Chicago Mayor: Police ‘Are Losing the Streets’ to Major Eruptions of Violence
Frank Miles, Fox News, July 18, 2019
Chicago’s new mayor is taking issue with the city’s police department as the city continues to see far more homicides than New York and Los Angeles, as well as major eruptions of other violence.
“One weekend does not make a trend,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Tuesday, according to Fox 32. “But we’ve now had a couple weekends where it feels like we are losing the streets.”
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Right before Independence Day, 50 people were shot. And despite the deployment of an extra 1,200 officers in the city, at least 43 people were shot over Memorial Day weekend, seven of them fatally.
More than 1,500 extra Chicago Police officers hit the streets, parks and lakefront for the July 4 holiday, typically one of the most violent weekends of the year.
Police also executed three separate operations in June that resulted in a total of 170 arrests on gun and narcotics charges, the seizure of 38 guns and hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of illegal drugs. The most recent effort, called “Operation Independence,” ended right before the holiday with the arrests of 77 people — 34 of whom are convicted felons.
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