By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
**This piece has been updated as of 12/6/20. The data and graphics have been changed to reflect total homicides among Chicago youth, instead of just gun-related homicides. Wirepoints has now properly characterized deaths as general homicides and not as gun-violence.**
Chicago youth are at far higher risk of dying from homicide than they are from COVID-19. That’s been the case since the start of the pandemic.
As of December 1, four Chicago youth have died from COVID but 99 have died as a result of homicide. That’s 25 children dead from homicide for every COVID death.
The numbers are far worse than they were five months ago when Wirepoints laid out the facts about reopening Chicago Public Schools to in-class learning. One of the more revealing points we covered was that the virus was far less a threat to Chicago children than homicide.
Data from the Cook County Medical Examiner showed 3 children had died from COVID-19 between Mar. 1 and Jul 22. In comparison, over 50 had already died from homicide.
It’s hard for us to know just how many fewer youth would have died if CPS had opened up months ago, but we’d venture to guess it would have been fewer.
With more experts agreeing that schools are not a COVID-spreading threat, and the negative impacts of keeping students out of school on the rise, CPS should proceed with its reopening plans with all speed.
Read more about COVID-19 in Illinois:
- The right COVID policy for Illinois? Obsess about the elderly and infirm.
- Seven facts parents and teachers should know about the risks of reopening CPS
- Every Illinois school parent, teacher should know these COVID-19 facts
- Illinois’ own COVID-19 data reveals the state’s coronavirus policy is upside down
P.S. The statistics for young adult and middle-aged Chicagoans are only “better” when compared with Chicago’s children. Homicide is still responsible for 60 percent more deaths than COVID-19. Since March 1, 418 Chicagoans aged 20-49 have died from homicide while 264 died with COVID as their primary cause of death.
Ted joined Tom Miller of WJPF to talk about Illinois’ highest-in-the-nation property taxes, why lawmakers don’t want to touch the tax’s cost drivers, just how much Illinoisans’ tax burden has grown over the decades, why Gov. Pritzker failed to meet his promise to reform property taxes, and more.
Ted joined Dan and Amy to talk about the free speech controversy brewing in Wilmette due to the city’s refusal to fly a religious freedom flag, the city’s left-wing excesses and the growing culture war, the latest money spent on the illegal immigrant crisis, and more.
Weekly crime statistics from the Chicago Police Department: Report through 4/14/2024.
Chicago Public Schools is failing its students in almost every way. What can be done to save the educational futures of Chicago’s children? Join Wirepoints’ Ted Dabrowski as he participates in an education roundtable discussion hosted by Seeking Educational Excellence (SEE).
Where is BLM?
Unbelievable the city of Chicago!!!!
Blm couldnt care less,their whole agenda is political,reparations,less racism ,more free stuff!-blah blah blah,theyre the modren day version of a black kkk!
Where is the accounting of children, especially minority children who are dead from suicide, drug overdose, or activities they would have not engaged in except that they were not in school or in sports? These children are dead because of the crazy Dictator’s heartless illegal lockdown. Their blood can never be washed from the Dictator’s hands
It’s free will, which isn’t always based on school and sports. Anyone, anywhere can be involved in drugs, suicide or bad activities. ☹️
Before busing began in Chicago (September 1977), Taft High School was predominately White with druggies (1960s-1970s), which continued into the 1980s and 1990s. ?
May I dare say, who cares?
Yes you can say that, but when kids are getting killed I would hope you are not getting many fans.
My posting is somewhat of a gallows humor attempt to show that nobody really cares about the violence in Chicago that especially affects blacks and Hispanics. 675 people shot and killed and 3963 shot and wounded. 80% of those deaths and woundings are blacks overwhelmingly shooting and killing other blacks. 16% are Hispanics doing the same thing. Nobody cares. The mayor, nope. The governor, nope, the black and Hispanic community, nope. The Cook County States attorney, nope, the criminal courts, nope, the reverends, nope, the baby daddies, nope. All these entities are not concerned one iota of the violence.
I would like to add inferior health care in inner cities which leads to earlier deaths. Many use the ER as their primary physicians. Nutrition is rarely addressed such as Vitamin D/Omega 3’s/b vitamins which would go a long way in reducing negative outcomes and healthcare costs. Higher rates of mother and infant mortality rates. Very likely higher lead levels due to living in older homes(lead paint and pipes) compared to the suburbs. Easy access to abortion clinics. In my opinion and some studies suggest that higher lead levels in inner cities and crime rates go hand in hand. I… Read more »
That’s where the numbers I posted came from. The difference in homicide totals I quoted are shot and killed vs all homicides which now stands at 745. Nobody cares about the other 70 either and the percentages are the same. In the black community blacks lives dont matter. It’s been that way for years and isnt gonna change.
