Gangs and Politicians in Chicago: An Unholy Alliance

Violent gang crime in Chicago has been a constant feature of news reports for years.  Most of it is gun-related crime; homicides caused by people shooting other people.  We hear of school kids being killed, toddlers and families in parks being killed, people walking on the street being killed, gang bangers being killed by other gang bangers.  The number of homicides is especially high in Chicago's gang-ridden south side.

In 2012, three hundred ten American service members were killed in Afghanistan, while there were five hundred thirty-two homicides in Chicago.

The cause of most of the violent crime is drug dealers, or more specifically, organized gangs of drug dealers fighting over turf, territory, and money.  A lot of money, millions and millions of dollars.  Yet Chicago has a large and powerful police department with more than 12,000 sworn officers.  How can such a high level of violet crime persist in a City with a huge law enforcement presence?

Much, much more after the jump.  You'll want to read it all.
Gang crime in Chicago is protected by politicians.  To think otherwise is to be naïve in the workings of big city politics, especially Chicago politics.  Gang crime in Chicago exists because politicians want it to exist, and protect it in order to serve their own interests.

Chicago Magazine investigated the corrupt relationship between street gangs and local politicians.

In some parts of Chicago, violent street gangs and pols quietly trade money and favors for mutual gain. The thugs flourish, the elected officials thrive—and you lose.

 It's worse than that.  Politicians "audition" for gang support at pre-arranged meetings during election season.

The sessions were organized much like corporate-style job fairs. The gang representatives conducted hour-long interviews, one after the other, talking to as many as five candidates in a single evening. Like supplicants, the politicians came into the room alone and sat before the gang representatives, who sat behind a long table.

The former chieftains, several of them ex-convicts, represented some of the most notorious gangs on the South and West Sides, including the Vice Lords, Gangster Disciples, Black Disciples, Cobras, Black P Stones, and Black Gangsters. Before the election, the gangs agreed to set aside decades-old rivalries and bloody vendettas to operate as a unified political force, which they called Black United Voters of Chicago.

The paradox is that Chicago’s struggle to combat street gangs is being undermined by its own elected officials. And the alliances between lawmakers and lawbreakers raise a troubling question: Who actually rules the neighborhoods — Chicago's public servants or the gangs?   The correct answer is the one you already know.

Officers working in the 23rd District say [Alderwoman] Shiller and her chief of staff, Denice Davis, frequently came into the station after certain Uptown residents were arrested to try to defuse things. Police say Davis’s interference on behalf of gangbangers was part of the alderman’s political organization [and] had a chilling effect on their policing efforts. What was the point of making an arrest when it brought trouble from the alderman’s office? “Certain officers would get the message: ‘Maybe I shouldn’t make this stop’ or ‘Maybe I shouldn’t investigate this,’” says Joe Cox, a veteran officer from the district who retired in 2010.

There's more.  Any Alderman is powerful in Chicago, and has influence over police activities.

In return, the Vice Lord recalls, the alderman would sometimes give the gang a heads-up about what was discussed at CAPS meetings, where police and residents talked about neighborhood crime and other issues. The alderman, he says, would tell them which corners or gang members were receiving police attention. That way, the gang would “know how to move around” to avoid police, he explains. (Many aldermen wield considerable influence over the police commanders in their districts. In some respects, the commanders unofficially report to the aldermen.) He says that the alderman would also let them know about jobs at particular construction sites in the ward.

Meanwhile, the city’s inspector general can’t—by design of the City Council—investigate council members. (In May 2010, the council, under pressure to curb its corruptible ways, created its own inspector general. The job went unfilled for more than 18 months, until last November, when the council picked a New York lawyer for the part-time position, which has a minuscule budget and no staff and which critics have decried as window-dressing.) 

Political power trumps justice.  Those being murdered have little protection, not even the right to possess their own guns for their own protection.  Human lives have become secondary to the agendas of corrupt Chicago pols.  Neighborhoods are not getting better; they are becoming worse.

Why are we not surprised?

Here is a link to the article.  Read the whole thing, especially the parts about community organizing and how local corruption climbs the ladder to state and federal elected officials.  

And then consider how things are done in the White House without regard to open bidding, to having a DOJ that equally enforces the law, to questionable fund raising, to rule by Executive Orders without regard to constitutional lawmaking.  DC is Big Chicago.