By: Matt Rosenberg
The very public servants we pay to protect us and maintain order in Chicago are increasingly under attack themselves. At an order of magnitude dramatically greater than in years past.
The total number of Chicago Police officers shot at in 2020 was 80, versus a yearly average of 20 from 2014 to 2019. In 2021, total shootings at police were almost as high again, at 76. The aggregate number of officers shot at is greater than the number of total number of shooting incidents in which police were targets. Multiple police officers are often shot at in one incident.
In 2015, there were only 12 officers shot at the entire year.
If the recent jump in violence directed at officers is not soon squelched by judges and politicians who make it clear criminals will pay a steep price for their variegated misdeeds, then the violence eating at Chicago will only spread.
Shootings which struck police but were not fatal increased to 10 in 2020 and then to 14 in 2021, versus just less than five on average yearly between 2014 and 2019.
Fatal shootings averaged 0.66 between 2014 and 2019. There were none in 2020 but two in 2021.
It’s not a good time for police to be on the backs of their heels, wondering if the next traffic stop will also turn into an attempt on their life.
Many types of crime in Chicago are up.
Reported shooting incidents in Chicago not involving police numbered 3,561 in 2021, up 66 percent from 2019. Shooting incidents in 2022 through the end of this year’s Week 23 on June 5, were up 29 percent versus 2019. Compared to that year, motor vehicle thefts so far in 2022 are up 44 percent in Chicago citywide, thefts 24 percent, murders 19 percent, and robberies 10 percent.
But now on top of all this, since 2020 Chicago Police have been increasingly under attack. Wirepoints got the detailed data from the Chicago Police Department through a public records request.
Who knows where the numbers will land by the end of 2022? Two Chicago cops and a federal marshal have been shot in Chicago just within the last week. There’ve been 25 cops shot at this year to date. And we’re not even in summer yet – when everything blows up.
The now-intensified war on cops in Chicago is one more sign of a greater social breakdown which shows no signs of being arrested.
With our police at ever greater risk of mortal peril, we should pause to think deeply. About things like parenting in Chicago. About big-city politics. About our media and their ability or inability to confront hard truths and hold all to equally high standards. About policing and prosecuting and sentencing. And we should consider our elected leaders, their temperament, and their accountability.
It all goes to the strengthening of our city’s institutions.
Because if your sheriff has a target on his back, you’re really living in the Wild West.
Appendix
Read more from Wirepoints:
A set of state lawmakers want to extend CPS’ current school closing moratorium to February 1, 2027 – the same year CPS is set to transition to a fully-elected school board. That means schools like Manley High School, with capacity for more than 1,000 students but enrollment of just 78, can’t be closed for anther three years. The school spends $45,000 per student, but just 2.4% of students read at grade level.
Hopefully, all media will get the message, in Illinois, too.
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.
Well if Any past political mafia mayors went in to the six bad districts of Chicago and clean them up they would’ve went down in the history books but they didn’t have the testicles to do it! If I was voting in Chicago I would vote for Paul Vellus or alderman Lopez I believe that they can clean up Chicago👍
Just wondering, apart from Ella, who was the 2nd officer fatally shot in 2021? Great article. Just wondering who else is included in that statistic.
Excellent article! With so many shootings of cops, many very brazen, it’s difficult to escape the conclusion that Chicago’s miscreants feel emboldened. I drive Uber as a side gig. One night recently, I drove a true urban pioneer, a Black Chicagoan who didn’t bail on the City for the burbs but instead invested in the West Side. He was telling me how his North Lawndale immediate neighborhood was tough, but not as bad as people think. He and his wife had bought a place two years ago. We exited Sacramento and that street was blocked by crime scene tape and… Read more »
This is a breakdown in society, to be sure. The left agenda has been set into motion. Slowly, the average citizen is beginning to see this- let’s hope it’s not too late.
Viewpoints has covered rising crime rates in chicago from a number of perspectives, and further illuminates the topic by shining a light on brazen shootings at police. My guess is lack of jail space for repeat offenders and lax prosecutions by “progressive” DAs and judges are a toxic combination in chicago. The population in chicago is down more than the number of police so the problem is elsewhere in the “justice system”. Demoralizing the police and demonizing them if they aggressively go after illegal gun holders sure isn’t helping things.
