Violence and crime continue in Uptown - its time for change

Even with well intentioned protests, CAPS meetings, and positive loitering campaigns, crime in Uptown has not diminished and the drug dealers and gang bangers still walk the streets of our community with impunity. I commend local residents for getting more involved in the community and risking their own well being to send a message to these habitual criminals that continually undermine the safety and security of our neighborhood. However, I still believe the best solution to combat the gangs, guns, and drugs that breed violence in our community is with increased police patrols and targeted policing. It is through efforts such as these from law enforcement that our neighborhood will see a marked decrease in narcotics sales and violent crimes, both of which are all too common in Uptown.

Last week, members of an elite police unit, very similar to the unit where I work fighting crime, were assigned to Uptown to address crime. While these specialized units can be deployed anywhere in the city, it was the first time ever such a highly specialized unit was deployed to Uptown to fight crime. The first night of their deployment resulted in numerous arrests, including that of a gang banger with a loaded pistol, removed from our streets in the area of Wislon and Magnolia. It was working - the criminals were getting the message that if they chose to continue with business as usual, our uniformed police were going to take them off our streets and send them off to prison.

As is so common in Uptown, success was short-lived. That highly specialized unit was taken out of Uptown to work in other areas of the city. Our community only saw this targeted effort for two days, though its results were certain. Putting more uniformed police officers in a specific, high crime area will decrease crime and targeted anti-gang / anti-drug efforts by law enforcement will diminish criminal activity in our community. With the departure of this specialized unit, our regularly assigned district personal had to work even harder, hoping that they could make it through another hot weekend without violence breaking out on our streets.

The manpower shortage that the 23rd District has to continually deal with was exacerbated over the weekend when all of our area gang units were reassigned and sent to the far South and West Sides to address their continued problems with violence and crime, leaving our uniformed police even more shorthanded. When resources, that are assigned to our community, are taken out of our community, to fill glaring manpower shortages in other parts of the city, the criminals in our neighborhood reap the benefits and the citizens and taxpayers of the 46th Ward lose. We again and again hear politicians say that everyone needs to make a sacrifice while we suffer through this recession. Unfortunately, members of our community and members of the Chicago Police Department are paying for those shortages with their lives.

Enough is enough.

Its time to reinvest in our neighborhood. Its time to reinvest in the Chicago Police Department. Its time we as a community say that we have had enough of the violence in our streets and take back every street corner from the criminals in the only way they can understand - with action. If these individuals who espouse a life of violence do not want to walk away from their unlawful activities and become a part of our community, let's give our police the tools to put these activities in our community to an end, once and for all. The Chicago Police Department can do the job. They just need our publicly elected officials to address the growing manpower shortage in the department and hire more Police Officers.

Our community has been sacrificing for too long and it is time for a change.

Michael Carroll for Alderman, 46th Ward