Just wanted to give you a heads up and hope that you can share it with the community for their safety.At approximately 3:00 p.m. this afternoon a resident of 4920 N. Marine Drive was approached by 5 young African-American men with stockings covering the lower half of their face. One of them was carrying a gun and demanded money from the resident. When she refused and told them to leave her alone, another one yelled at her "give him the money lady!" She proceeded into her building and closed the door behind her. She then called 911 and filed a police report and notified the management office of Shoreline Park. The resident is shaken but was unharmed.
It seems as though spring has sprung and the youth are out and about and creating trouble.
Please use caution in the area and if you see something, say something!
Thanks,
William Schendel
President, Shoreline Park Condominium Association
Glad the lady made it to her building ok, but the way she handled this sounds like a perfect way to get killed. If someone ever pointed a gun at me and demanded my money, I'd give it to them. You have no idea what mental state the mugger is in, and it's not worth risking your life to find out.
ReplyDeleteUptown has not been known for gun violence and this daytime robbery stuff is new in the last 2 years from what I can tell.
ReplyDeleteAs a resident in a building near the lakefront, I have always felt safe. The lakefront streets have always felt safer than other areas. It seems to me that the patterns of crime are changing. I will try to watch the police stats over the spring and compare them to last year. I encourage others to do the same.
The sad part is, we know the people in our own areas that are causing this harm. If I sit on my deck, I can tell you every drug dealer and gang member within 2 blocks of my house. Everytime I call the police, they NEVER show up! I have been to CAPS meetings, sent e-mails and called Shiller.
ReplyDeleteThe GUNS are new. I was near the shooting last night, and it was the worst thing I have ever seen. We have to make it known that we will not stand for this in UPTOWN! Someone needs to do something, and it might as well be us!
I live in Shoreline Park in the larger, tower buildings. Of course I have to walk right there everyday. Kinda scary. And in the middle of the day! Although this location isn't part of Schiller's ward... I guess we get the "benefits" of being essentially on the border! Everything that happens with the 46th Ward affects me and everyone's quality of life.
ReplyDeleteOn another note... if there are any cute girls out there in their early 30's looking to meet a cute guy in his early 30's... I'm looking to find that best friend out there someplace! Or at least a go do stuff in the Chicago with person. Ok. There's my plug for myself. I'm sure I'll get yelled at for that part as it has nothing to do with the story! :-)
As far as I am concerned known Gang members should be treated with harsher penalties.
ReplyDeleteHow awesome would it be if we could electronically TAG a Gang member like we do with cattle and other animals. That way the police would have a record of where he/she is at all times and can connect the dots when crimes are committed.
Gang banger A gets arrested, stick him/her with a traceable tag that they can not remove. They might think twice about committing a crime when they know they can be tracked. I know this is a crazy idea and that it will never happen, but it would work.
We have to start thinking outside the box. Gangs have been around for decades and there is nothing that is currently being done that is getting these parasites off our streets and out of our communities.
What is it going to take? After 30+ years it is obvious the police are not able to get this issue under control. After 20+ years It is obvious our Alderman is doing nothing to confront this issue.
Until we are able to get Schiller's corrupt ass out of office and get someone who truly cares about the safety of our community, we all need to come together and fix the situation ourselves.
Do we need to start a community meeting once a month on a day most of us can make it? Of course, meetings themselves do nothing if they are not constructive.
Something has to be done and soon. In this day and age of Blogs like UU there has never been a better time.
Hi, Jo. I know you were trying to think outside the box but some of the things that you said will really enrage people. ("tag a gang member like we do with cattle and other animals"..."parasites.") It is really a complex issue that requires the resources and expertise of a variety of people from different professions and walks of life.
ReplyDeleteI think you are right in calling for more leadership and more creative solutions but please understand that there is a part of our community which does not see the gangs in quite the same terms as you. That bridge needs to be mended in order to get to the "out-of-the-box" solutions you say are needed. And I can say with 100% certainty that nothing will work without police or Aldermanic support. And, she won't even entertain new approaches if they don't somehow respect the different feelings that exist in this community on the subject of "gangs."
