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CHICAGO – When Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot told a press conference last month that the city was experiencing a downward trend in violent crime, she was technically right.
Aggravated bodily harm, theft and sexual assault have declined. But Lightfoot’s critics, including many conservatives, were quick to point out that his claims touched on numbers that weren’t so rosy – like increases in shootings and homicides.
Homicides so far this year have increased by 33% compared to the same period in 2019.
It is a topic that was brought into the national spotlight during a particularly violent weekend of July 4, in which the city reported that 100 people were shot dead, 18 of whom died.
Across the country, nearly 200 people have been killed.
An NBC News analysis of Chicago Police Department data going back 20 years shows that overall, violent crime continued to decline slowly during the pandemic. When all violent crime categories are added up, the total has declined 46% over 20 years and held steady between the first half of 2019 and 2021.
But some of the categories of crime that most concern the public have increased. In addition to homicides, shootings have increased 59% since the first half of 2019, the most recent comparable period since the start of the pandemic. And car hijackings have almost tripled.
Experts say these increases are due to the fact that the once-in-a-generation pandemic has exacerbated the economic and social problems that create the conditions for crime.
“We have to recognize that the year and a half that we have been through is unprecedented,” said David Olsen, co-director of the Center for Criminal Justice Research, Policy and Practice at Loyola University in Chicago.
Olsen said he was concerned about the pressure on elected officials to find a solution quickly while ignoring the underlying causes of crime.
“The places where we see the highest rates of homicides and shootings are the same communities that we have had for the past 30 or 40 years – primarily the most economically disadvantaged and the most racially segregated communities. ”Olsen said.
Previous spikes in crime have prompted the authorities to set up specialized units or programs to combat violence. In the 1980s, the Chicago Police Department started a special operations section, which would eventually be disbanded after some members were charged with theft and kidnapping. And more recently, the Violence Reduction Initiative under former mayor Rahm Emanuel has sent thousands of police officers to crime-ridden areas. WBEZ later found out that these officers mostly wrote overtime parking tickets.
Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown launched two specialized units in 2020 that he says are helping reduce violence. He also launched a task force on carjacking.
The most recent peak in gun violence was in 2016, when 788 homicides were recorded.
The 335 homicides in the first half of this year equal the number of homicides in the first half of 2016. Sexual assaults were down from recent highs in 2017, with more than 700 reported so far in 2021.
City data released in May and updated this week shows that so far this year, 325 people 19 years of age or younger have been shot, including 46 fatally.
Aggravated batteries, in which someone is severely injured, sometimes with a weapon, are on the decline in Chicago, but the number of shots, a subset of batteries, is up 60% from the 2019 count for the first semester. Other types of batteries such as those with weapons other than rifles fail.
So too have thefts, which have declined as pandemic closures have forced people to stay on the streets and out. But car hijackings, which fall under theft, have skyrocketed, making national headlines, as many of these crimes have been committed by teenagers.
Chicagoans are used to officials pulling numbers and choosing the most encouraging statistics, critics say, but it’s harder to downplay the victims of gun violence.
At his press conference last week ahead of the holiday weekend, Brown said crime was down and cited a number of year-over-year statistics.
But he compared the current crime count to those in June 2020, which were at historic levels following the unrest following the murder of George Floyd. Like Chicago, several other cities in the United States experienced an increase in gun violence during this period.
The next day, Brown came under close scrutiny by city council members who called an emergency meeting to demand clarification on his plan to tackle violence for the July 4 bank holiday weekend. The meeting, described by Lightfoot as “political shenanigans”, lasted six hours. As aldermen roasted Brown, at least two people were shot, one fatal, according to city data.
The mayor and the police commissioner tried to blame the gunfire on the courts and the state prosecutor, alleging that the potential shooters were off the hook. Dozens of violent incidents by offenders who were out on bail have contributed to a narrative that courts are leaving shooters on the streets.
“I hear a lot about what the state attorney is doing,” Brown said at a press conference this week, referring to the attorney’s office. “The courts release [violent offenders] in the community, creating a dangerous environment for all of us. Chicago cops do their job when we charge [violent offenders] with murder. It’s doing our part.
In an interview with a Chicago television station on Thursday, Cook County Circuit Court chief justice Timothy Evans said the mayor and superintendent did not appear to be well informed.
His office released figures showing that from 2017 to 2020, only 3% of felony defendants and 5% of misdemeanors released before trial commit a violent crime upon release.
Evans said he was worried, but said locking up each accused before trial had consequences.
“It would keep 95% of people in jail before their trial when they are presumed innocent,” he said, “when 3 or 5% of people break the law. “
A Chicago Tribune investigation last year found that Evans’s office may have underestimated the violent repeat offenders released on bail.
Cook County State Attorney Kim Foxx also disagrees with Brown’s assessment and said the pandemic has created the conditions for increased crime.
“The reality is that 2020 is unlike any year any of us have had in our lifetime due to a global pandemic,” she said. “People [were] forced to return home, [putting] pressures on mental health.
She said that although Brown claims the police are arresting people for gun crimes, they are not capturing the people who commit the shootings. She said many people were arrested simply for possession of firearms.
“It’s very different from someone using a gun to commit an offense,” Foxx said.
The back-and-forth illustrates a key difference in the focus of the two branches of law enforcement, which focuses on who is considered a violent offender. In Illinois, gun owners are required to obtain a gun owner ID card. Additionally, residents are not allowed to have a loaded gun in a car without a concealed transport permit. Many of the arrests cited by the police service when asked about their case – including statistics listed on Brown’s Twitter feed – were individuals who violated these requirements.
Of the more than 1,100 shooting incidents in 2021, only 26 resulted in arrests, according to data from the Chicago Police Department. In the meantime, more than 2,500 people have been arrested for illegal use of a weapon. About 86% of those arrested for illegal use of weapons were blacks, according to police arrest data.
“I think there is some confusion happening,” Foxx said. “Superintendent Brown tried to argue that anyone who owns a gun [has] the potential for violence. There is no dividing line between a non-violent gun owner or a violent offender, and that is simply not true.
Others say Foxx does not use its office to keep Chicago streets safe. Pat O’Brien, a former judge and prosecutor who ran unsuccessfully against her in the 2020 election on a law enforcement platform, said Foxx should do more when police arrest offenders with antecedents.
O’Brien referred to Foxx statistics on those arrested for gun-related offenses last year. He said there were more than 5,700 cases that were approved for illegal weapon use, alleging many of them had a history.
“There is a crime that is being committed. Now, for people who don’t have a background, they’ve been adults for a number of years, they seem less likely to be… a problem, but they’re still committing a crime. “
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