is delusion.
This was one of the recurring issues that began to sour me on Instapundit, before I left. Reynolds and crew could, in one second, talk about the voting “irregularities” (i.e. election theft) in numerous states and municipalities and in the next second, fall back on their old stupid schtick, “They voted for it. Let them get it good and hard.”
Har, har har. As if an unfortunate minority of the people didn’t try to vote against the BS and corruption. Worse, knowing how crooked the systems in these places are, there is *no way* we can trust that the people actually voted to “get it good and hard”. It proves the Left doesn’t have a monopoly on callous and stupid.
Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus: Either the elections are honest or they aren’t. We’ve seen enough to know they aren’t honest, *especially* in a place like Chicago.
This was one of the recurring issues that began to sour me on Instapundit, before I left. Reynolds and crew could, in one second, talk about the voting “irregularities” (i.e. election theft) in numerous states and municipalities and in the next second, fall back on their old stupid schtick, “They voted for it. Let them get it good and hard.”
Democrats steal elections. They don’t steal all the elections. My home town hasn’t had a Republican on the city council since 1987. That’s not vote fraud. That’s how voters are disposed.
Fractal Rabbit,
The Democrat machine in Chicago still manipulates the vote, but I don’t think much real fraud is used or necessary these days. It’s basically a one party town. Occasionally some reasonably qualified folks run for office as Republicans but they are not allowed any exposure, are not covered in the news… It’s nearly impossible for a Republican to win office, even at a low level, and develop a reputation among the people and rise in the political ranks.
The Machine gets out the vote; bums are driven to polling places and told who to vote for; often given food, drink, maybe even money for illicit substances or illicit substances themselves. Churches and other community groups provide shuttles to the polling place; often coordinated by Democrat Ward bosses. Ward bosses give out patronage jobs based on people’s support. It’s such an entrenched system something as crude as ballot fraud is no longer necessary.
And, a considerable majority of the city would likely vote Democrat even without the Machine’s incentives and get out the vote efforts. White collar, urban professionals tend to be either young or very wealthy. White collar, married couples typically move to the suburbs when their children reach school age, where it’s cheaper to raise and educate children than staying in the neighborhoods they prefer to live in and using private schools. The young, white collar folks lean Democrat as do the very wealthy, older white collar folks.
Blue collar families tend to be minority; black and hispanic, and vote Democrat in large numbers. There are still a lot of immigrants from eastern Europe and they often are anti-socialism; Polish, Czech, Russian… but they don’t have the clout or organizations to get traction with candidates. The City Council has 50 Aldermen; 46 Democrat, 4 Independent, 0 Republican.
The Democrat Machine has been so active for so long they’ve effectively eliminated the Republican party from the city.
Rufus,
I don’t doubt what you’re saying because I kind of proves my point. That just means Chicago cheated so much they forced the enemy from the field. Or from even being able to play on the field.
The machine is still in place and my point is, we can’t know for certain if the people would vote for something different if they can’t vote for something different.
Also O/T: I heard Cuomo resigned a few minutes ago.
So the shooter got his gun via a straw purchase since he was a felon, could not purchase a firearm and was on probation. At least this time the person who did the illegal purchase was arrested too. The problem is not the gun, it is the people. However, the FBI stats show 73.7% of murders in 2019 were by firearms. My sarcastic statement is if guns are outlawed like drugs, just smuggle them in from anywhere and the bad guys will be the only civilians armed. Between them and the growing totalitarian bent of government will mean we will have no rights and no way to defend ourselves from either as in Cuba, Venezuela and other totalitarian governments. In 2012 firearms were given up by the people of Venezuela and a republic became a dictatorship. Of course that would never happen in the US as it did in colonial America. The King and his people thought the written documents giving rights to the colonists were just whims where as the colonist thought they were contracts. We see that now with the Left/Dems and the Constitution and rule of law. In April 1775 those contracts were enforced by armed Americans.
