Do Chicago Cops Shoot Too Many? Or Too Few?
A Black Criminal Lives Matter demonstration in NYC, by communists (International ANSWER, etc.) and supporters of violent criminals.
The Chicago Tribune has been running a series of thumbsuckers about the evil, vile, racist Chicago PD which is gunning down those few African-American choirboys that the choirboys themselves, with a shooting rate many times that of Five-Oh, haven’t bumped off yet.
It comes down, as badly reported media stories often do, to botched, misapplied, or (in this case) deceptively selected statistics.
The stat the Trib cares about (quoting Jack Dunphy, of, and from, whom, more anon):
435 police shootings that occurred in Chicago between 2010 and 2015… killing 92 people and wounding 170.
If we average the stats over the six years, that’s 73 shootings with 15 killed and 28 wounded (meaning what they’re really tracking is not shootings but shooting incidents. How can it be a shooting if the cops — or crims — don’t hit anybody?)
The stat the Trib doesn’t care about (quoting HeyJackass.com; the numbers will be higher tomorrow, or even later today):
2,888 shootings with 2,446 wounded, 442 shot dead, and an additional 442 killed without using guns,
And that’s just in 2016. To date. Against that, the Chicago law enforcement community (not just CPD)’s score that has the has shot 17 people: 11 wounded and 6 killed. The criminals, in turn, have wounded 8 cops (they haven’t killed any, answering the question, “Who shoots worse than the average cop?” Answer, thank a merciful God: “The average crook.”
The cops shoot mostly, the Trib bemoans, young black males. Of course, that’s who the young black males mostly shoot, too.
Meanwhile, when the cops do restrain themselves and don’t shoot the (almost always black) crumb that takes them under fire, like the Black Disciple gang member illustrated right, they get this, and better yet — from a guy who told the arresting officers, “Thank you for not shooting me”:
“Chicago Police shot at me first,” Kentrell Pledger, a reputed Black Disciple gang member, pleaded with Judge Adam Bourgeois Jr.
As sheriff’s deputies led Pledger away, his protests grew louder: “He shot at me first. So get your story straight, dog. And for that, I should have smoked his ass.”
Pledger then told Bourgeois, who is African-American, “You ain’t black, you’re white, b ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑.”
Anybody know what obscenity begins with “b” and has six letters? Or is it that Pledger and his fans in the media can’t spell?
Anyway, maybe Pledger was innocent. Uh…
A picture of Pledger holding the same weapon used in the shooting Monday in the 300 block of West 106th was posted on social media two hours earlier, Assistant State’s Attorney Guy Lisuzzo said.
Sure, courts work on a presumption of innocence, but everyone involved understands that it is a legalism, a fiction. Not being Judge Bourgeois, we can say what everybody, including the judge, Pledger, and Pledger’s public defender, know to an absolute certainty: he’s guilty.
Who should have smoked whom’s ass? But the Pledgers of the world are the particular pets and projects of the sort of people that dream of joining the Chicago Tribune and “changing the world.” To see what they would “change the world” to, Chicago is Exhibit A.
Comes Jack Dunphy (pseud.), an LA-area cop who’s a gifted writer on crime and punishment issues, and takes the Trib to the woodshed on the subject.
[D]o Chicago police officers really shoot too many people? One could make the case that they shoot too few, an assertion Nykea Aldridge’s loved ones might make. On Saturday afternoon, Aldridge, a cousin of Chicago Bulls guard Dwayne Wade, was pushing a stroller containing her infant daughter down Calumet Avenue when she was shot and killed. Two brothers, Darren and Darwin Sorrells, have been arrested and charged with her murder. To the surprise of exactly no one, both have lengthy arrest records and were on parole at the time of the killing.
Had some Chicago police officer spotted the Sorrells brothers in the moments before they made their fatal choice, had that cop killed them before they could kill Aldridge, today that officer would be vilified as a racist while the brothers were hailed as good fathers who were “getting their lives together,” and the local Black Lives Matter chapter would be mustering to shut down Michigan Avenue this weekend.
But Nykea Aldridge is just another name on a lengthening list of Chicago’s murder victims, noteworthy only for her relationship to a famous athlete. She will soon be forgotten by all but her family and friends – and the police officers and detectives who investigated her murder and will see it through what passes for a justice system in Chicago. Nothing to see here, Michigan Avenue will be open for business as usual this weekend.
There’s a key in that story as to why “gun violence” is so high in Chicago, where guns were, for decades, banned for normal non-criminal humans (and remain very hard to get — legally).
both … were on parole at the time of the killing
Why? Why does parole even exist? It’s simply a way for criminals to get back to crime sooner. 10-20-Life for felonies, no probation, no parole. Yes, more of these guilty crumbs will gum up the courts with forlorn-hope cases, and it will inconvenience lots of lawyers and judges. Or we can keep paroling them and reading the reports of their progress at HeyJackass.com.
18 thoughts on “Do Chicago Cops Shoot Too Many? Or Too Few?”
Kevin was a former Special Forces weapons man (MOS 18B, before the 18 series, 11B with Skill Qualification Indicator of S). His focus was on weapons: their history, effects and employment. He started WeaponsMan.com in 2011 and operated it until he passed away in 2017. His work is being preserved here at the request of his family.
Missing at least a close paren. Maybe even closing punctuation.
