The now-notorious violent youth riot in downtown
Chicago during a recent weekend got me to thinking of a press conference way
back in 2010. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley voiced frustration about what he
said were large groups of suburban kids causing trouble on Chicago’s lakefront,
even though plenty of Chicago kids were also participating, including six teens
who brutally attacked an 18-year-old suburban woman. Daley complained that the
youths would text each other to organize their mayhem.
Three years later, downtown’s problems with
unexpected group violence hadn’t gotten any better. So, then-Gov. Pat Quinn
held a splashy press conference on Michigan Avenue to sign a bill sponsored by
then-Sen. Kwame Raoul and then-Rep. Christian Mitchell which doubled the prison
sentences (to six years) for those who use social media to “incite organized
mob violence.”
“We don’t want flash mobs harming anyone,
anywhere, but especially where many people come from other states, other
countries,” Quinn said. Their promised crackdown never materialized. However,
that penalty enhancement is still in state law books.
Illinois has also had a statute on its books
since 1969 known as the Parental Responsibility Law. Parents and guardians can
be sued for “actual damages for the willful or malicious acts of such minor
which cause injury to a person or property.” Damages under 740 ILCS 115 are
recoverable up to $20,000. The law has only rarely been used.
Ed Yohnka at the Illinois ACLU told me that his
group was “not aware of a specific constitutional deficiency” with the law, and
said the courts “long have recognized that one can be held responsible for the
actions of others based on specific legal relationships, and recognized the
authority of state legislatures to make parents responsible for the torts of
their minor children.”
Yohnka did say that the law was “bad policy,”
partly because impoverished parents would be hurt the most. “Many of these
families are struggling to make ends meet in communities that lack services and
resources that help support strong families.”
The state and the city of Chicago also spend
millions of dollars a year, and plan to spend much more, on violence prevention
programs. In the past, violence interrupters have described being overwhelmed
by the sheer numbers of young people breaking the law during the flash mobs or
trends or whatever you want to call them. Last week, we barely heard from
anyone in that sector about how they helped during the weekend violence or how
they can help in the future if properly deployed.
In 2019, WBEZ actually went out and talked to
some of the kids who were causing some of the disruptions. The youths
understandably complained that parks and recreational facilities in their own
neighborhoods on the South and West Sides were decrepit. “There is usually
vandalism over the swings, over the slides, there is usually broken material …
there is trash and there is a lot of people soliciting,” according to Tyrianna
Rodgers, who was on a “girls-only afternoon” in downtown at the time. “It just
doesn’t look like the place where you would send your kids and say OK, ‘You
could chill here.’” Four years later, many of those facilities are still a
disgrace.
The public radio station also reported at the
time that Chicago police were bragging about their ability to monitor the
online organization of what are now called “trends,” which the station defined
as “large teen-led gatherings that are particularly popular among Black teens.”
Yet, CBS 2 reported last week that the Chicago PD had no clue how the mob
violence was organized. And credible reports have emerged since then about
police ignoring calls for assistance.
There are really two points here. The first is
that all those loud folks pretending that the violence is somehow a new and
mysterious thing and a fresh test for a mayor-elect who hasn’t even been sworn
in yet really ought to take a breath.
The second is that law enforcement and local
leaders have been given plenty of legal, investigatory and prevention tools
(and there are more than just those listed above) to address these issues, but
those leaders appear to be allowing those tools to just rust away in a drawer
somewhere.
Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Chicago, had it absolutely
right when he complained that nobody has a plan to deal with the violence and
that nobody has had a real plan since he was a teen.
“That has to change!” Rep. Buckner rightly
roared on social media.
Yes, it does. And it starts with the people in
authority doing their actual jobs.
This article appears in Field of dreams.