Chicago is gone. Its like the millionaire being asked how did you lose all your money? Slowly at first and then all of a sudden. Ive lived near Chicago all my life and I used to drive all over for work, 1985ish to 2000. I had rules then…………only before 10am in bad neighborhoods. Those bad neighborhoods are now roughly 3 times the size they once were. South side, north side, west side, all around the town. Univ of Chicago is not all that far from Englewood. Just the other side of the expressway. Its an island in a jungle. One south side neighborhood, mostly cops, firemen, city workers, its called Mt Greenwood. Last summer during the riots, they were going to be invaded. The cops were told to stand down. They didnt. It would have been a bloodbath. The cops were told NOT to wear headgear in grant park so as not to look intimidating. There is drone footage of those same cops getting pelted with frozen water bottles by people dressed in all black that came out of nowhere. Ive seen the video. We have Pulitzer prize winning “journalist” Pam Zekman of the Chicago Sun-Times writing columns, “why are police retiring in droves”? She just doesnt know. Their banner says “Hardest working paper in America” I wonder what the fact-checking sites have to say about that.
And then Im told Im crazy by idiots. I cant take it anymore.
😉
Time for some music.
Interesting article on the “failed coup” against Trump perpetrated by elements of the military and the intelligence services/deep state.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/08/remember-the-failed-coup-attempt-against-trump/?fbclid=IwAR2nKgFwF-xai5WnGT0oW6leDPWOkUK1HKVwQVc_OOhAFAEWXzYoB4XdNe4
The author, though, appears to ignore the successful coup perpetrated in November 2020.
DButkus (nice nomme de plume, by the way),
Sounds like we’re a similar age. What is so sad to me is neighborhoods that were no-go zones in my childhood in the ’70s became relatively safe and tourism greatly increased throughout the city. In the ’90s I’d see families with children dragging suitcases from public transportation to hotels late at night, without a care in the world. In the ’70s they would have been mugged multiple times before reaching their destinations. I would have never thought it possible when I was a kid.
And now, as you write, it’s all being undone. It took so long to develop and change and beautify and clean and secure and in a matter of years it’s being destroyed. Without another Mayor Daley in the pipeline I hold out little hope of the downward spiral halting.
Rufus T. Firefly:
Same trajectory in NYC from bad to good to bad again, although Chicago is worse. In New York’s case, I actually, I remember good (in the 50s) to bad and then to good and now worse again.
I started going to San Francisco regularly around 1970, usually once a year to see relatives. It was a wonderful city then, and stayed that way for quite a while. No more.
For that matter, I remember when Beirut was a wonderful city, one of the great world capitals. I never was there, but I heard tell about it. That ended decades ago, of course.
DButkus:
You write, “Their banner says “Hardest working paper in America” I wonder what the fact-checking sites have to say about that. ”
I think they would say (or rather, they should say) that it’s quite hard work to cover up the obvious and/or to lie about the obvious and try to make it sound believable to readers, without looking like an utter fool. Hard and shameful work, actually – but apparently with many willing volunteers for the job.
Mayor Daley would not have put up with this crap for a single moment. I see I am not the only one to remember him.
Most of the deaths by gunshot are blacks shot by blacks, especially in Barack’s old ‘hood on the Southside.
But Chicago has been cratering for a long time, and black do-nothing mayors are simply symbolic.
Driving around with expired plates, open liquor and an illegal gun.
What could go wrong?
Nonapod: Many of the voters in Chicago who are the most liberal tend to be socialists from ethnic neighborhoods (Hispanic, mostly AA) that are relatively poor located on the West and South Side, or in the most gentrified areas (mostly white, mostly with college educated professionals) located on the North Side. One can see the strange dichotomy here, but also the classic Marxist divide to build up support for socialism. We have your supposed downtrodden holding hands with your “you dinosaurs, with your horrific ideas that have plagued my generation i.e. capitalism, religion, will die soon; Christopher Columbus was a bad, bad man” people.
Much of the shootings happen on the West and South Side in pockets/specific neighborhoods. But now they’re bleeding into more popular, cleaner and safer neighborhoods. It’s one thing to bring up the death toll but to get the complete picture you’d have to be familiar with Chicago itself or just be curious on where the shootings happen. Be a (good and honest) sociologist.
Chicago isn’t a wasteland – yet – as some make it out to be, but COVID, BLM protests, and the anti-police agenda in the past year sure have sped up the process. South Loop has lost some of its vitality due to the lockdowns. One of my favorite shops has limited working hours due to not having enough staff, but I suppose the silver lining is that they’re still open. I have a close family friend who lives in South Loop and when asked how was the area after the riots she said it was a complete mess. Downtown has cleaned up the riot mess but there’s no question that it’s much quieter with less traffic because of the downturn in economics.
Despite this, much of the lakefront is doing okay. I just attended a concert on Northerly Island and it was packed. People were having a good time. The harbor right next to the stadium had boats and people coming and going during nightfall. All isn’t lost.