CBS and NRA News Profile "The War in Chicago"

Ginny Simone is a reporter for National Rifle Association (NRA) – NRA News – who on April 17 of this year debut her investigation into the violence in Chicago. She, or one of her producers, titled it “America’s Deadliest City.”

The violence in Chicago-- almost entirely a non-white problem

Though the report was about as race-neutral as one can expect from the NRA – which proudly showcases Colion Noir’s videos as an example of enlightened Conservatism Inc. on all things black – it did include this powerful quote from Jim Arceo. A retired Chicago police officer, Arceo said:

“It’s disgusting. I was proud to be a Chicagoan. And now, it’s like, you see it crumbling. It’s terrible. And I see no hope for it. I don’t see anything getting better. It’s just dying.”

What has happened to Chicago is disgusting, but it merely serves as a microcosm, a powerful lesson of our nation’s problems.  If you can still call 2013 America a “nation.”

James Kirkpatrick, writing in the introduction to the upcoming Second City Confidential: The Black Experience in Chicagoland (Available on the Fourth Anniversary of the start of SBPDL, May 22), put the importance of Chicago this way:

“As the largest city in the Heartland, “Chicago” occupies a unique position in the American psyche.  New York looks across the Atlantic and Los Angeles across the Pacific, but Chicago looks to America itself, the vast continental empire that it fed and supplied with its plants and industry.”

Presently, Chicago sits at the nexus of yesterday/tomorrow for the rest of the nation -- a city where law and order is protected by the white population, whose institutions are now assigned to protect the very people uprooting civilization there.

The latest Paul Kersey at VDare.com is all about Chicago[Mexican Drug Gangs Only Part Of “The War In Chicago”, Paul Kersey on May 19, 2013]:

The War In Chicago, the 48 Hours special with Maureen Maher and Armen Keteyian reporting that aired Saturday May 18, was a breakthrough—of sorts. It even had a logo that would make George Zimmerman blush: three hoodie-wearing thugs (eat your heart out, Trayvon Martin), one brandishing a gun, with a DEA Agent facing them. 

Strikingly, the report candidly admitted that the city’s drug problem—heroin—is almost entirely driven by Mexican cartels; that only 26 percent of the more than 500 homicides in 2012had been solved; and that in wake of the murder of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton—you know, the black girl that Barack and Michelle Obama tried to make the face of the gun control movement—the police surge launched by the city to try tomake the streets safer is already threatened by budget concerns: 

But like many big cities, Chicago has serious budget problems. The extra police on the streets is costing the city millions. Can they afford to keep up the fight?There are lines of demarcation in every city. For this uniquely American city, the death of Hadiya Pendleton may well be one of them. 

Since her murder on Jan. 29 in Chicago, the number of extra police on the streets has doubled to 400. Officers are working seven days a week, but this is a relative peace that comes with a price: an estimated $1 million a week in police overtime. 

The CBS special quoted a 28-year veteran of the DEA, Jack Riley, as saying: 

"We've got people dying ... and I'm not rolling over, I have not thrown the towel in," said Riley, who thinks he knows why so many of Chicago's children are dying."I wanted to retire a few years ago ... my wife's naggin' me every day... get outta the job," he said. "I can't do it!" 

… Riley says many Chicago shootings are carried out by the area's roughly 70,000 gang members who are going to war over one thing in particular: drugs.

Is this America? 

Yes—the very heartland of this nation…if America can be called a nation anymore.

 No, America can no longer be called a nation. More importantly, any effort to stop crime in Chicago is going to run into a problem: the perpetrators are almost all non-white [Addicted to guns: Is there a cure for Chicago's crippling dependence on firearms?, Chicago Reader, 5-8-2013]:

In parts of the city, it's far too common for lives to be shaped by the persistent threat of conflicts and the culture of resolving them with firearms. In fact, gun violence has come to seem as much a part of Chicago as the seasons. In the last 20 years, more than 12,000 people have been murdered in the city, more than 9,000 of them with firearms. Tens of thousands of others have survived being shot. 

Over the years, police, politicians, and community leaders have proposed all kinds of solutions, from banning high-powered squirt guns to bringing in the National Guard. Along with the weather—violence tends to spike during the warm months and mild stretches of winter—the size and deployment of the police force is always at the center of the discussion. 

But others argue that it's time to focus on the circumstances that produce violent offenders in the first place: desperation, poverty, fear, addiction to drugs, addiction to guns. In many ways the issue boils down to whether we can afford to take the time to fight such long-standing ills, or whether we can afford not to. 

When Chicago finished 2002 with 656 murders, tops in the nation, Mayor Richard M. Daley was embarrassed, outraged, and defensive. "We're doing everything possible," he insisted. Yet the next year he sacked his police superintendent and promoted an aggressive deputy, Phil Cline, with orders to bring the body count down. 

Cline did what he was told. He set up special gun teams, stepped up drug sweeps, and seized the cars of gang leaders. Most significantly, he increased the size and duties of mobile forces, deploying them in violence-prone areas to "stop anything that moves," as one officer described it to the Chicago Tribune. 

The strategy has become standard practice in violent pockets of cities across the country. But experts say it's only effective if police work with residents and focus on serious safety threats. "Community members can have mixed feelings about these sorts of things, but if the police take advance action to communicate what they're up to, that can help considerably," says Christopher Koper, a professor at George Mason University who's conducted several studies on policing for the U.S. 

Department of Justice. "Maybe it comes down to who would you rather lock up, a guy with drugs on him or a guy with a gun on him?" 

To many black and Latino residents, Cline's crackdowns snagged far too many regular guys along with the bad ones. Murders went down—way down, from 601 in 2003 to 451 in 2005. But relations with the community eroded dramatically. The number of homicides cleared by detectives began a steady plunge, reflecting a lack of cooperation from witnesses. In 2004 police cleared 61 percent of that year's murders; by 2012 the figure was down to just 36 percent. Cline was ousted in 2007 after a series of police abuse scandals, but the department resumed using mobile forces.

Too many black and Latino criminals; not enough white ones.

Chicago.

Welcome to"America's Deadliest City."