By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
“Silly decisions.” That’s what Mayor-Elect Brandon Johnson called the dangerous, violent acts by Chicago’s youth a week ago that left two teens shot, a couple attacked, and property damage to cars, buses and more.
“They’re young. Sometimes they make silly decisions,” Johnson said as he doubled down on his previous calls for the public to not “demonize” those hundreds of teens who violently took over Chicago’s streets. He says he doesn’t condone the violence, but that these youth have been “starved of opportunities in their own communities.”
It’s madness for Johnson to equate typical teen stupidity with the kind of violence that Chicago’s youth inflicted during their “takeover.” By excusing those actions, he’s essentially justifying the range of crime Chicago’s youth have imposed on residents across the city.
Like the 461 arrests last year of 17 to 19-year-old Chicagoans for Unlawful Use of Weapons.
Or the 77 arrests for Possession of a Stolen Vehicle.
Or the 32 for Vehicular Hijacking and another 59 for Robbery and Armed Robbery.
Or the 80 who were arrested for Murder or Attempted Murder in the city in 2022.
Wirepoints examined the Cook County State’s Attorney Office’s criminal Intake database and found a total of 975 Chicagoans aged 17-19 arrested for a crime committed in Chicago in 2022. That’s out of the 13,544 total felony arrests forwarded to the State’s Attorney Office for review by the CPD that year.
The number of arrests would be multiple times higher were it not for the fact that:
- As we’ve written repeatedly, most crimes don’t get reported.
- Only 5% of major crimes and 11% of all crimes in 2022 resulted in an arrest.
- Of those, only felonies are entered into the Cook County State’s Attorney Office’s database.
- Juvenile crime data is not available to the public, so younger Chicagoans charged with crimes are not included.
And even when there are arrests, most crimes are pled down and many simply aren’t prosecuted by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.
On the flip side of the crime equation, many Chicago youth are murdered each year – whether as a bystander or as a direct participant in violent acts. 120 youth died from homicide in 2022 alone.
A vast majority, 112, were shot to death.
According to the city’s Violence Reduction Dashboard, Chicagoans aged 19 and under in 2022 comprised 12 percent of the victims of Chicago’s nearly 31,000 recorded violent crimes.
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Johnson isn’t all wrong in his remarks, but his patronizing language ultimately sends the wrong message.
…look, demonizing children is wrong. We have to keep them safe as well. Have you ever taught middle school? I have. Have you ever raised young people? Do you understand the risk that young people take just because they’re young? Do you know that home plate is at the bottom of my stairs? I found that out when my son was sliding down those stairs trying to score. They’re young. Sometimes they make silly decisions. They do. So we have to make sure that we are investing to make sure that young people know that they are supported. But we also have to make sure that police officers who put their lives on the line have the resources that they need to keep us safe.
With no clear lines drawn, he’s emboldening the sometimes-fatal actions of Chicago teens.
Like this one that happened a week ago, courtesy of two young Chicago hijackers: a 14-year old and a 17-year old. They hijacked the car, took it for a joy ride and then crashed into another car. A 6-month old boy is dead and his mother and sisters are injured.
Johnson needs to reverse course, and fast. But based on the Mayor-elect’s words so far, don’t count on that to happen.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- Walmart’s flight from Chicago: ‘Corporate racism?’ Or crime, taxes and dysfunction?
- What Chicago requires immediately is deterrence. Stop the bleed. Fast.
- Brandon Johnson’s views on tolerance for violence and defunding police are absolutely clear. Here are his own words.
- Chicago’s pursuit of ‘criminal justice reform’ an utter failure: Windy City homicides top nation for 11th year in a row with crime still rising.
- Unwed births, illiterate children and black-on-black crime: What Chicago’s mayoral candidates ignore
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).
Weather is warm today and this evening. Expect another rioting mob downtown today. I have a friend visiting from out of town and we wont be going into the loop tonight. Staying in the neighborhood. Those restaurants and bars will be losing out on revenue. Congratulations progressive wokesters.
Chicago Mayor Warns That If Local Walmart Locations Close People Will Have Fewer Places To Shoplift | Babylon Bee
The CTU created these animals. This is purposeful.They are the CTU’s Brownshit private army. Expect this mob to be unleashed upon all who despise the teachers union and their puppet BJ. I’ve preciously said that CTU is a terrorist organization. Here is more evidence.
You can reduse rowdiness through the use of water hose on kids instead of guns and tear gas. Black females don’t want their hair wet and the males don’t like dirty gym shoes. The use of water pressure will disperse them in a minute.
Much of the rowdiness and jumping on cars could have been prevented if fire truck was near by.
