Monday, February 22, 2010

Guess They're Called Vice Lords For A Reason

We're hearing that the 23rd District police had a very successful night a couple Saturdays ago.  There was a party in a second floor apartment at 4639 North Broadway (above the location of the former "Da Spot" clothing store) with lots of  Vice Lords in attendance. Numerous arrests, and they recovered weed, crack and a couple of guns.

Here's to you, men (and women) in blue!

We'll ask the court advocates to keep us up to date on this when it starts going through the court system.

11 comments:

  1. please keep us all updated on court dates.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ok this story has to be fake. Afterall, this is the 46th Ward the home of Alderman Shiller where there are no gangs and no gang activity,and gang related crime, especially not that close to the Wilson Yard Project. Stop placing these pieces of Anti-Shiller Propaganda on U.U.!



    Glad to see CPD cracking down on the gangs! Hope to see more of it!

    Sadly, I am sure Shiller will take credit at some point for it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Why would she crack down? She would loose her voting base.

    ReplyDelete
  4. About Schiller.

    I'm somewhat new here to life in Uptown, so forgive my naïveté when I ask this, but it seems like (at least here on UU) it's an all out hate-fest any time her name is mentioned. It seems like people go out of their way to slam her in the comments even when a newspiece doesn't explicitly mention her name, or has nothing to do with her at all. Is she really the Wicked Witch of the West?

    Has anyone ever read her interview in Stud's Terkel's Hope Dies Last? At what point did she go from being a positive force in community organizing to what she is made to be nowadays? (This interview was conducted around 2000-2001 I think) Why would Studs choose to interview her? I give Studs the benefit of the doubt- if there's anything he knows it's people.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dude that partay was dope!

    ReplyDelete
  6. @ Brian

    What happened is the fact Wilson Yard was sold as one thing and in reality what we got was all low income housing.

    What happened was the riots on Sheridan and Leland last summer and she was no where to be seen. I live at that corner and tried to get a response from her office and was hung up on.

    What happened is the fact Sheridan and Lawrence is a hot bed of drug activity and she refuses to show interest with CAPS or speaking with her voters directly to help resolve the situation.

    What happened is she is more concerned on concentrating the most low income housing than any other ward in the city.

    When she was elected, the ward was a piece of sh*t. No one complained till the condos started to spring up and those that pay taxes directly to the county started to get fed up with inaction on safety or even trying to foster a productive tax base with businesses.

    I am for helping those less fortunate however I believe those receiving assistance should be for people who deserve it. Those living in Section 8 housing should not have to tolerate living in building with gangs. This alderman does not go after landlords that provide housing to gang members.

    Those that pay property taxes want to protect their value of their property and our voices need to be heard just as much as those that do not pay taxes and receive federal, state and city money for free.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Shocking. This is the same location where you can observe open drug dealing in broad daylight.

    You literally walk right through deals on the sidewalk.

    Maybe if the west side of Broadway had some retail it might be safer to walk that side of the street so as to avoid becoming a witness to illegal transactions.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Brian:

    While I am sure people will chime in and offer explanations here, one thing you could do is scroll to the bottom of the blog's front page and click through the UU archive. You'll get a sense about recent events/issues and how people felt about them. There are some longtime bloggers on here and folks have developed a kind of community shorthand over time.

    Unfortunately, we need to work these things out in real life but there is no forum for civil discourse in this community. And, yes, I do blame the polarizing tactics of the powers-that-be for this outcome. Many, many people blogging here were once like you, Brian. I know I was. In principle, I agree with a lot of Helen's ideals. I also think that she is a good person and a person of action. No one could ever say that she saw things in her life that she thought were wrong and sat on the sidelines. She got involved. Good for her. In those regards, she and Studs were a lot alike. However, I think Helen is stubborn and, worse, a dogmatic thinker. Studs, on the other hand, had an incredible ability to get inside others' heads...walk a mile in their shoes...see their goodness no matter how unsympathetic a character they were. Seeing people and loving people is how he furthered the ideals that they both shared. In my mind, the crucial difference between Helen and Studs is that when Helen wants to be a "voice for the voiceless" she is most interested in putting forth her own voice. Its like she feels so right she just can't help it. In contrast, Studs was exceptionally skilled in finding nuance, in situating small personal struggles in the bigger picture and above all in summoning the "voices of the voiceless" with a singular and beautiful force. He wasn't afraid of what would happen if people just spoke for themselves. He didn't seem to feel the need to be some kind of protector in the same way Helen does.

    I have always found people able to put Helen in perspective when discussing her in real life. So, talk to your neighbors Brian. Uptowners are amazing in how much they love this place, how much they see something worth fighting for. Its a crying shame that more of the goodness and optimism can't be harnessed for the betterment of everyone.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Short version:

    Giving a voice to those who may not otherwise be heard is admirable.

    Doing so at the expense of the voices of those with whom your worldview is not shared is a despicable act.

    ReplyDelete