AMERICAN POLITICS - Gun Control Chicago Style

"How Mayor-Elect Lori Lightfoot plans to address Chicago’s gun violence ‘epidemic’" PBS NewsHour 4/3/2019

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SUMMARY:  Democrat Lori Lightfoot was elected mayor of Chicago Tuesday, in a landslide victory that represented several historic milestones.  Lightfoot, who is openly gay, will be the first black woman to lead the city.  A relative outsider to Chicago’s political scene, she interprets her triumph as a "mandate for change" from its people.  Lisa Desjardins talks to the mayor-elect about what comes next.

JUSTICE IN AMERICA - Chicago Trial

"Will a police officer’s murder trial be a turning point in Chicago?" PBS NewsHour 9/24/2018

IMHO:  A person moving away (even if they have a knife) from anyone with a gun (LEO or not) is NOT a threat to anyone.

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SUMMARY:  Defense attorneys began presenting their case Monday in the trial of a white police officer accused of shooting Laquan McDonald in 2014.  Jason Van Dyke has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and other charges, after firing on the black teenager 16 times.  Amna Nawaz talks with Jennifer White, host of the WBEZ podcast "16 Shots."

GUN CONTROL - Reasonable Actions

"How red flag laws could help families grappling with guns and mental illness" PBS NewsHour 8/7/2018

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SUMMARY:  While some states have "red flag" laws that allow a judge to temporarily remove a mentally ill person's access to guns, it's not easy to balance their rights with the need for public safety.  Special correspondent John Ferrugia of Rocky Mountain PBS reports on how families wish they could have been more empowered to help ailing loved ones and prevent deadly violence.

"How Chicago communities are trying to stop gun violence" PBS NewsHour 8/7/2018

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SUMMARY:  Sixty-six people were shot over the weekend in Chicago, and behind those numbers are stories of the victims and their families.  Nick Schifrin talks with Lance Williams of Northeastern Illinois University, and Tamar Manasseh of "Mothers and Men Against Senseless Killings."

RETHINKING COLLEGE - Post Graduation, Worry What Ex-Students Do?

"Should high schools worry about what students do after graduation?  This city says yes" PBS NewsHour 5/22/2018

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SUMMARY:  Chicago has a new plan to make sure kids pursue a college degree or have another viable career path after high school.  By 2020, in order to get a diploma from Chicago public schools, a student will have to prove that they have a job, will be joining a trade school, will go on to college, or join the military.  Hari Sreenivasan reports as part of our series Rethinking College.

TRUMP FLAWED - Guns

"Trump Recycles Flawed Gun Talking Point" by Robert Farley, FactCheck.org 11/8/2017

President Donald Trump has once again misused the example of Chicago to make a case against gun regulations.

Despite what the president claims, Chicago does not have “the strongest gun laws in our nation.”  It once did, but the laws that gave it that distinction have since been rescinded.  And a spike in homicides occurred after those laws were changed.

Trump also called Chicago “a disaster.”  That's an opinion, but it's worth noting that other cities – some with less stringent gun laws – have higher rates of gun violence.

Experts also warn against cherry-picking cities to score political points, as examples can be found to fit arguments on either side.  They also note that Chicago, which has stricter laws than most cities, is bordered by states that have relatively lax gun laws.  And there is some evidence that most of the guns confiscated from crimes in Chicago come from out of state.

Finally, as we have written before, there is no evidence that gun control laws result in higher murder rates.  In fact, studies suggest the opposite: States with a higher number of firearm restrictions have lower firearm deaths.  But there is only an association between gun control laws and firearm deaths, not a causal relationship, studies show.

Trump's latest comment about Chicago gun crime came when he was asked if he would consider any gun control policies in the wake of the mass shooting at a Texas church on Nov 5.

“I mean, you look at the city with the strongest gun laws in our nation, is Chicago, and Chicago is a disaster,” Trump said during a press conference in Korea on Nov 7.  “It's a total disaster.”

This is a longstanding talking point for Trump, who tweeted in July 2014:

Trump made the same point during the third presidential debate, saying: “In Chicago, which has the toughest gun laws in the United States, probably you could say by far, they have more gun violence than any other city.”

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders made a similar claim during a press briefing on Oct.  2 after the Las Vegas mass shooting.  “I think if you look to Chicago, where you had over 4,000 victims of gun-related crimes last year, they have the strictest gun laws in the country,” Sanders said.  “That certainly hasn't helped there.”

Here are some facts about gun violence in Chicago and what they say, and don't say, about the role of gun control.

Does Chicago Have 'the Strongest Gun Laws in Our Country'?

Chicago used to have what some considered to be the toughest gun laws in the country.  But not anymore.

In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Chicago's handgun ban.  In the year before the court's ruling, Chicago's murder rate in 2009 was 16.1.  The city with the highest murder rate that year was New Orleans at 51.7 murders for every 100,000 people.

And in 2013, Chicago also abolished its requirement that gun owners register their weapons.  The move was made to come into compliance with the state's court-mandated concealed carry law.

“Chicago does have strong municipal laws, but we wouldn't say it has the strongest gun laws in the country, because the strongest regulations in Chicago have been largely implemented by entire states, including New York and California,” Hannah Shearer, a staff attorney and Second Amendment litigation director at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, told us via email.  “In contrast, the state of Illinois has significantly weaker laws than New York and California, including a shall-issue concealed carry permit system.”

The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence gave a B+ grade to Illinois in its latest “Gun Law State Scorecard.”  Seven states had a higher grade.

'Disaster'?

