Shootings in the central police district of Chicago are up 220% from 2019 amid looting caused by riots and a rise in violent crime.
The first 10 months of 2021 have seen at least 77 people shot in the area, the most since 2016, according to a report. Seven were killed, and three died by other means.
“Do we just wear Kevlar vests at night?” asked Mel Jones, from the Clark and Division Collaborative. “Do we just watch businesses leave our community?”
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In total, the number of shooting victims in 2021 has more than tripled the total for 2019, according to the report.
The downtown area has reportedly seen a 35% increase in sexual assaults and a 51% increase in theft.
“Not only are we trying to deal with things that are happening downtown,” said John O’Malley, deputy mayor of public safety, “dealing with and having these same conversations and same meetings with community members all across the city, where some areas violence is a daily, if not hourly, concern.”
A theory why violence is rising in the city is that people have attempted to find sanctuary in Chicago’s most dangerous neighborhoods, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
“The violence has gotten so bad in our communities that those in the streets are moving to what they perceive to be safe areas to hang out,” Lance Williams, a professor of urban community studies at Northeastern Illinois University, said.
When people are downtown, they are more likely to be the target of violent crime, or engage in it, because of the perception that individuals there are not as likely to fight back or carry a weapon, he said.
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“The mentality in the streets is that it’s too dangerous to do crime in these communities because the reaction is immediate,” Williams said. “People don’t depend on the police. People protect themselves. Every man has to have a gun. It’s a Wild West mentality.”