8 cops (they haven’t killed any, answering the question, “Who shoots worse than the average cop?” Answer, thank a merciful God: “The average crook.”
I’m not a huge fan of 10-20-Life in general, because the scope of “felony” is much too broad. It would have to be limited to violent crimes without mitigating circumstances (like obvious instigation, for example).
Still, 10-20-Life is a financial nonstarter. It’s not just about inconveniencing lawyers and judges. I’ve done the math with the best available figures, and it appears that the “legal system” (LE/attorney/judiciary/penal) is, taken as a whole, a $1T+ business. By some measures, bigger than the healthcare industry.
…and business is good.
You don’t want to kill good american businesses now do you? It is always appalling, when too much money is involved.
You need to see Bill Whittles latest “Firewall”
You forgot one part of the lives of the killers, and that is if the courts don’t release them on parole then Obama will.
” Do Chicago Cops Shoot Too Many? Or Too Few?”
A guy from chicongo i know will definitely answer too few. But then he is a Marine. That might influence his views. 😉
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-heckling-and-gunfire-as-police-investigate-shooting-we-re-just-playing-20160826-story.html
I don’t envy anyone who has to solve the real problems that are out there.
-John M.
What if we didn’t jail them but instead harvested organs. The quantity of removals would scale with the severity of the crime up to “all”.
There are plenty of little kids out there that would employ those livers, kidneys and corneas toward the betterment of the human race. We could even tack on the “it’s for the children” to get the heartstrings crowd behind the wagon. Or get their heartstrings.
Larry Niven used that concept in a number of his Sci-Fi stories.
Do you want to live in a world where CongressCritter Very-Old-Fart, ( or that annoying neighbor of yours across the street) can vote to harvest -you- for whatever it is you haven’t yet been caught?
Oops. Looks like you botched your taxes for 2002. The penalties and interest are going to cost you an arm and a leg.
Heinlein had his solution; Coventry. A walled off section of country. Toss them in, leave them in to sort it out for themselves. Be easy in Chicago, just wall off the south side. Already populated.
Singapore has a solution too. Take the pride out of those boys before hanging them. Seems it comes out of their ass in red stripes. One at a time.
Be interesting to ask for a count on how many of the 5 million NRA members were involved in cop shootings in the last 10 years as opposed to say…….. Obama’s sons. Then ask why they’re going after legal owners and not an established demographic.
Oh, we KNOW why they’re “going after legal owners” and it has NOTHING to do with logic, reason or causality.
I listened to a report on National Propaganda Radio about the violence in Chicago this afternoon. The interviewer asked a Chicago journalist if there was any common factors linking the killers. He had to think long and hard to come up with “they are young and they know each other”. It probably would have meant his job to say that they are almost all black. If young male blacks were being electrocuted at a rate 6 or seven times that of young white males would there be a call to revamp the electrical code or would we try to figure out what is the real cause?
You ain’t black, you’re white, b ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑.”
The missing word must be BRUTHA. It could not be anything else could it?
Without trying to be too conspiratorial this stems in part from political disenfranchisement of black political “leaders.” Rahm and his media cohort in league with the cat lady faction of the D party did a number on the black political leaders. So for awhile just coincidentally black kids dressed quite alike took their vibrancy to nicer areas of Chicago. All was well the media ignored it all till a sainted gay man got a whooping right in Boys Town, the media struck back and threatened to use the hate crime label against the black community. So this anarchy IMO is a last gasp gambit by a much despised community to garner political pull. So we get a lot of arm flapping and crocodile tears
This may be a definition of “good fathers” with which I’m unfamiliar; perhaps as in “prolific at fathering children”?
Some thing tells me Darwin (oh, the irony) & Darren aren’t reading Ted Geisel’s books to their young ‘uns, unless the book is “Horton Hires a ‘ho’”.
Too few. Seriously.
“Chicago Police shot at me first,”
The fact that this bag of shit thinks that this is a reasonable defense for his actions tells me all is lost in Chicago.
“”Sure, courts work on a presumption of innocence, but everyone involved understands that it is a legalism, a fiction. Not being Judge Bourgeois, we can say what everybody, including the judge, Pledger, and Pledger’s public defender, know to an absolute certainty: he’s guilty.
This may be true, but they will still allow a plea bargain and Pledger will plead guilty of some lesser offense than attempted murder of a Police Officer and a year or two down the line he will be out on Parole and do something equally horrendous as shooting a young Mother pushing a stroller.
The system isn’t working.
Incarceration for life….and even long lengths of time does not work – but is a Socialist orgasm of potential pandering of money. Some, obviously, have very little understanding of just how much money it takes to house, feed, clothe, doctor, bury one inmate. Times that just by California’s criminal inmate population. This country would be more cash strapped than Rwanda. And when we push for this type of solution for criminals – you justifiably get what you got, a shit ton of non violent petty ass douches who get tossed in, taking up the space and funding for legitimate violent criminals. Or, to use California again, the failure of their 3 Strikes Law in all it’s glory. The truth is violence begets violence so when someone commits a violent crime – the solution should be a projectile violently committed to that violent criminal thus ending any future possibility of violent crime from said criminal and a stern warning to any who may follow. Because threatening criminals with a home, clothing, medical and a decent funeral – ranks truly American in my opine. Which is, by the way, what we have done…given them their own little society to reign in all the while we, who do work and push the economic train, support them.