After at least 108 people were shot — 17 fatally — during the extended holiday weekend, Chicago police Superintendent David Brown on Tuesday insisted his department did its part in fighting the violence while casting blame once again on Cook County’s judicial system.
“Finger-pointing is your word that you use,” Brown said to the media during a news conference at Chicago police headquarters. “I’m ready to debate about: Do we continue to release violent people in our courts into these communities?”
The message from Brown wasn’t new. In recent times when Chicago has finished an especially violent weekend, he has often complained that what he believes is a too-lenient criminal justice system is putting too many suspects back on the street.
Brown said too many criminal defendants are out on bail and electronic monitoring for serious offenses, even murders. Court officials and crime experts have pushed back on that narrative with data that suggests issues in the bond system are not a root cause of the problem.
Chicago’s Independence Day weekend marred by violence, with at least 108 people shot, 17 fatally ？
The shootings through the holiday weekend happened all over the city from Friday afternoon through early Tuesday morning, and mostly on the South and West sides, areas of Chicago that have long struggled with economic desperation, drug addiction, gang activity and other problems. Despite implementing departmentwide day-off cancellations and 12-hour shifts, the city still finished with at least 108 people shot.
Police work at the scene where a 48-year-old man was fatally shot July 5, 2021, inside a home in the 8600 block of South Aberdeen Street. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)
When asked whether the Police Department’s strategies under his leadership are ineffective, Brown was quick to point out how Chicago’s rise in violence over the last year and a half is part of a nationwide trend seen in other major cities, including New York, Los Angeles and Houston.
But his rationale inevitably drifted into a discussion about what he perceives as an ineffective judicial system.
“We get into this conversation about effectiveness. We can take guns off the street. We can charge people with murder. But again I want to ask you a question in this (media) gallery. How many people think it’s OK to have over 90 people on electronic monitoring that we’ve charged with murder released back to our communities. Just show of hands, who thinks that’s a good idea?” Brown asked, without specifying a time frame for his claim about 90 defendants.
When no reporters raised their hands, Brown said, after a brief pause: “For the record, no one raised their hands in the media gallery and thought it was a good idea to release over 90 people” — comments that prompted reporters to raise their voices and tell him it is not their job to react to his statements in such a way.
“It creates this idea of lawlessness for people in the community who know someone murdered someone and yet they see them again the following days as if nothing happens,” said Brown. “Secondly, because these people murdered someone, the victim and their associates retaliate indiscriminately on where they are. … They are the targets for retaliation. …The courts ... have created an unsafe environment for large crowd gatherings because you’ve released people charged with murder back into these same communities where they committed this heinous crime.”
Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans’ office on Tuesday issued a statement seeking to deflect the criticism.
The public “must remember that bail reform, instituted by the Circuit Court of Cook County in 2017, is based on the constitutional principle that people should not be punished by imprisonment before they are tried, unless they pose a significant danger to the community,” the statement read.
It also included a comment from Evans.
“Looking at individual tragic cases in isolation may contribute to the speculation that releasing individuals before trial rather than incarcerating them — whether by placing them on Electronic Monitoring (EM) or other forms of supervision — means an increase in crime,” Evans said in the statement. “But speculation based on isolated cases is not the same as reality based on a complete picture, and research has shown that bail reform has not led to an increase in crime.”
Chicago police Superintendent David Brown walks to talk with the press outside Stroger Hospital, July 5, 2021. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)
Mayor Lori Lightfoot addressed the violence at a separate media event Tuesday, saying the department rethinks its strategy “every single day” by reviewing data and hot spots as leaders consider officer deployments. Addressing victims, Lightfoot said, “I want you to know we are doing absolutely everything we can to stem the violence.”
She also had a message for the rest of Chicago, she said.
“We must rally around our neighbors who are living in areas of our city that are under siege by violence. We can’t ignore them. We can’t forget them. We can’t just say there but for the grace of God go I,” the mayor said. “We all have a responsibility, all of us — not just a mayor, not just a police department, all of us have a responsibility and in particular, we must hold our neighbors in our hearts, our minds and our prayers.”
Young people need to be urged to put down their guns,, Lightfoot said. “We have to love them.”