It's true that the total number of murders in Chicago spiked in 2016.  The number of murders recorded that year — 764 — was nearly 58 percent higher than in 2015.  In raw numbers, that was higher than any other major city in the U.S., according to data from the Major Cities Chiefs Association.

But the murder rate in Chicago wasn't the highest.

The per-capita murder rate in Chicago – the number of homicides per 100,000 residents – was 27.9 in 2016.  That's half the rate recorded by St. Louis, at 59.3, which saw 188 murders in 2016.  Among major cities, Chicago's rate was eighth highest in 2016.  (Ninety-three percent of the murders in the city that year involved firearms.)

And again, those high tallies in 2016 came after Chicago did away with its gun registry and ban on handguns.

It should also be noted that the number of homicides in Chicago is trending down so far this year.  According to the Sun-Times, there were 580 homicides in the first 10 months of 2017, down 10 percent from the 644 homicides recorded during the same period in 2016.

Shootings and homicides in Chicago “are still high by urban American standards right now, but the trend appears to be downward,” John Pfaff, a professor of law at Fordham Law School, told us via email.  “There's still two months in the year, but that pushes back against the 'disaster' story.”

Guns Coming from Outside Chicago

Shearer also notes that “Chicago is vulnerable to guns coming in from neighboring states.  A few states bordering Chicago, such as Indiana, have extremely weak gun laws.”

A 2017 gun trace report from the Chicago Police Department found that since 2013 the “overwhelming majority” of recovered “crime guns” that were traceable “were originally purchased outside of the city limits and brought into Chicago.”  And the majority were from other states.

Pfaff added the caveat that police could only trace 12,500 of the 28,000 guns seized during the study period, so the origin of most guns could not be determined.

Still, the report suggests that many of the guns used in Chicago crimes come from outside the city — watering down the effectiveness that any local gun laws might have.  And so experts warn it would be unwise to draw definitive conclusions, as the president did, about the effectiveness of gun control efforts in Chicago.

“That is a silly argument,” David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, told us via email.  “That would be similar to someone arguing that pest control doesn't work with an example where only one kitchen is treated in an apartment complex filled with cockroaches.  Chicago is surrounded by easy places for criminals to get guns.  …  There are lots of places where gun control (and pest control) has a much better chance to work and does work.”

Do Stricter Gun Laws Lead to Higher or Lower Homicide Rates?

As for the President's implication that stricter gun laws either don't work or lead to higher rates of homicide, studies suggest that's not the case.  In fact, they show an association, but not a proven causal relationship, between strict gun laws and lower rates of gun violence.

According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence scorecard, seven states graded as having the strongest gun laws also were among those with the lowest gun death rates.

And as we have written before (on several occasions), several studies have shown that states with a higher number of firearm restrictions have lower firearm deaths.  But there is only an association between gun control laws and firearm deaths, not a causal relationship, studies show.  In other words, the studies do not prove that the stricter laws are responsible for lower homicide rates.

It's misleading for Trump to cite Chicago as evidence that gun control laws don't reduce gun violence.  Chicago no longer has “the strongest gun laws in our nation,” and it doesn't have nearly the highest homicide rate among major cities.  Most traceable guns recovered from crimes also come from outside the city limits.

THE CHICAGO CUBS - Raising the Victory Flag

"Loveable Losers no more, Chicago raises the victory flag to celebrate its Cubs" PBS NewsHour 11/3/2016

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SUMMARY:  The World Series was destined for a dramatic finish:  The Chicago Cubs finally ended their 108 year-long World Series drought in a hard-fought victory against the Cleveland Indians.  In Chicago, fans who hadn't seen a Fall Classic win in living memory were ecstatic.  Hari Sreenivasan gets insight on the historic event from ESPN's Lester Munson.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Was there any other way for this World Series to end, other than with an epic finish?

Two of the league's oldest teams, the Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians, were both eager to make history and ready to end decades of frustration as they battled to the end.

The series finally ended with a stunning roller-coaster ride in game seven.

MAN:  The Cubs win the World Series!

HARI SREENIVASAN:  After more than a century of frustration, fandom and futility, the Cubs celebrated in Cleveland.  They became the first baseball team since 1979 to win the championship on the road after coming back from a three-game-to-one deficit.

The game lasted more than four-and-a-half-hours, including a rain delay, before finally ending in the 10th inning.  Players raced around the field and celebrated in the locker room.

Center fielder Dexter Fowler hit a home run to start the game.

DEXTER FOWLER, Chicago Cubs:  I cried.  I cried like a little kid.  You know, it hasn't been done in a century and some.  So, to be a part of this is definitely — it's a pleasure.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Fans young and old gathered in the streets outside Wrigley Field, even writing names of loved ones on the outside wall of the ballpark, and they celebrated throughout the city.

JERRY POE, Chicago Cubs Fan:  I have been waiting for a long time, 76 years old.  And I couldn't wait to finally get a championship.  And they did for me tonight, finally.

MAN:  You could have a heart attack.

JERRY POE:  Tell me about that.

WOMAN:  They deserve it.  This is the best team we have had in years.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  The Cubs jumped out early and kept building their lead, getting runs against the best pitching squad of the postseason.  By the fifth inning, they were up 5-1.

But then the Cubs pulled their starting pitcher for another ace, Jon Lester.  He threw a wild pitch that led to two runs, narrowing the gap.  And in the eighth inning, this happened.  The game was tied.  After a rain delay, the Cubs scored the winning runs in the 10th.

Suddenly, the so-called curses of past Cub lore were gone, an idea that had crept back into some players during the game.

BEN ZOBRIST, MVP, World Series:  I got to be honest.  When they came back in the eighth, it was on my mind a little bit.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Cubs manager Joe Maddon said it was time to end the talk of curses.