The Mayor-elect was cowering behind his security guards. Why wasn’t he there to stop them
Because, that means it’s working. It’s working when educating children makes them dumber and bankrupts the state. It is working when riots break out and business leaves. It’s working when every constitutional right is trampled upon. It’s working folks.
These teenagers in many cases are hardened criminals who started doing favors for their local gang when they were 9-10 years old in the hood. Granted the temptation of easy $$$ with zero parental guidance is a massive part of the problem. They get a twenty or a hundred dollar bill and they get sucked in with an easy hustle from over 18 adults in the GD, BD, LK, 4CH (pick your flavor because basically all the same) Juveniles are given lesser punishment and under Kim Foxx she routinely lets them go with minimal consequences. It’s delusional to say these… Read more »
Brandon Johnson was a “silly decision”. I guess Chicagoans just love to make “silly decisions” or vote for people who make “silly decisions”. You may die because of it, but, hey, at least you got to voice and vote for your “silly decisions”. Good for you.
Bound to happen again.
Well over at the commiefax the head commie in charge blames “law enforcement” and “local leaders” for the mostly peaceful protest by silly youth. No mention of individual responsibility for your actions, or being a good parent, or following rules. Thanks to the far left, Chicago and the state have turned into a dystopian third world cesspool where nobody cares about anything.
I guess if one of those “silly decisions” was to burn BLM BJ’s house down, he would be ok with that. What a silly simpleton of a man. Good luck Chiraq. You’re going to need it.
I guess if one of those “silly decisions” was to burn BLM BJ’s house down, he would be ok with that. What a silly simpleton of a man. Good luck Chiraq. You’re going to need it.
Forgetting to take an umbrella or not taking coat when the weather is ‘iffy,’ those are ‘silly’ decisions.
Rioting, fighting, attacking people and property, looting, mayhem and vandalism are NOT ‘silly’ decisions.
Woe to Chicago!
Youths of Chicagoland, save your biggest riot for the Democratic Party convention. There will never a be a bigger group of your oppressors to mug, rob, beat, rape and murder assembled all in one place in your short lifetimes.
Show the man, whitey and a harem of Karen’s what you can do.
Outstanding recommendation. There will be 1,000 less cops in CPD by then, so Fat Fredo will have to call in the National Guard.
I’m sure the Democrat party has disrespected them in one way or another. They will all be there with bells on to take their revenge
“We also have to have an organized effort against gangs, just as in a previous generation we had an organized effort against the mob…We need to take these people on. They are often connected to big drug cartels. They are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called ‘superpredators.‘ No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel. And the president has asked the FBI to launch a very concerted effort against gangs everywhere.” – Hillary Clinton, 1996,… Read more »
“On the horizon, therefore, are tens of thousands of severely morally impoverished juvenile super-predators. They are perfectly capable of committing the most heinous acts of physical violence for the most trivial reasons (for example, a perception of slight disrespect or the accident of being in their path). They fear neither the stigma of arrest nor the pain of imprisonment. They live by the meanest code of the meanest streets, a code that reinforces rather than restrains their violent, hair-trigger mentality. In prison or out, the things that super-predators get by their criminal behavior — sex, drugs, money — are their… Read more »
Don’t forget Biden’s role in law enforcement. He’s one of the worst, if not the worst.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4802783/user-clip-joe-biden-praises-crack-possession-laws
I can’t emphasize enough what awful people some of these politicians are. They’ll do anything to advance their political interests.
In retrospect, tough on crime laws drove down crime to historically low levels. Governments passed tough on crime laws in the mid-90’s in response to historically high crime rates, and crime more or less dropped every year going until St. Floyd overdosed. I liked those tough on crime bills. It helped revitalize Chicago and allowed many neighborhoods to gentrify in the 00’s and 10’s that years earlier had become dangerous during the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. I’d be all for going tough on crime again. I don’t care two craps about the disproportionate impact it has on different people. Do… Read more »
You really need to do your homework, and study up on criminal justice / penology, social planning, etc. Free $$ and allowing white collar crime to flourish in the 00s caused lots of problems too and swept others under the rug. There are super predators in business class as well as on the street! The two tier justice system is what lots of people are so pissed about, myself included! It’s simply unfair for Mozilo to pay a civil penalty, but a guy with a $20 crack rock gets 5 years mandatory minimum. Yeah, you might get your windows broken… Read more »
Dave, both white collar and street criminals should be punished. The 2008 Get Out of Jail Free Cards for the financier criminal class was abhorrent.
Foxx, Evans, Johnson are going to be the new trifecta of ignoring crime involving their most favorite constituents
Add Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, all of whom are anti-enforcement, and all of whom were endorsed by the leaders in Illinois’ political establishment.