But quoting her mother, she added: “We also must hold them accountable. We also must show them the way to a different kind of life by setting an example, by giving them real opportunities that they can grasp in their hand and choose to take a different path.”
Many of the shootings occurred in the South Chicago and Calumet patrol districts, which encompass neighborhoods on the South and far South Side, according to data. Others included the Ogden, Harrison and Austin Districts on the West Side.
On Saturday at 4:30 p.m. near 117th Street and Normal Avenue, a 5-year-old girl was shot accidentally in the right leg as someone apparently tried to scare a dog that bit the child, said Brendan Deenihan, CPD’s chief of detectives. The girl is in good condition, authorities said.
Also in the Calumet District, a 6-year-old girl and her mother were on East 119th Place at about 1 a.m. Sunday during a drive-by shooting, Deenihan said. The pair survived gunshot wounds.
Early Monday, Austin District Cmdr. Patrina Wines and a sergeant were shot while dispersing a crowd in the 100 block of North Long Avenue, police said. Wines was shot in the foot, the sergeant was shot in the thigh and the officers’ injuries were not life-threatening.
On Friday, before the start of the long holiday weekend, Brown was grilled by aldermen during a special City Council session about how his department is doing in fighting crime and violence.
During one tense exchange, Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 35th, used Cook County data to challenge Brown’s assertions that the criminal justice system is to blame for increased violence, particularly with criminal defendants being released on bail or electronic home monitoring.
Brown stood his ground, relying on anecdotes to support his claim of a criminal justice system that’s too lenient. He cited the fatal shooting of 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams in April outside a McDonald’s restaurant on the West Side, and how one of the defendants in the case was on bail or electronic monitoring at the time of her killing.
While Ramirez-Rosa acknowledged that Brown’s anecdotes were “horrific,” he said the city should be basing public safety strategies on data. And he pushed back by accusing Brown of “pushing a bad narrative” and said if he continues to do that, then, Ramirez-Rosa said, “I’m going to have to say, Superintendent Brown, that you’re a liar.”
The office of Judge Evans, in its statement, cited a Loyola University study last year that said bail reform had not contributed to a rise in crime.
“In deciding to release some individuals charged with crime to (electronic monitoring), judges are guided by looking at the criminal backgrounds of defendants before them. Only those individuals judged to pose a clear and present danger to society are kept in jail before trial,” the statement read.
Fewer than 200 defendants in the most serious cases filed between fall 2017 and the end of last year were released pretrial, the statement said.
According to the office, “94% of murder defendants released pretrial were not charged with any new crime, and about 99% were not charged with a new violent offense.”
Through Monday, Chicago had recorded 362 homicides in 2021, two more than the same time last year, according to CPD statistics. This year’s figure is 42.52% higher than the same time frame in 2019.
The figure does not include homicides that take place on expressways and are the jurisdiction of the Illinois State Police.
Also through Monday, shootings — incidents where at least one person was shot fatally or nonfatally — were up by 11.78% over last year from 1,443 to 1,613, the statistics show. The 2021 shooting tally is up by 58.45% from the same time in 2019.
Myriad factors for the nation’s violence spike in 2021 have been discussed among law enforcement professionals and crime experts, and many often don’t agree.
Some in the law enforcement world — including Brown in his comments about Chicago — have blamed a lenient criminal justice system for repeat criminals. Scholars have pointed at lingering effects from last year’s spike, including the pandemic, which exacerbated tensions in already violent neighborhoods.
They’ve also cited the civil unrest, brought upon by the police killing of George Floyd, as possibly having an impact. The experts have also pointed to a possible relationship between huge sales in legal firearms across the country since the pandemic began with the amount of illegal guns confiscated by police on the streets.
Through Monday, Chicago police say they’ve recovered 6,184 guns, up by 26.36% over last year’s period, and a 13.68% rise from the same time in 2019.
During Monday’s news conference, Brown mentioned how his department has done its job on the streets, particularly citing the 6,000-plus guns that his officers have taken off the streets this year. But when asked how the communities around Chicago recognize those efforts, he said one thing can change that.
”The fourth branch of government. The media will change it,” said Brown. “Thomas Jefferson said I’d rather have media and no government than government and no media. It’s going to be the fourth branch of government that changes what happens in the courts.”
jgorner@chicagotribune.com
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