If police are personally liable for “professional malpractice”, why then can’t public teachers who graduate classes wherein only 7% can read or perform math at grade-level standards be personally held liable by injured parties?
Maybe that’s true for the system in which they work. But, assuming several or maybe even a majority of teachers have that sort of performance its likely a lost cause to charge each one individually and all the more so if its a common finding for nearly all such teachers in neighboring school districts. Then, its not just any particular teacher’s malpractice its a systemic practice. That seems to be the issue really, doesn’t it? From the Wirepoints data pertaining to IL in particular you’d likely agree that its a systemic problem. Who shall we sue then? Each school district… Read more »
Sue the teachers’ unions- they set the tone for educators. They don’t care about outcomes, only more power and money.
DEFEAT AMENDMENT ONE IN NOVEMBER …
AND THROW THE BUMS OUT!
The number of shootings of CPD officers has gone up exponentially since Lightfoot took office. Lightfoot & Foxx are both backed & heavily financed by George Soros. That right there tells you their agenda. When Lightfoot ran, she was a very different person, she seemed as though she cared about Chicago & her citizens. She wanted to clean up City Hall & make Chicago for the people again. As a federal prosecutor, she didn’t seem to have as much disdain for police as she does now. Some say she wasn’t too bad to LEO’s in & around the court, others… Read more »
The goal is to give gangs control of the city. The communities want to rule themselves like the barrios and favelsa outside of rio de janiero. They know exactly what they are doing. https://www.sapiens.org/culture/favelas-police-gang-violence/ For Rio’s Poorest Citizens, Police and Gang Violence Reign “…The majority of the city’s more than 1,000 favelas are controlled either by drug gangs or by militias, which often have ties to corrupt police and politicians. Whereas militia-dominated favelas see fewer police raids, those controlled by drug gangs are raided regularly, and the gangs fight back: They prevent police from entering their streets via gunfire, roadblocks, and… Read more »
Four people are to blame for this. Lori Lightfoot, Kim Foxx, Chief Judge Timothy Evans and Police Superintendent David Brown.
Lightfoot was installed to create havoc. Don’t give her more credit than she is owed. Chicago has been a target of anarchists for years. In the late ‘90s I attended a presentation given by Superintendent Cline forecasting the violence that would occupy Chicago. No one took this information seriously, and here we are. We need strong, formative Hillsdale Charter schools that will educate and inspire students to participate in their destiny. Sadly, the Black community is unable to grasp that their Black males are being exterminated in a Holocaust by a Wizard of Oz promising Gold that is non-existent. As… Read more »
Totally agree! Foxx too. David Brown is useless. He was not very well liked in Dallas. The only reason he was able to come credible after several police officers were killed in Dallas is because he has good people around him.
Terrific analysis of a bad situation.
Lightfoot has done more to erode respect for the job police do than anyone. As soon as she got in office she made it very clear to the black community her distain for cops, their profession and their union. A fish rots from the head and she started the rot early on by demoralizing the department. Now she has a department that doesn’t respect her. Her leadership is emboldening to cop shooters.
She was quick to go on the defund the cops bandwagon. Then Chicago went up in smoke and now she’s demanding that they work overtime, forgo days off and skip vacations. She also has her home guarded 24 seven. She is one huge giant hypocrite. No wonder the cops can’t stand her.
But the go on duty and take the overtime despite not liking her.
Great article, terrible situation.
I have many friends who were cops. I make an effort to thank any police officer, or anyone in a military uniform, which also means firemen, and postal workers. It’s the least I can do. Recently I was in the grocery store and thanked a policeman. For some reason we got to chatting. He thanked me back for taking the time to acknowledge him. I asked do people stop as I did to thank them. He said they used to, but more and more they get sneered at. I said that’s horrible. You don’t need a cop till you need… Read more »
That same cop would put his knee on your neck, and jackboot your face, if he was told to do so, even over such ridiculous things like wearing a mask or forced vaccinations. We saw cops go to the darkside in Canada, Australia, France, and all over Europe, as unvaccinated and unmasked plebs were beat down, arrested and jailed for defying the will of the police. The postal workers, firemen and anyone wearing a uniform are mostly unionized plebs paying union dues every month to a union that exists solely to rob the taxpayer, and now seemingly, to promote social… Read more »
You know they are trying to get a national police force by destroying local cops. The countries you cite are much farther down that road. I really don’t believe that our current local police officers would participate in what you suggest. But if they succeed in destroying local police forces, then we too could face the American Gestapo. Vilifying police only helps them in their goal.