Maybe, if left alone, Chicago’s problems might just solve themselves in due time. Defund the police and give it a try for a change.
As a Black who formerly lived in Black communities, the topic of disbanding the police was usually mentioned. I always suggested we Blacks arm ourselves and/or have our over abundant Black organizations patrol our Black communities. ?
Guess what? The community preachers, leaders, activists and politicians vetoed my suggestions. ☹️
Subsequently, my family and I moved to a nice, peaceful White suburb, where we elect school, library and park boards. ?
The many freedoms we enjoy include nearby shopping, enjoying peaceful parks and most importantly, sitting in our front and back yards without fear! ?
Gun violence doesn’t kill young black men, Mexican gang invasions do, Chicago is where LA was 40 years ago, BTW routine murder of black men in LA is still occurring but most of the blacks in LA have been driven out, Chicago has waaay more blacks, the ethnic cleansing gang war is gonna take longer than 40 years and kill significantly more blacks in Chicago than LA. The black youth murder wave is a bell curve and we are at the outside rim, its gonna get much much worse.
Particularly when you consider that the solutions to solving all this aren’t really being considered – more aggressive policing; actionable/motivating penalties for criminal behavior; an end to the “Great Society” public-aid state that’s done nothing but create an intergenerational culture of hopeless, resentful, poverty; K-12 “day-care education” that churns out “graduates” incapable of filling out a job application. I recall a criminal court hearing I attended in Champaign some years ago. I was there because a chain of family-owned convenience stores had bounced a 5-figure check to the distribution company for which I was Credit Manager. A plainly exhausted-looking young… Read more »
The police are outnumbered and outgunned. Even if police could arrest offenders, it be for naught because Kim Foxx wouldn’t charge them. ?☹️
The Hispanic homicide rates are much lower than the Black homicide rates, as shown on the Hey Jackass website. ??
Mexicans and Blacks usually don’t live in the same communities either, so it’s unlikely that the Mexican ethnic cleansing of Blacks would occur in Chicago. ?
80% for blacks, 16% for Hispanics
Yes, the Hey Jackass website shows those numbers. ?
In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, both groups had similar homicide rates. ?
?
Good grief. It’s not “Gun Violence,” it’s gang violence. You’re adopting leftist abuse of the language. do better
Agreed. They did not mean it that way.
The term “gang violence” was more applicable in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. From the 1990s onward, the evil murderers are mostly soloists or small groupers. ?
The biggest threat to black youth isn’t Covid or Guns, its other black youths. Shouldn’t the headline instead be “youths have killed 23 times more youths than Covid”?
Yes, but to be clear that is a bit of false equivalence. You could assume kids would get killed with Covid or without Covid. What is the annual death rate of people the same age from the flu this year? What is the death rate of people the same age with Covid? (My guess is if the large majority of them are under 30, the death rate for Covid is 0). It is time for Civil Disobedience. Band together. DO NOT PAY TAXES>the state doesn’t work for you. civil servants are no longer civil, and they are no longer servants.… Read more »
Yeah Jeff, go ahead and take your own advice and please get back to us and let us all know how that worked out for you.
I don’t think you understood Jeff’s point (BAND TOGETHER) in unison all at once.
They can come and arrest a couple of us but never the whole state. I believe our flag would look a lot different if George Washington and a couple of his friends had been the only ones standing against the British back then.
Exactly, The trick is you have to band together. It is a Byzantine General’s Problem. If everyone acts together, we win. If one person goes it alone, they are massacred.
Among all the discussions that go on in endless circumlocutious blather forever because the PC “debating rules” don’t allow the “real” reasons that a problem persists to be talked about, gun violence – particularly black-on-black gun violence – has to be just about number one on the list.
Perfect example of trying to figure out how many teeth a horse has without opening it’s mouth to count them.
That, or calling a conclusion that requires you to shoot yourself in the foot several times, reload and then do it again, a “solution.”
Chicago Public Schools weren’t designed to feed, clothe, shelter and potty train kids, which was supposed to be handled by parents or guardians. ?
How are schools supposed to protect kids, when cops were mostly voted out of CPS? ?
Respectfully moderators, gun violence is really evil murderer violence with guns as the weapon of choice. In London, knives are the weapons. Focusing on guns removed responsibility from the evil murderer. ☹️
More nonsensical gibberish from the Supreme Prefect of Gibberish himself.
DisHonestAbe1, you are talking about yourself again troll. ???
EddieAbe1