The police department, and city, do NOT want the police to be proactive. They have told us in so many words. We are simply very well paid security guards. You will start to see the effect of the city new policy this summer, if not all ready, in the crime stats. Police are simply doing the least amount of work possible. Every day police officers are threatened with suspension or termination, would you go out of your way in that environemnt?
ReplyDelete"The police department, and city, do NOT want the police to be proactive."
ReplyDeleteMore context please? Publicly available documents or statements which might support your statement?
Yeah, the poster at 1:40 seems kinda nutty. Too many people posting on this board are letting their frustration interfere with their common sense and the internal censor that keeps you from saying something incredibly stupid in moments of anger.
ReplyDeleteForgot to add, my last comment also applies to the idea of tagging gangbanger like cattle. There's outside the box, and then there's ridiculous. Ideas like that are nonstarters and distract from the real work of coming up with realistic strategies for more aggressively dealing with violence in our area.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of a monthly meeting. Maybe we can get one of the new resturants to cut us a deal. I am willing to help, but I know that sometimes these things get out of control. I do not want to start an "Uptown meeting club", if we are going to yell and scream. That is going to get us no where. Maybe UU can help us start a group of educated people that are looking to make a change. We all seem to feel that something needs to be done. I do not want to see someone hurt or killed beacuse we did not at least try to stop the gangs and drugs.
ReplyDeleteLet's stop talking and start working toward a change!
"Maybe UU can help us start a group of educated people that are looking to make a change."
ReplyDeleteI would suggest that Uptown Chicago Commission or Uptown United take a lead role in something like this.
Also, since the gangs issue is a law enforcement issue it is still probably best addressed through CAPS. Perhaps what is needed is a pan-Uptown CAPS meeting on gangs. They don't operate according to beat and ward boundaries so there is no reason why our efforts against them should either.
ReplyDeleteI really am starting to feel like the CAPS meetings are not working.
ReplyDeleteI am open to any ideas, but most CAPS meeting I have been at turn into a "mess" quickly.
When we came together to fight Labor Ready the meetings were great. Positive people looking to make a Uptown better.
If we all had guns crime would go down.
ReplyDeleteWell, then we should have a pan-Uptown CAPS meeting in which the residents set the agenda and elected officials, interested community organizations and law enforcement officers will be asked to sit on a panel and weigh in with their expertise on the various issues that the residents choose to raise.
ReplyDeleteIf we only outlawed those little baggies... none of this would ever happen! jk
ReplyDeleteKEEP CALLING THE POLICE IF THINGS HAPPEN. CALL BACK TO 911 IF YOU DONT SEE THE POLICE IN A TIMELY FASHION. TALK TO A 911 SUPERVISOR IF NEED BE.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of talk in this thread about the need to "do something" and a call to meetings, but I don't really understand what "something" is or what the meetings would accomplish. Is the goal to put coordinated pressure on government officials? Or to develop some non-governmental response? I would like to do something, but I don't understand what that "something" would be...
ReplyDeleteIt is all well and good to say that we should keep calling 911. I believe that. But I have never had a police response to any 311/911 call I have ever made. I'm talking about reports ranging from drug dealing, public harrassment, suspected gang activity, public urination, noise disturbances, etc. Not once. I routinely will get the comment "We will send a car right over" but that never happens. I realize the police must prioritize. But when you are a private citizen instructed by CAPS to call 911 and are doing so in good faith (these aren't fake calls or calls of someone unfamiliar with city surroundings) I have to say it is terribly difficult to keep up the habit when there's never a response. I have constantly felt like CAPS and the police are two different entities at odds with one another.