The thin blue line is what stands between us and an American Gestapo.
Just because they are in a union doesn’t mean every single one of them is bad or lazy. Unions were created because management abused their power. We are not Germany or the UK, training is probably more rigorous and the qualifications are at a higher standard. We have what we have. Sounds like you should turn that passport in and renounce! Not sure where but maybe those drinks with the umbrellas and orange with the rum is the answer. There has always been corrupted cops, politicians, union folks, come on no wants to see how the sausage is made but… Read more »
Moran’s comment upthread scares the living hell out of me. My daughter & husband lived in Ravenswood a few years ago, and I thought that neighborhood was a vast improvement from previous abodes in Wicker Park & West Town, which were OK most of the time but lost their minds after 10PM. More cops on the street & stricter tactics are the only hope. Not law & order Gestapo-like all the time either, but pedal down on increased & integrated social communication with community leaders–they’re out there. If Chicago is broke, get the funds from the state. If the state… Read more »
The state got funds from the police and they held a lottery to give people free money for two years.
Thank you for writing this most excellent article. Progressives have long argued that crime is the result of “societal oppression.” Fighting against crime is thus seen as imposing the culture of the law-abiding white middle-class—as opposed to respecting all cultures, including the criminal culture. Since the progressives are heavily invested in moral relativism, laws are simply the product of the dominant culture. One man’s crime might be another man’s natural reaction to oppression. This is believed although poor people around the world are not demonstrably prone to becoming violent criminals. The truth that progressives bury is that to commit a… Read more »
Devastating quote from Wilson, all too true.
I agreed with everything except for this: Crime is the work of ruthless social predators, usually habitual offenders with long records. I believe that crime is part of an of youth urban culture that glorifies and promotes a criminal lifestyle, just as a frat boy/jock lifestyle glorifies and promotes heavily alcohol use and misogyny, and the current incel lifestyle promotes, well, involuntary celibacy, heavy cannabis use and hours upon hours of video games. https://www.sentencingproject.org/news/5593/ In “Growth in the U.S. Ex-Felon and Ex-Prisoner Population, 1948 to 2010,” Sarah Shannon and colleagues estimate that one-third of black men had a felony conviction in 2010—a… Read more »
The current progressive strategy dare not make the offensive and racist causal relation between cultural glorification of violence crime, and instead, blame overpolicing as the cause of criminality. They believe that overpoliced areas have more arrests, thereby making more criminals, and being a felon not able to integrate into society forces them into habitual criminality. George Gascon, the infamous LA progressive prosecutor, suggested that society can’t arrest its way out of a crime problem, and drinks the kool-aid that becoming a felon in and of itself increases criminality, and if we decrease the number of felons, we will decrease the… Read more »
LOL the tone of this article acts assumes shootings at police is a bad thing! Haven’t you been paying attention the last few years? The goal is to get rid of the police through any means possible. Even AOC said that Defund the Police means Defund the Police. She tells them that a world without police looks like a suburb: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/ocasio-cortez-says-a-world-without-police-looks-like-a-suburb And other politicians have suggested that overpolicing is the cause of high crime! Defund Gresham and it turns into Glencoe!
Could there possibly be a recall of Foxx the way there was in San Francisco
This is out only hope
Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to become an option in Illinois.
Attempted murder and especially shooting at a police officer but missing used to be considered serious crimes. Now it’s basically no harm no foul.
Chicago mayor says individuals charged with violent crimes ‘are guilty,’ should be denied bail (yahoo.com)
It is a very interesting article about the crime in Chicago.
I have been a victim of violent crime. I was attacked IN a Logan Square post office. All on camera. Neither the city nor the US Post Office wanted to press charges because the attacker was homeless. He is free to do it again. The whole thing is a massive joke.