JOE MADDON, Manager, Chicago Cubs:  I love tradition.  I think tradition is worth time mentally, and tradition is worth being upheld.  But curses and superstitions are not.  So it's really great for entire Cubdom to get beyond that moment and continue to move forward, because now, based on the young players we have in this organization, we have an opportunity to be good for a long time.

VIOLENCE IN AMERICA - Chicago's Pain

"Chicago police:  Spike in gun deaths represents ‘clear failure' of criminal justice" PBS NewsHour 8/29/2016

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SUMMARY:  Nykea Aldridge was walking her baby in a park on Chicago's South Side when she was killed in crossfire.  The tragedy has sparked a conversation about rising gun violence in the city, where homicides exceed those in New York and Los Angeles combined.  John Yang speaks with Chicago Life's Rev. Jedidiah Brown and Lori Lightfoot, president of the Chicago Police Board, for more on the crisis.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  More than 80 people have been killed in Chicago this month.  And more than 400 have been shot in August.  It's part of a weekly and even daily pattern of violence plaguing big and often impoverished sections of the city.  So far, it's a crisis that has eluded major solutions.

John Yang has the story.

JOHN YANG (NewsHour):  One of Chicago's bloodiest weekends this year ended the city's deadliest month in 20 years.  Among the victims, Nykea Aldridge, a cousin of basketball star Dwyane Wade, now with the Chicago Bulls.

Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson:

EDDIE JOHNSON, Superintendent, Chicago Police Department:  She wasn't aware that her short life would stand as an example for what is a clear failure in the criminal justice system here in Chicago.

JOHN YANG:  Aldridge was caught in crossfire as she pushed one of her four young children in a stroller near a school on the city's South Side.  The surge in gun killings has largely been concentrated there and on the West Side.

Two brothers, Darwin and Derren Sorrells, are now charged with first-degree murder in Aldridge's killing.  Both are convicted felons on parole, and police said Derren Sorrells is a gang member.

EDDIE JOHNSON:  This reprehensible act of violence is an example of why we need to change the way we treat habitual offenders in the city of Chicago.  When will enough be enough?

JOHN YANG:  Gun violence has fueled a jump in Chicago homicides this year to more than 449, nearly as many as all of last year.  More than 2,300 shootings have been reported since January.  And police have seized nearly 6,000 illegal guns, roughly one every hour.  So far this year, Chicago has seen more homicides than New York and Los Angeles combined, even though both are larger.

This weekend may have been especially bad, but in many ways, it is no different than many other summer weekends in Chicago.

We are joined from Chicago by Jedidiah Brown.  He's a community organizer who's seen this violence firsthand, president of Chicago Life, a community advocacy group.  And by Lori Lightfoot.  She's the president of the Chicago Police Board and the head of the Police Accountability Task Force.  They join us, both, from Chicago.

UNDER SCRUTINY - The Chicago Police Videos

"Why Chicago made scores of police brutality videos public" PBS NewsHour 6/3/2016

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SUMMARY:  Chicago’s Independent Police Review Board today released scores of video and audio recordings from police-involved shootings and some of them are pretty shocking.  The release is part of sweeping police reforms instituted by Mayor Rahm Emanuel after the shooting death of Laquan McDonald, a young black man, by a white officer.  Jeffrey Brown talks to Chicago Police Board chair Lori Lightfoot.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  It’s a stunning release for its sheer size and scope.  Today, Chicago’s Independent Police Review Board released scores of recordings related to 101 cases involving officer-related shootings and other incidents in which civilians were injured or killed.

The videos came from dashboard cameras and other sources.  They involve alleged misconduct in cases that remain under investigation.  In one video, an unarmed man was shot by police after he allegedly caused a disturbance on a bus and struck a driver.

Another, shot on a cell phone, shows police hitting someone after arriving at a scene where there was open alcohol.

Today, Sharon Fairley, chief administrator of the review authority, said the release is part of an effort to make the department more open.

SHARON FAIRLEY, Independent Police Review Authority:  These past few months, as the city has struggled with so many questions about policing and about police accountability, it has been clear that we all agree that there’s a lack of trust and that increased transparency is essential to rebuilding that trust.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Fairley added, though, that the videos only show so much.

SHARON FAIRLEY:  It’s really important for you to keep in mind that these materials may not convey all of the facts and considerations that are relevant to an investigation of an officer’s conduct.

JEFFREY BROWN:  For its part, the police union called today’s release of the videos irresponsible.

Anger and frustration with the police department came to a head last year after a video was released showing a white officer killing black teenager Laquan McDonald.  The event occurred in 2014.

Facing a firestorm, Mayor Rahm Emanuel sacked the police superintendent, replacing him with a new chief, veteran Eddie Johnson.

And let’s go to Chicago for reactions to these videos from Lori Lightfoot, former chair of the city’s Police Accountability Task Force.  It was formed by the mayor after criticism of the department and his office.  She’s now president of the Chicago Police Board, an independent civilian group appointed by the mayor.

TRANSFORMATION - Theaster Gates in Chicago

"Artist Theaster Gates turns Chicago’s empty spaces into incubators for culture" PBS NewsHour 4/26/2016

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SUMMARY:  An internationally recognized artist, Theaster Gates is well versed on how to shape materials into meaningful forms.  But Gates applies those principles to more than just art -- he’s also a renowned urban developer who shapes downtrodden neighborhoods into community gathering places and low-cost housing.  Gates joins Jeffrey Brown to explore the intersection of art and activism.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  So, what is this?

THEASTER GATES, Artist:  So, this is the ceramics studio.