ReplyDeleteI think we need to recognize the diversity of Uptown and realize that this is the way young black men like to have their fun. No one was hurt--all they wanted was money. Please be sympathetic to their feelings as you would be to other minority groups in our vibrant rainbow of cultures in Uptown.
ReplyDeleteDidn't you get the hint yesterday, BJ? This is not a place for racial provocation. Take is somewhere else.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure there are lots of white yuppie condo owners (myself included) who'd be thrilled if billyjoe were banned from comments on this blog. He clearly has no interest in productive discussion, and his comments do nothing but empower Shiller and her supporters in their efforts to race bait the community.
ReplyDelete1. I and neighbors have called 911 and the police have come, although sometimes it takes 5-10 minutes. It's a bit difficult for them since most of the kids have cell phones and a well-developed phone tree, and know exactly where the regular and 'unmarked' police cars are at all times. I am also under the impression that it is harder to catch them with drugs, and there may be some more constraints on what the police are allowed to do.
ReplyDeleteI would be very interested in knowing what Anonymous 1:40 means about new city policies.
2. With the economy worsening and people having even less money than before, I wouldn't be surprised if there is more and desperate activity spiking up this summer, not just more aggressive behavior in our section of Chicago.
3. Whoever Billy Joe is - you're incredibly unhelpful to minorities who want to live and work safely.
It's harder to catch drug dealing because many dealers don't have the drugs on them at the time they make a sale. If you watch them, after the transaction occurs, some younger inexperienced person (sometimes a kid) comes back around and places the drug by a fence or in a potato chip bag, knowing that it will be picked up in less than a minute.
ReplyDeleteCAPS meetings work when the 5 point plan is used. There is now a huge push to have all CAPS meetings operate using this approach. I know first hand it works. My partner & I used to witness this man selling single cans of beer from his apartment on Sunday mornings (liquor can't be sold until 11am). We reported the problem but the police never saw anything. It dawned on us that the police had to come out on Sunday mornings to spot the problem and they were coming out on other days of the week. There were a few COURAJ types that thought what harm was it to sell someone a can of beer.
The police finally catch the guy on a Sunday, and after the arrest, some Spanish-speaking children came forward, feeling safe to tell another adult that they had been sodomized by this guy and it had been going on for years. The guy now has 37 years in prison.
Had we ignored this little crime, who knows how long this would have kept going on. When we remain persistent, even on the smaller crimes, we can never really tell how much of an impact we really make sometimes. At one time, we had over a 100 people sleeping in the park. It was due to CAPS that it finally got addressed. We created a petition and sent it to a lot of city officials and it worked.
The drug dealing is bad, but I remember when dealers used to shuffle their dollar bills in front of me like a deck of cards as a way of telling me that there was nothing I could do to stop them. My partner was pushed out on oncoming traffic when a prostitute got upset with him for not giving her any money. When she got arrested, she purposely urinated on the police officer's shoes. When she was placed in the car, she would crap on the seat. Believe me, it's gotten tons better and I owe a great deal of it to the work of CAPS.
That is right across the street from the Chicago Park District Margate Park Field house.
ReplyDeleteI have called the Deputy Chief of Patrol's office regarding the lack of response to my calls supposedly stemming from lack of resources in this district. You know what they said? There are enough resources to respond and there is no excuse for not responding.
ReplyDeleteAnd, I found out that my calls were being documented as being responded to. The police marked them as "Problem not found." Then I started watching and found that some cars even came and parked down the street to kill some time and then pulled away just to make it look like they came to the scene.
Those guys are refusing certain types of calls in the Uptown area. The sooner people figure this out the better. They won't respond to prostitution calls, public urination calls, shitting or having sex in public, illegally truck parking, etc. This is a game they are playing.
Call 911 for a supervisor.
Is this a game or something that is being done under some kind of direction not to respond.
ReplyDeleteIf feasible, next time you call 911 give them your number and ask that they contact you when they arrive at the scene. This lets them know you're serious and provides another layer of accountability.
ReplyDelete