12:34 PM: Multiple calls are coming in for a gang street brawl at 1515 West Pratt. As police arrive to mediate, one of the brawlers sneaks off and hides behind a tree. Another caller says the hiding brawler may have a gun.
12:37 PM: 1237 West Morse. Anonymous caller says a male is beating a female in the near-by apartment.
1:25 PM: Flare-up on Pratt. 15 brawlers have staged yet another fight at Pratt and Bosworth.
4:06 PM: 911 call for gambling at the northern end of Gale Park, near Ashland.
9 comments:
We absolutely MUST get rid of those CHA townhouses on Pratt, and get 1735 W. Pratt cleaned up. It's blighted the three beautiful 3-flats on the same block and it is the locus of crime and drugs.
Amazing how two or three bad properties can blight the whole area. It doesn't take much.. two or three really violent criminals can terrorize tens of thousands of people in an area, and two or three bad buildings slummify a neighborhood.
Gang activity, drug deals, shootings, calls to 911, and everything else that comprises the nonsense in our neighborhood have heated up within the past two months as we've all seen.
Things were never anywhere close to perfect, but were once getting better.
Now, it seems like they're sliding steadily downward.
Could it be the CHA properties that are popping up around the neighborhood? Probably. Could it be the lack of police patrols, or our Alderman who's in the pocket of these slumlords? Probably.
BUT - where are WE? As many have the time to type our blog posts at 3:00pm when school lets out, are any of us outside? Should we not make a presence known to all of these hooligans and be present? When we make those 911 calls, why is ANYONE saying "anonymous" when they call?
While I usually complain about, sometimes applaud, and occassionally loathe the police presence in our area in times of trouble, we all need to realize that they are designed to be a RESPONSE mechanism. They don't solve problems, they respond to them.
Its time this neighborhood grabs itself back and begins to call the rules. We're all good people who want to simply walk to the EL, market, convenient store, or beach without worrying about some criminal activity that spreads out of hand along the way.
On a side note - After seeing drug deals and gang activity in front of our building for months, we decided to install lighting, lamp-posts, and all sorts of light that flooded the sidewalk with light that deterred such activity.
It worked.
And it wasn't too expensive either. While it didn't disperse the gangs throughout the whole ward it gave them one less place to feel comfortable.
A "little victory" is what we all need. And many "little victorys" is what we all need.
Light up your yards - it's cheap. Stand out front with your cell phones when school gets out and keep the police busy on-demand.
Every little bit, every little victory will clean this neighborhood up...
There's no place for nonsense. Only sense.
JVonASHLAND
Agree with your great post.
I call when I see stuff that needs attention, and I always leave my name.
However, like most people, I'm not home much by day.
The slumlords are indefatigable. It seems like every time we get one bad building cleaned up, another building becomes a problem, oftentimes with the aid of our AlderCreep (like the unauthorized drug rehab center at Lunt and Sheridan). As long as so many people can make so much money from Section 8 and Social services by operating slum properties, and as long as it is more profitable to milk social programs for Section 8 rent than it is to run a clean, market-rate older building, we are going to have problem buildings- and one problem building can blight the entire block.
Frankly, I don't see things improving until we get local political leaders whose heads and hearts are in the right place, which unfortunately is not the case with our current alderman. His desire to pander to the social services and his allegiances with slumlords pretty dovetail beautifully with the mayor's agenda, which is clearing innercity neighborhoods out to create wealthy enclaves and pushing troubled populations to designated dumping grounds, which this area unfortunately is.
A good alderman could clean this up quickly. Look what was accomplished in the 48th Ward, Edgewater, between 1997, when that neighborhood was an absolute sump, and 2001, by what time it had become a safe, desirable area that still managed to support a large number of "affordable" apartment buildings. The demographics are almost exactly the same in that area as this one, yet look at the difference.
I believe in Rogers Park. This is a beautiful area stuffed with lovely housing stock, great new businesses, and a dense forest of mature trees. The charm is incredible and overwhelms you when you walk the streets in the summer. I figure, if this area can retain so much charm and beauty, and so many truly great neighbors, when it is under almost constant assault from its own alderman as well as the lowlife elements whose presence he fosters- what can we become if we manage to get caring, committed leadership that is motivated to root out the problems that we still have?
Has any one of you have been a victim of any of these crimes posted? I would assume all of you would say NO. The people that are getting hurt are the gang bangers. and they deserve it.
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Has any one of you have been a victim of any of these crimes posted? I would assume all of you would say NO. The people that are getting hurt are the gang bangers. and they deserve it.
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Moore's focus is not the neighborhood. His focus is his career.
Perhaps we can make some noise and embarass him into action.
Another march like we had over the Summer could get his attention.
regarding "anonymous" calls to 911: once again I called about men drinking in public along Howard, yes I have called on women too, but today they did not ask for my name, when they do I give it.
I don't understand why it matters, I have never been contacted for any follow up, so what difference does it make?
I am an avid bike rider and was through Pratt & Bosworth about the time of the aforementioned incident. I did not see any activity. My timing could be wrong. I have seen many gang bangers (or at least wanna-be) and have had confrontations with them. I have time during parts of the day to be out there and will gladly show a presence. I will call 911 nd give my name. Anyone else want to join me?
latinking, while I have not been a victim of a violent crime in Chicago, I have many times been victimized in other cities. I have had a gun shoved down my throat, and I've been in a nightmare wrestling match with a mugger armed with a knife, which was held to my throat. My purse was snatched more times than I can count.
Sure, this crap happened to me in another city, a place where an ordinary person going about her business in any city neighbhorhood could count on being victimized with regularity. So I tend to be sensitive to threats of similar situations setting up here.
Also, I'm too well aware of the muggings, shootings, vandalism, break-ins, and other crimes that occur from Morse to North of Howard along the el track corridor. Just because I haven't been among the victims doesn't mean it couldn't happen to me, and just because the gangers are aiming their guns at each other and are not concerned with me doesn't mean I couldn't catch a bullet intended for someone else. Many "civilians" have died in the crossfire.
We've let our entire country be blighted because Americans tend not to care about anything that happens to Other Folks, and are really adept at distancing themselves from the blight and violence around us almost everywhere. We think we can just "move away", but the problems and violence just follow us wherever we go. Has a family improved its situation by fleeing a cozy city neighborhood to settle in a suburb where a school shooting leaves a dozen kids dead?
You seem to believe that the best way to deal with the rampant violence and incivility of American life, is to ignore anything that has not yet affected you personally. The tendancy to do exactly that is so prevalent in this country that it is, in itself, probably the major cause of our problems.
I feel that if a 9-year-old down in Englewood can catch a bullet while sitting in his own bedroom, that I could darn well suffer same sitting in my living room on Pratt. If some suburban kid can spray his home room with a high-powered rifle, some other kid could do the same in a local restaurant I happen to be sitting in.
Time to get our heads out of the sand and realize that what happens in the 1500 block of W. Estes or NOH could darn well start happening in the 6200 Block of Sheridan, and IS starting to happen in 'pristine' suburbs and city neighborhoods that have no previous history of such problems.
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