For the fourth night in a row, a lot of young people met downtown and rioted, got violent, and even shot someone on a Saturday night. This made the Chicago Police Department (CPD) call for more help.
Even though Chicago has one of the highest murder rates in the country, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has picked the city to host the 2024 National Presidential Convention. The partying started on Wednesday night.
Around 10 p.m. Wednesday, about 200 teens started fighting in the city’s famous Millennium Park, which is at the southern end of the “Mag Mile.” The Chicago Police Department was called to the scene to stop the fight. CBS Chicago said that the event on Wednesday night was the first “large group” event in the city so far this year.
It looks like the young kids were fighting and making other people in the park unhappy.
But a lot of rowdy teens came back on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and it was hard for the police to stop fights.
On Friday, a film showed young people in Chicago gangs getting on top of city buses and driving around the city. The video also showed cops from the Chicago Police Department working hard to break up the youth gangs.
Chicago’s ABC7 shared a video of some teens jumping on the hoods of stopped cars and pouncing on them:
Fox Chicago said that teens who were walking around the area were breaking car windows and that TV staff had to leave the building after shots were fired.
On Saturday, when hundreds of young people gathered in the city center and started fighting, two young people were hurt in the Loop.
Two 16- and 17-year-old boys were shot by an unknown person while they were in the crowd. It is not clear if the shooting was part of a fight that was already going on or if it was just a random act of violence.
Ten days ago, Chicago elected a “progressive” mayor who is radical, soft on crime, and wants to stop funding the police. Three days ago, Chicago was chosen as the site for the DNC’s 2024 meeting.
Brandon Johnson, who will be the next mayor of Chicago, said last week that companies are to blame for the city’s rising crime rate because “70 percent don’t pay corporate taxes.” This is a ridiculous claim. On May 21, Johnson will be sworn in.
“70 percent of large corporations in the state of Illinois don’t pay a corporate tax,” said a former union leader, slamming the state’s failing industries even more. People are upset about budget changes because they directly cause poverty and bloodshed, so it’s easy to see why.
The person who called himself a “progressive” didn’t give any proof for his 70% claim.
Johnson went to Jesse Jackson’s Operation Push office on a Friday and said nothing but empty words about the violence and chaos in the downtown Loop area.
When a child dies because of gun violence in our community, the pain is too much to bear, and my heart goes out to the families. As a dad, I want the same things for my kids as every other mom in Chicago. Johnson said in a statement about the recent violence, “Their safety and healing from trauma will be a top priority of my administration from day one and beyond.”
But we won’t stop there. We’ll also “love and nurture” them and “give each of them the hope and purpose they deserve,” he said as a last promise to the youth of the country.