JEFFREY BROWN:  When you make a pot, the artist Theaster Gates told me recently in his studio, you think about the material and how to shape it.

THEASTER GATES:  If it’s clay, then I have to learn a lot about the minerals that are in the earth.  And what happens when two chemicals work together in relationship to heat?  How does heat work in relationship to time?

JEFFREY BROWN:  But, unlike most artists, Gates goes further, into a whole other realm.  Just as we learn to reshape clay into pots, he says, we might learn to reshape buildings and neighborhoods into a revitalized urban life.

THEASTER GATES:  If you were to apply that to a city, you would say, what’s the relationship between a commercial district and a residential area?  And how might those things be a collision at first?  But they need to slowly cool.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Same processes, but different material?

THEASTER GATES:  I think so, in that it implies that one has to also continue to get to know a thing by being directly engaged with the thing.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Gates is a successful commercial artist on the international gallery scene.  But much of the focus of his work is here, on Chicago’s South Side, in neighborhoods filled with vacant lots, abandoned buildings, poor and dangerous streets.

Gates has bought buildings, like these on Dorchester Avenue, refurbished and turned them into community gathering places for music, films, talk.  He’s also developed low-cost housing, including for artists, who contribute hours of community service in return.

JUSTICE IN AMERICA - Internal Affairs, Chicago Police

"Inside the Chicago Police Department’s race problem" PBS NewsHour 4/14/2016

IMHO:  The only way to really solve this problem is to fire all police officers over 30.  The ones who HAVE been steeped in prejudiced and the infamous 'blue-shield.'

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SUMMARY:  An accountability task force appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel found that the Chicago Police Department has engaged in a long pattern of institutionalized racism that has alienated black and Hispanic residents.  For more on what the report means for Chicago, and how officials are planning to reform the city’s law enforcement services, John Yang talks to Lori Lightfoot of the Chicago Police Board.

JOHN YANG (NewsHour):  Chicago has seen months of outcry aimed at the nation’s third largest police force.  Just this week, demonstrators marched after the latest fatal shooting of a black teenager.

Now, after a four-month review, a police accountability task force has delivered a damning assessment.

LORI LIGHTFOOT, Chicago Police Board:  Many people said that they believe that the police that they encountered were fundamentally racist.

JOHN YANG:  The report says the police department’s own data gives validity to “the widely held belief the police have no regard for the sanctity of life when it comes to people of color.”

Exhibit A, 74 percent of those shot by police in recent years were African-American, even though blacks make up just a third of the city’s population.  It all came to a head last fall, when police dash-cam video showed a white officer killing black teenager Laquan McDonald in 2014.

Facing a firestorm, Mayor Rahm Emanuel created the task force, and sacked the police superintendent.

MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL (D), Chicago, Illinois:  Congratulations.

EDDIE JOHNSON, Superintendent, Chicago Police Department:  Thank you, sir.

(APPLAUSE)

JOHN YANG:  Yesterday, the city council unanimously approved Chicago police veteran Eddie Johnson as the new superintendent.

EDDIE JOHNSON:  I promise the citizens of Chicago, the elected officials, and the rank-and-file police officers; I will do my best, my absolute best, to regain the trust and to resolve some of this violence that we have out here.

JOHN YANG:  Both Johnson and Emanuel say they’re now reviewing the task force’s recommendations.

URBAN IDEAS - Social Media and Restaurant Inspections

"Up to code?  An algorithm is helping Chicago health officials predict restaurant safety violations" PBS NewsHour 2/12/2016

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SUMMARY:  In Chicago, the Department of Public Health has partnered with the city's data team to improve restaurant inspections by using analytics and social media to predict and detect which establishments are more likely to have potential food safety violations.  NewsHour's Megan Thompson reports as part of the series, Urban Ideas.

MEGAN THOMPSON (NewsHour):  Mark Chmielewski is the Executive Chef at Latinicity, a hip new eatery in downtown Chicago.  At this sit-down restaurant, bar, and at 10 food counters customers can watch their sushi being rolled, burgers flipped, and burritos wrapped.

But what they don’t see are the steps behind the scenes that ensure the safety of their food.

MARK CHMIELEWSKI:  All stations have hand sinks.  Probably the most biggest thing is washing your hands.  All the fish gets iced down.

MEGAN THOMPSON:  Chmielewski oversees systems and procedures to ensure that all the food served here is fresh.

MARK CHMIELEWSKI:  Everything up off the ground.  Up off the floor.

MEGAN THOMPSON:  Temperature is key.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends hot food is served at least 140 degrees.  Cold food must be refrigerated 40 degrees and below.  And dirty dishes must be washed in hot water close to boiling.

MARK CHMIELEWSKI:  It’s paramount, to have, you know, great food safety with a lot of different systems in place to prevent the public and your staff from becoming sick from food borne illness.  That can be devastating. It can shut you down. Fast.

MEGAN THOMPSON:  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every year about 48 million people in the U.S. get sick from food borne illness…from all sources of contaminated food.  128-Thousand are hospitalized – and 3-thousand die.

VIOLENCE IN AMERICA - Film "Chi-Raq"

"Women take a stand against violence in Spike Lee’s ‘Chi-Raq’" PBS NewsHour 12/4/2015

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SUMMARY:  "Chi-Raq," the latest film from Spike Lee, uses satire to explore the problem of gun violence in America.  The movie is set in Chicago, a city that's been wracked by tensions with police as well as a very high number of murders.  The director sits down with Jeffrey Brown.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  The urgency behind Spike Lee’s new film is announced right at the top.

MAN:  Homicides in Chicago, Illinois, have surpassed the death toll of American special forces in Iraq.

