Chicago emergency

Chicago is used to summertime crime waves, when people are out and frustrations rise along with the heat. But this year’s outbreak seems unending, leading to a scramble for solutions and much finger-pointing.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s latest idea is to sue gang leaders for their profits from alleged crimes, an idea modeled after a 1993 state law that let communities pursue gang funds. Gang leaders don’t seem particularly concerned.

“I’ve asked a lot of them, especially in the Hispanic community, what they think about it,” Oscar Contreras, a former Los Angeles gang member now working at an outreach program in Chicago, told ABC Eyewitness News. “They laughed.”

Meanwhile, former education secretary Arne Duncan, now head of an anti-crime nonprofit called Chicago CRED (Create Real Economic Destiny)—which some see as a launchpad for a 2023 mayoral run—wants to shrink the Chicago police force, using the money saved to bolster violence protection measures.

But even as anemic solutions to Chicago’s violent-crime problem are floated, the statistics keep mounting. The annual FBI data for 2020 showed that Chicago murders were up 56 percent. As of Aug. 31, the city’s 524 murders were running three percent ahead of last year’s carnage.

There is a rising sense of impunity in this crime wave. Chicagoans were shaken in August when Ella French, a 29-year-old police officer, was shot to death during a traffic stop.

No city wants crime to be its hallmark. Chicago has treated its criminal history with grim humor; multiple companies offer tours of legendary crime sites. Decades from now, nostalgia for the Chicago of 2021 isn’t going to be a thing.