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I Want You to Understand Chicago

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Re: I Want You to Understand Chicago

#101

Post by zemo »

blindriver wrote: post #11
alangibson wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed

If you don't understand how critically violent Chicago is, especially in the number of Black people shot and murdered every week, then you have no business being engaged in this topic. Chicago is one of the most violent cities in the US.

The problem is that your claim is just untrue in two major ways.

Chicago is ranked 22nd for murder and 92nd in the country in violent crime overall. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

The obsession with Chicago's murder rate and not the murder rate of cities like St Louis, Cleveland, Cincinatti, Indianapolis, or Little Rock is a political constructon of a right wing apparatus still hell-bent on punishing Chicago for having produced Obama.

That murder rate is gang related and extremely localized, and to boot, people in Chicago DO care about it; here are the top results for searching for "Chicago groups against gang violence" in duckduckgo:

https://thetriibe.com/2024/07/13-black-led-organizations-tha...

https://www.buildchicago.org/our-programs/intervention-and-c...

https://togetherchicago.com/violence-reduction/

https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/sites/community-safety/home/...

https://www.chicagocred.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2024-...

It is just broadly untrue that nobody cares about it. This point is extremely easy to debunk if you have any desire to debunk it, but you obviously have no interest in that.

And besides, there's an ocean of a difference between interpersonal gang on gang violence and the government sending secret police to put people into concentration camps and deport them to countries where they have no affiliation based on racial profiling.

Re: I Want You to Understand Chicago

#103

Post by queenkjuul »

HeinzStuckeIt wrote: post #47
metabagel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ICE are wearing masks, refusing to identify themselves, abducting citizens and non-citizens alike. They are accusing citizens of assault and then releasing them without charging - a pretty good indication that they lied. They are conducting warrantless searches. There is a case where they rammed the car of a U.S. citizen (clearly seen on video), promptly took her into custody, accused her of hitting them, and then re…

[flagged]

These aren't stings. They're in body armor and masks patrolling the streets without badges.

Re: I Want You to Understand Chicago

#104

Post by don_neufeld »

blindriver wrote: post #22
alangibson wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well then you should have no problem proving what you are now only insisting on. This is HN, not Reddit. Where's the citation? Prove what you said or I have no reason to take you seriously.

https://data.cityofchicago.org/Public-Safety/2025-Year-to-Da... 1646 shooting victims in chicago over 40 weeks = 36 shooting victims per week. Although these are cases so there are probably multiple victims in many cases. If you go back 10 years, there are around 34,000 cases of gunshot victims. https://abcnews.go.com/US/58-shot-weekend-chicago-governor-r... https://cwbchicago.com/2025/11/two-killed-21-wounded-in-hal…

And how does this compare to other cities on a population adjusted basis?

“Chicago ranked 8th out of a bigger sample of 24 cities in terms of the homicide rate in both 2023 and 2024.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8jl969pg7o.amp

Re: I Want You to Understand Chicago

#105

Post by SlightlyLeftPad »

vkou wrote: post #84
turnsout wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And of course now the parent post is "flagged." Thank you, Libertarian overlords, from protecting the tech community from this dangerous content.

It would not be good to allow malcontents to spread disharmony.

Re: I Want You to Understand Chicago

#106

Post by tedivm »

turnsout wrote: post #51
turnsout wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an exaggeration. People have been kidnapped by these armed masked idiots within two blocks of my house twice, and those are just the closest cases I know about. Go check out the /r/Illinois subreddit [0] to see what's happening. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/illinois/

And of course now the parent post is "flagged." Thank you, Libertarian overlords, from protecting the tech community from this dangerous content.

They unflagged it, but the pause in upvotes means it dropped off the front page and out of people's minds.

Re: I Want You to Understand Chicago

#107

Post by andix »

casenmgreen wrote: post #91
hexbin010 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to invoke the comparison, and not to diminish the Holocaust at all, but to give you a better idea of what's happening in the US right now: what's happening could be compared to the Gestapo rounding up the Jews. Innocent people are being rounded up by a faceless secret police, violently, in a terrorising manner, and taken to detention centres, with their human rights abused at every stage, with no due process a…

It seems to me exactly the same. An arbitrary group has been selected as being an enemy, they are used to present justifications for breaking law and due process, you then develop a large organization (Gestapo/ICE) accustomed to following orders and ignoring the law - if you're going to subvert the political system, you need to possess the means to force you will on the population. You need a large group of men who w…

It's not exactly the same, there are some similarities. There are still free elections happening in the US, there are still courts that rule against the government. And as far as I know those arrested people don't get killed. It's not the same, but it could move into the same direction.

Re: I Want You to Understand Chicago

#108

Post by g-b-r »

carterschonwald wrote: post #28

This shit is so fucked up. And at a certain level I’m disappointed that we are still trying to fix it peaceably when every day of delay, there is irreparable harm to physical wellness, mental health and rights as citizens or residents. Also science in America is fucked for the next decade.

Unfortunately, violent reactions is what Trump would love, because it would allow a much bigger, probably definitive, escalation

I think Americans should first do everything possible to bring to sanity the supporters of Trump

Re: I Want You to Understand Chicago

#110

Post by ai_critic »

andix wrote: post #92
rommelsLegacy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as a european then you really should know since a lot of us had dictatorships and secret police. the gestapo wasnt that long ago and most european communist states had the same issues good luck calling the police

I've never lived in a dictatorship, but I know a lot of people who did, and told me their stories. But from reading this article I couldn't tell if there is a massive crime surge in Chicago, or if it's police brutality, or both. Which is funny, because the article claims to explain ("I want you to understand").

It's not particularly a "surge" in crime, as the issue (illegal immigrants) has built up over time.

However, in years past, everybody just kind of overlooks it--and on the local level, it's basically not a problem beyond the normal folks being mad at demographics changing. Most all of the immigrants are working and participating in the economy--ironically, making them more vulnerable to the .gov than if they were just criminals!--and that's fine for the cities.

But, now, the federal .gov (under the direction of Trump et al) is deciding to finally enforce the law and doing so in the most cartoonishly thuggish and evil way possible.

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