JEFFREY BROWN:  It’s called “Chi-Raq.”

MAN:  Welcome to Chi-Raq.

JEFFREY BROWN:  The title mixes Chicago and Iraq.  The film mixes social satire and deadly serious issues of gang violence.

In a Washington, D.C., movie theater recently, Lee told me why he felt compelled to make the film.

SPIKE LEE, Director, “Chi-Raq”:  We, as Americans, shouldn’t be OK with our young people being shot down in the street.

The South Side of Chicago is a mass murder capital of the United States of America.  Chicago is the canary in the coal mine.

JEFFREY BROWN:  The emergency Lee sees, guns in America used by black men to kill other black men, while the gap grows between rich and poor communities even within the same city.

VIOLENCE IN AMERICA - The Killing Season

"Gangs and guns fuel Chicago’s summer surge of violence" PBS NewsHour 7/20/2015

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SUMMARY:  In Chicago, the number of shooting deaths has climbed in 2015 after falling the last two years.  Vonzell Banks was one of the victims -- a 17-year-old church choir drummer, who got caught in the crossfire during a family outing over the July 4th weekend.  Special correspondent Chris Bury reports on what’s driving the violence.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  In Chicago this summer, police are dealing with an unsettling spike in violent crime, after a drop in the homicide rate over the last two years, this weekend, 11 dead and 34 injured.

More now from special correspondent Chris Bury.

CHRIS BURY (NewsHour):  In Chicago, this is the season of sorrow and grief.  Every summer, tears flow as the body count climbs with the temperatures.  This is the killing season.

Many of those killed are kids filled with promise, including Vonzell Banks, just 17.  For his family, the pain is unbearable.  But so many young people like him are dying that the whole city is grieving, too.

MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL, Chicago:  Do you think it’s too much for a city to let parents see their kids graduate?

CHRIS BURY:  Even Chicago’s hard-charging mayor, Rahm Emanuel, had to choke back his tears.

MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL:  I will tell you this as a father of three.  This is not natural.  This is not right.  They deserve better.

CHRIS BURY:  By all accounts, Vonzell Banks deserved better, too, playing by the rules, staying out of trouble, spending time at church.  They called him drummer boy for his talent keeping the beat for the choir.

For his pastor, Derail Smith, the pain is personal.  He watched Vonzell grow up.

REV. DERAIL SMITH, Pastor, Cosmopolitan Church of Prayer:  He was brought up in a traditional type family where it was yes, sir; yes, ma’am; and thank you very much, and I appreciate you, those type of things.

So, therefore, there was never any indication for me to see that he had any type of interaction with drugs or with any type of violence.  He wasn’t that, no, not at all.

EDUCATION - Setting a Higher Bar

"Illinois high school shrinks its achievement gap for minority students by setting a high bar" PBS NewsHour 5/27/2015

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SUMMARY:  Evanston Township High School outside of Chicago offers its students nearly 30 Advanced Placement classes.  But despite the plentiful offerings, administrators noticed that minorities were underrepresented in these courses that can be a boost to a college application.  How did the school bridge the gap?  Brandis Friedman of WTTW reports from Chicago.

BRANDIS FRIEDMAN, Special correspondent:  Students here at Evanston Township High School outside Chicago can take anything from automotive service excellence certification to advanced calculus.  They also have their pick of almost 30 advanced placement courses.

Dale Leibforth heads A.P. recruitment.

DALE LEIBFORTH, AP Recruitment and Retention Manager, Evanston Township High School:  Portfolio studio, or Latin or — the list goes on.  We just added an A.P. government course.

BRANDIS FRIEDMAN:  Even though it’s a top-rated school, with a diverse student body, until recently, only certain students were picking A.P. courses.

ERIC WITHERSPOON, Superintendent, Evanston Township High School:  We have students of color and low-income students terribly underrepresented in advanced placement courses.  There’s still a predictability among student achievement in our school district based on race.

BRANDIS FRIEDMAN:  When Eric Witherspoon became superintendent eight years ago, he noticed that A.P. classrooms were filled with mostly white students, while regular classrooms were filled with mostly minority and often low-income students, who make up 41 percent of the student body.

Witherspoon says he realized students were being tracked into A.P. courses through honors classes based on their eighth grade standardized test performance, while other students were tracked into less rigorous courses.

ERIC WITHERSPOON:  It didn’t take rocket scientist to figure out that here we’re getting disparate results, but, in fact, we have a structure that may be even is causing some of those disparate results, but certainly if not causing, certainly not doing anything to change those results.

POLICING - Surveillance vs Protection

"Who Do You Protect, Who Do You Surveil?" by Joel Handley, In These Times 4/6/2015

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The Chicago Police Department has spent millions on high-tech spying equipment, including cell-phone tracking technology, but is extremely secretive about its use.

On Black Friday, 2014, the biggest shopping day of the year, hundreds of protesters marched to Wicker Park, a trendy neighborhood on Chicago’s northwest side.  It was the third stop in a day-long march from one commercial district to the next:  Starting at downtown’s Magnificent Mile, then heading north to an Apple Store, then west.  Four days after the grand jury decision not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the killing of Michael Brown, the event was part of a nationwide action decrying complacent consumerism in the face of a national tragedy.  Wicker Park’s retail epicenter seemed an appropriate place to go.

A Chicago police officer, however, couldn’t figure out the route.  He took to his radio and called in a request to the local “fusion center,” the Chicago Police Department (CPD) intelligence hub.  “One of the girls, she’s kind of an organizer here, she’s been on her phone a lot.  You guys picking up any information, uh, where they’re going, possibly?” the officer asked.

“Yeah, we’re keeping an eye on it.”