A few decades ago, cop killers were prosecuted fully. Yet twice convicted Jackie Wilson, who was sentenced to death, then retried, and sentenced to life, was released from prison in 2018. Wrongful death Governor George Ryan eliminated the death penalty as a last gasp bid for credibility and righteousness. Generational welfare type families brainwashed their children to hate the police, and consider them the enemy. Now, with our current federal and city government, the repercussions are diluted, charges are reduced, and lawyers make a living charging complaints against officers carrying out their duty. A once respected career in law enforcement… Read more »
The sum of the working conditions, including frequently cancelled days off, is brutal. I also agree that the case outcomes need to be looked at very closely once arrests are made for shooting at cops. Results in criminal cases in Cook County Circuit Court are terribly opaque. The should be online, free, searchable by defendant’s and judge’s names.
Chicago’s Criminals are sending a message. Since 2019 assaults on Police officers have soared by 500%. We are going back to the 70s and early 80s when the shootings and killings of cops were almost an everyday occurrence. The message is ‘WE NO LONGER FEAR THE POLICE”.It’s reasonable to believe that when they read and hear that Chicagos cops are being severely restricted from engaging in Foot Chases and most vehicle chases. The message is ‘WE ARE WILLING TO TAKE OUR CHANCES AND SHOOT OUR WAY OUT. THIS PAST WEEK 3 LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS WERE SHOT ALONG WITH A CANINE… Read more »
My once quiet neck of the woods in Ravenswood is getting shot up regularly now, and not just at night. The new ward splits the neighborhood between to progs running for reelection so we were treated to the dog and pony show. Full regalia with 3 cops and ESSC too. The cast outnumbered the audience. Half hour late, Wilson Ave corner from 5-5:45 pm on a Friday. Tied up traffic for a mile. You could say they acted stupidly.
Great, albeit terrifying, article, and exactly why we joined the thousand people a day, seemingly half from Chicago, who are moving to Florida. Can it happen in Tampa, our nearest large city? Of course it can, but I dare say the perp(s) would be arrested and prosecuted.
Was it just part of a mass rejection of what we were taught growing up? We seem to have walked away from our religious training. Did Officer Friendly lose out also?
There needs to be drastic changes not only in parenting but in educating in Chicago. Authority can no longer be allowed to be demonized. What about the cost to officers ? How many suffer from PTSD , how many take their own lives
Great piece, Matt. I can’t imagine any young person wanting to be a police officer in Chicago these days, other than youthful idealism and naïveté.
The message during the pandemic was apparently “do as you wish. We’ll jump in as needed,” except as help was needed, there was no jumping in. Thugs were told have no fear, and take what you want. The danger is that this wanton violence will become second nature in short order, if control is not reestablished quickly.
Long live Chicago. Bravo, Matt, for the stats.
I am appalled that we pay the exorbitant taxes in Illinois and can’t even expect protection? Police officers are being treated as if they are criminals when they protect themselves and law-abiding citizens? The current administration needs to be thrown out in the next election.
Chicago has allowed criminals to run its streets for years. The school system has failed the last 2 generations of mush-brained youth by not teaching morals and hard work should be admired. The prosecutors don’t punish the criminals but instead chastize the police. I am wondering why any peace officer would want to stay and work in Chicago. Voting in socialism has grave consequences. Let’s see if the Chicago voter has any guts to vote the party of crazy out in a few months.
Another great article.
There is a follow on question that is really really important. Who stays?
If you are a police officer living in an environment where you are constantly worried about being shot… why stay? If you are worried about the department having your back even when your actions are justified…why stay? When you know the DA and politicians will not have your back and view you as the problem…why stay?
Who will be left… and are they the type of people you want to be police officers?
On-point, Neil. And a lot of cops – as is widely known – are leaving CPD. For suburban forces, county sheriff’s forces, and especially for PDs in other states. Particularly Florida.
But they still have enough staying so that no real change is effected. I have worked at companies with similar cultures, people complain but actions only bring change not complaints. Look at Detroit, over a million people left but nothing has really changed. Even when there are actions it takes a LOT of them.
The problem here is most of sound mind view this as a bad thing – a problem our political leadership should address. They are not wrong. However, these same people (“most”) fail to recognize this as the intentional outcome of globalist’s policies designed to destroy our sovereignty by creating chaos within our own systems – similar to the Cloward Piven theory relative to overloading the financial system. “Look to San Francisco…” For what? Confirmation their programs work? We will never see any improvement until our people are willing to come to terms with the fact there are many in power… Read more »
I hope Chicago leaders are paying attention to San Francisco. Hear that Toni, Kim?
yea,good luck with chicago voters,as long as they keep getting their govmnt handouts,theyll always vote for the dems