The conversation was quick, but when the audio from the call leaked online, activists saw proof of something they’d long suspected:  Chicago police were tracking their cell phones, using a controversial new technology.

The StingRay—both a brand name and a generic term—is a suitcase-sized device that acts as a wiretap for the wireless age.  But while a wiretap monitors a single line, a stingray acts like a roving cell phone tower, vacuuming in data from all nearby phones, tablets and other wireless devices.  This includes call history and current and previous locations.  Enhanced stingrays can also record and eavesdrop on phone calls.

An assortment of add-ons are now available:  The FishHawk listens in on calls; the Harpoon broadens the StingRay’s range; the AmberJack antenna helps pinpoint individual phones; the KingFish analyzes call patterns, doing in one stroke what might have taken Detective Lester Freamon an entire season of "The Wire" (cable series) to accomplish.

U.S. military and intelligence agencies developed stingray technology in the 1990s, and police departments began using it as early as 2003.  Before receiving StingRays, police departments must sign non-disclosure agreements.  It wasn’t until 2011, when the FBI presented information gathered from a stingray in court, that domestic use of the devices came to public attention.  Civil liberties groups immediately sounded the alarm.

The ACLU says stingrays violate privacy rights because they capture information from every phone in the vicinity, not just a suspect’s.  There are also concerns regarding Fourth Amendment restrictions on unreasonable search and seizure, since StingRays can penetrate the walls of a home and track a person’s movements even while inside.

The ACLU has identified at least 48 state and local law enforcement agencies that are using stingrays.  While the Harris Corporation, maker of the StingRay brand device, assured the FCC the devices were for emergency use only (because they interfere with cell networks), the few available examples of their deployment show they are used for routine police work—and to spy on peaceful activists.

On November 12, 2003, for example, police in Miami-Dade, Florida, sought “retroactive authorization” from the county for the “emergency” purchase of a stingray on November 1.  It was used to monitor protests at the Free Trade Area of the Americas Conference, according to a purchase request released to the ACLU.

Police departments have striven to keep the details of their stingray use under wraps.  The Chicago Police Department denied owning the devices until April 2014, after local activist Freddy Martinez filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.  In response to that and subsequent requests from Martinez, CPD admitted it has owned StingRay devices since 2005 and has purchased upgrades, antennae and software at a total cost of at least $640,000—but has not disclosed how or when the devices are used.

Stingrays are part of a post-9/11 push by the federal government to step up local police departments’ intelligence-gathering and coordination.  Since 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has given more than $34 billion to local law enforcement, in part for high-tech surveillance gear like StingRays and facial recognition systems.  Seventy-eight DHS-funded fusion centers, where police officers work side by side with federal agents, have sprung up across the country, and 18,000 departments and agencies swap reports daily.

The Chicago Police Department has led the way in the new surveillance age.  A six-month investigation by In These Times indicates CPD is using its new tools to target poor communities of color and peaceful activists organizing against the city’s power-holders.

New tech, same policing

Policing in Chicago has changed little since the department was founded in 1855.  When the old “police force” (a group of part-time constables) couldn’t put down a construction workers’ strike, the city’s business class pushed the city government to fund a professional police department.  CPD was tasked with shielding the well-to-do downtown residents from the surrounding rabble.  Officers targeted the poorest immigrant group at the time, the Irish.  In "The Rise of the Chicago Police Department: Class and Conflict, 1850-1894," Sam Mitrani writes that while Irish Chicagoans made up only one-fifth of the city’s population, they accounted for two-thirds of arrests in the first six months of CPD’s existence.  “While the police investigated a small number of serious crimes, the bulk of their activity consisted of patrolling the everyday activity of the immigrant working class,” Mitrani writes.

They also attempted to keep a lid on growing working-class unrest (which would erupt in the Haymarket affair in 1886).  As early as May 1867, officers were monitoring rallies for the eight-hour workday.  Police listened to soapbox speeches, infiltrated meetings, arrested speakers, intimidated strikers and shot demonstrators.

In the 20th century, various CPD intelligence units—known collectively as the Red Squad—broadened their target lists from labor unions and anarchists to, over time, Communists, black radicals, neighborhood organizations and New Left groups.  Frank Donner, in Protectors of Privilege:  Red Squads and Police Repression in Urban America, writes that officers stole mailing lists, burglarized homes and maintained files on hundreds of thousands of Chicagoans.  One small community organization was infiltrated “apparently … because it opposed a cross-town expressway.”  CPD launched its first effort at high-tech surveillance in the 1960s, using telephoto cameras to document the faces of protesters and rioters.

In 1982, a class action lawsuit quelled such abuses when a federal judge imposed a consent decree on the city of Chicago that prohibited “investigative activity … that is directed toward First Amendment conduct.”

However, playing on fear of black gangs and terrorism, Mayor Richard M. Daley convinced a federal court to ease the rules in 2001.  The following year, undercover police infiltrated meetings of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization.  In 2009, a judge dissolved the consent decree in full.  In other words, at a time when CPD was testing out a new fusion center and an arsenal of high-tech surveillance gadgets such as StingRays, it was freed from the oversight that protected Chicagoans from investigation for exercising the First Amendment.  Police could again conduct secret surveillance, so long as they filled out a brief “First Amendment worksheet” and received departmental approval.

Whom they chose to surveil was in keeping with the department’s long history.  In addition to its covert obsession with activists, the department has never given up its day-to-day focus on the poor and working class.  Today, African Americans are the city’s lowest-income racial group.  Although they comprise only one-third of the city’s population, an analysis of 2010 arrest rates conducted by In These Times shows that 72 percent of all CPD arrests were of black residents (most frequently for alleged drug violations).  Similarly, an ACLU of Illinois report released in March found that black Chicagoans were subject to 72 percent of “stop and frisks.”

Malkia Cyril, the founder and executive director of the Center for Media Justice, wrote in a recent Huffington Post op-ed that “indiscriminate and covert collection of private data expedites, expands and entrenches” such discriminatory policing.

CPD meets Big Data

In 2003, the Chicago Police Department introduced Police Observation Devices, or POD cameras—30 large blue-and-white boxes mounted on poles—with the aim of filming open-air drug markets.  In March 2005, the city trumpeted the program’s first success.  Camera operators had spotted hand-to-hand drug transactions and notified a gang unit, which arrested three alleged West Side dealers.

Despite this slow start, CPD tech wunderkind Ron Huberman, the founder of the program, touted the cameras as “the future of crime fighting.”  Giving a tour of the control center to a Wired magazine writer in 2005, Huberman showed off the cameras, becoming agitated when he spotted what he thought was a drug deal.  “You see that guy?  … He’s pitching dope—you can tell.  Fucker,” Huberman is quoted as saying.  They zoom in on the suspect (“so tight I can see the wisps of a mustache,” the writer says) and see him holding a brown bag and money.  Huberman threatens to call in a bust then and there, but relents, saving the footage to use another day.

Evidently inspired by the program even before the first arrests, in 2004 Mayor Daley announced the creation of Operation Virtual Shield.  In the downtown business district, 250 new cameras would be equipped with algorithms that could flag someone’s behavior as suspicious and alert the police.

These cameras proved a modest beginning to what would become the “most extensive and integrated” surveillance network in the country, according to former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff.  Funded by tens of millions of dollars in DHS grants, Chicago’s network has expanded to include cameras in more than 1,000 private businesses that have granted access to the city, plus 7,000 cameras in public schools and 3,200 on Chicago Housing Authority property.  (Notably, 84.9 percent of the city’s public-school students and 93 percent of CHA households are black or Latino.)  Another 23,000 cameras have been installed in Chicago Transit Authority stations, buses and trains.

By 2011, the last time CPD released complete stats, the number of POD cameras had swelled to more than 1,200.  Of the 632 POD addresses currently listed on CPD’s website, more than 90 percent are in communities of color, primarily in the city’s low-income South and West Sides.

When CPD boasted in 2013 that the surveillance network had led to 4,500 arrests in a four-year span, Adam Schwartz, an ACLU attorney in Illinois, noted that this was less than 1 percent of all arrests.  Numerous studies have shown that video cameras don’t reduce violent crime and do little to curb property crime.  Given this, the ACLU wonders why Chicagoans should give up so much privacy, noting that the cameras’ zoom functions allow operators to closely watch targets and peer into cars and windows.

Meanwhile, in 2005, the department secretly bought its first stingray equipment, taking advantage of an Illinois law allowing police to make purchases outside the normal budgetary and procurement processes by using seized drug money.  Between 2009 and 2014, CPD acquired multiple upgrades to its original devices, as well as AmberJack and KingFish attachments.

While it was buying StingRays, CPD introduced automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) with some fanfare.  In 2006, Police Superintendent Phil Cline unveiled to the Chicago Sun-Times a “futuristic squad car” outfitted with an ALPR that could scan 3,600 plates per hour, automatically cataloging the date, time and GPS location in a central database.  Police would be alerted if their car’s scanner caught a plate on a “hot list” of wanted vehicles.  A 2007 CPD report explained that the ALPR-equipped cars were sent to high-crime neighborhoods, as well as “demonstrations and numerous special events throughout the city.”

Today, of CPD’s 25 ALPR-equipped squad cars, 22 are assigned to police districts and patrol areas with majority non-white populations.  The five majority white districts share three of the cars.  The department has also installed plate-scanning software in its POD cameras.

The cameras automatically send license-plate scans to a police database, which officers can check whenever they’re curious about where a certain car has traveled.  The CPD also subscribes to a private ALPR database that lets it run plates against more than 3 billion records.

This retention of data is what most worries the ACLU’s Schwartz:  “If you have hundreds of ALPRs around your city capturing hundreds of license plates every hour … you can punch in somebody’s license plate number and see where they’ve been, or after the fact, you can punch in the location of a protest three years ago and see who was there.”

COLLEGE - Cutting Costs for Disadvantage Students

"Cutting higher ed costs for Chicago’s disadvantaged students" PBS NewsHour 10/1/2014

Excerpt

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Now, back here at home, some news about college.

Two separate pushes were announced today in Chicago aimed at improving access to higher education among lower-income students.

Jeffrey Brown has the story.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  The moves, announced separately, will eliminate costs at one of the nation’s most elite universities and at the city’s community colleges.

University of Chicago President Robert Zimmer announced a plan that will replace loans with grants, simplify the application process, and ensure that some students don’t have to take jobs during the academic year.  University officials said the changes will build on programs for lower-income students at the school, such as Anthony Downer.

ANTHONY DOWNER, Student, University of Chicago:  I knew I wanted to attend a top college, but the question for my family and so many other low-income families was, how will we pay for it?

JEFFREY BROWN:  Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel also announced a separate plan to provide free community college tuition to all Chicago public high school students who graduate with a 3.0 grade-point average or better and are ready for college-level math and English.

MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL, Chicago:  We live in a time where you earn what you learn.  The big factor in determining whether people complete school, drop out of the school is cost.

JEFFREY BROWN:  The proposals come amid growing pressure on colleges and universities to enroll and graduate more disadvantaged students.  And they follow similar moves around the country.

Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the state of Tennessee, for example, are providing free tuition at community colleges with the hope of raising low graduation rates.  Among top-tier schools, several have policies guaranteeing lower-income families don’t have to pay for college.

Still, disadvantaged students remain poorly represented on many of their campuses.

Here to tell us more about these initiatives are Robert Zimmer, president of the University of Chicago, and Cheryl Hyman, chancellor of City Colleges of Chicago.

CHICAGO - The Most Violent Weekend

"Chicago grapples with how to curb gun violence after deadly weekend" PBS NewsHour 7/8/2014

Excerpt

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  Chicago is once again in the national spotlight for a level of gun-related violence that has pushed its homicide rate beyond New York and Los Angeles.  The city has made some progress in cutting down the number of murders, but dozens of shootings during the long Fourth of July weekend have raised fresh questions about the city’s efforts to stem the bloodshed.

It was the most violent weekend the nation’s third largest city has seen all year.  Police say at least 11 people died and 58 people were injured in 50 shootings over roughly three days.  News organizations, using different times for the start of the weekend, say the number is significantly higher, at least 14 dead, more than 80 wounded.

ANNETTE HOLT:  Supposed to be Independence Day, but it’s not independence for parents who lost their children to gun violence or any other citizen in the city of Chicago who lost their life to gun violence this weekend.

GWEN IFILL:  Yesterday, community leaders and residents joined Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel at an anti-violence vigil.

MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL, Chicago:  A lot of people will say, where were the police, what are the police doing?  And that’s a fair question, but not the only question.  Where are the parents?  Where is the community?  Where are the gun laws?  Where are the national leaders?

CHICAGO - Special Arts Academy Gets Teens to Stay In School

"Special arts academy helps Chicago teens transcend tough streets" PBS NewsHour 6/11/2014

Excerpt

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Little Black Pearl Academy, a public school on the South Side of Chicago, is trying to write a new songbook for success.  It started last fall, when the school’s founder, Monica Haslip, transformed her after-school art center into a full-time public school focused on the arts.

Her students come from some of the highest-crime areas in the city.  The undertaking was born from frustration.

MONICA HASLIP, Founder, Little Black Pearl Academy:  My biggest motivation for this school was about looking at the volume and the number of children that we have in Chicago that are dropping out of school.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Haslip partnered with Chicago public schools to identify students on the wrong track.

MONICA HASLIP:  A lot of our students that we have had had really poor attendance prior to coming here, so we believe and we have been able to see that by offering them access to the arts, that in itself is the thing that is inviting them to come to school every day.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  The hope is that art can offer students, who may be distracted or even traumatized by violence that surrounds them, a way to return to learning.

Why art?  Why is this the reason that they should come?

AMERICA - Life on Minimum Wage

"What quality of life can workers earning nation’s highest minimum wage afford?" PBS NewsHour 5/22/2014

Excerpt

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  The battle over the minimum wage heated up across the country today, as fast-food workers in several cities launched a one-day strike.

Outside Chicago, near the corporate home of McDonald’s, workers protested as the company held its annual meeting.  More than 100 were arrested.  The workers are demanding minimum pay of $15 an hour, which brings us to the question:  What is it like to live on minimum wage, even in a state with the highest wage in the country?

The NewsHour’s economics correspondent, Paul Solman, profiles two people dealing with that question, all part of his reporting Making Sense of financial news.

TERRAN LYONS, Crew Trainer, McDonald’s:  Everything just seems to be going wrong, you know?  So, I’m just — I’m trying to be responsible and fix it, but it’s stressing me out.

(LAUGHTER)

PAUL SOLMAN (NewsHour):  Terran Lyons was talking about her car, but it may as well have been her life.  The 25-year-old single mother of two, a high school dropout, works as a crew trainer at a McDonald’s in Seattle, earning $9.85 an hour, just above the state minimum wage of $9.32.

Using her federal earned income tax refund, she moved to a cheaper suburb 30 miles south, close to her mother, who watches the kids while she works, and bought a 17-year-old car for the commute.

TERRAN LYONS:  Car’s the quickest way for me to get there, because on the bus, I will be on there for three hours.

EDUCATION - Getting Students Ready For Work

Yes, you do not need collage to get a good job.  You need skills.

"Certification test focuses on readying students for work, not college" PBS Newshour 1/22/2014

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  For American industry, finding employees who have all the requisite skills is a big challenge, and hiring people who don't stack up can cost businesses a great deal of money.  Special correspondent John Tulenko from Learning Matters reports on a certification test that aims to boost U.S. students' workforce readiness

GWEN IFILL (Newshour):  Next: the challenge of getting students ready for the working world.

While most high schools focus on preparing students for college, businesses in one community outside Chicago are rallying around a different approach, preparing students for work.

Special correspondent John Tulenko from Learning Matters has our report.

JOHN TULENKO, Learning Matters:  From the outside, Hoffer Plastics in Elgin, Illinois, looks about the same as it did when it was founded back in 1953.  Inside, it's a different story.

Bill Hoffer is the CEO.

BILL HOFFER, Hoffer Plastics Corporation:  We have got job after job that 20 years ago would be a full-time operator.  Now it's a robot.

JOHN TULENKO:  There are fewer workers, but they're required to do more.

BILL HOFFER:  They need to be able to read blueprints.  They need to follow procedures, document what they're doing.  And that's all very important.

JOHN TULENKO:  Right now, finding employees who can do all that is a challenge for Hoffer Plastics and for 40 percent of U.S. companies.  The result?  A revolving door of workers that cost businesses billions.

PAT HAYES, Fabric Images:  Why do we keep spending money to solve the same problem over and over and over again?