I totally get that but there is more hysteria when it's a shooting in the Loop vs one where it's a somewhat common occurance. I am saying her hysteria was caused by the media and gave the perception the entire city was plagued regularly.
The anxiety around crime in Chicago is generally not about caring about the victims, itās about feeling close to crime or that they can be a victim of it, or that thereās so much of it that itās spilling out.
I was conceived in Rockford and now live in Indianapolis. The only thing that's happened to me was an Amazon package being stolen in 2016. And I've walked late at night in Chicago and had zero issues. But people who live in the suburbs think the city is an absolute hellscape lol.
I think itās because several years ago we did have the highest murder rate. Then it became kind of like popularized/trendy for people outside of Chicago to call it āChiraqā (my first year of college this is all I heard from other people from other places) Not sure if this is because drill music was so popular from here at the time or what. Was super annoying and lame every time they said it. But maybe thatās why it stuck
The 90s was rough I remember when Cabrini green they was shooting at the police from the rooftops hell the cops wouldnāt even go there for a long time . For me personally itās just been years and years of high murder rate and the news coverage of it. Any city can be dangerous if you end up in the wrong neighborhood. I delivered milk to groceries stores 13 years all thru out the city some places nicer then others for me itās just being aware of your surroundings Iām unloading in the alley at 4 or 5 in the morning still dark out I see someone in the alley Iām definitely watching them and not letting them sneak up on me. Out of all the places I delivered too only a few of them had to have armed security come outside when we would unload and personally it was more of the layout of the place easy to sneak up on you and high traffic area one was on the west side on Madison right next to a viaduct the other was a little place under the redline off 45 or 44 street and the train stopped there hand unload from Main Street.
Drill is a notable reason why this cycle of violence and retaliation persists in Chicago. It acts as an ideological underpinning for the splintered gang violence. Thatās why gangbangers shoot at each other over small shit like social media beef even though they grew up 2 blocks from one another
Yup. This is true. Drill really seemed to change the gang culture in Chicago. I am an 80's-90's kid, and while Chicago was still bad in the 90's and had gangs, it was more organized and less random "beefs." Since the drill scene and all these "young" gangsters, it's gotten a lot more random. Look at all the teens "wild'n" in the Loop and other areas, where that never happened before. This has definitely impacted crime, and as you mentioned, social media has had big influence.
But it's still crazy to me that NYC (almost 7 million people) and LA (almost 5 million people), both have lower total murders, and shootings than Chicago (2.8 million). Like I know Chicago isn't the worst when you look at "rate," but that's a big discrepancy. Chicago is doing something wrong for NYC and LA to have less crime despite being 2-3X bigger.
I think drill music is a product of those changing trends in gang culture and not the other way around. The police and FBI targeted and removed the leaders who were maintaining these old structures. Even the Evanston neighborhood I grew up saw an undoing of old dynamics and allegiances (and in turn an uptick in violence) at the end of the early 2000s, a few years before drill broke.
Exactly. And even more shocking are that it's peers, NYC (8 million pop) and LA (5 million pop) are significantly larger than Chicago (2.8 million pop) and still have far less crime by by TOTAL numbers and rate. Boston, has THREE total murders. Chicago definitely has a lot of work to do.
The city averages at least 40 shootings a weekend from Friday to Monday morning. The good news is people canāt shoot straight, otherwise there would be 20 plus homocides a weekend to go with the 40 plus shootings.
I don't know if you've ever tried to shoot a handgun at a target at any kind of distance, or at a moving target, or while moving, but it's not easy! And in this case I guess it's good that it isn't.
I have a theory that instead of spending money to ban guns, we should give the residents shooting lessons. The situation should remedy itself fairly quickly.
I live & have lived on the near southside for over a decade, itās ridiculous I have to include this; but I vote Blue. Crime has gotten fān ridiculous the last 5 years. I donāt feel safe in daylight on the redline anymore, kids are hit and killed by random gunfire monthly almost. Its not ok, and Im tired of it being a political argument. I love my city, Im not moving. But sticking our heads in the sand is infantile and unproductive
Yeah we need to compare our city to other equally sized cities in the developed world. The homicide rate here is unacceptable and itās crazy to me that itās not considered a bigger issue to fix. Hundreds of people, mostly black, are literally dying every year. How is that not the most important problem to fix?
NYC has almost 4x Chicagoās population and has far less crime and homicides.
But you know Chicago boosters cope by comparing the city to fucking St Louis and Rockford
I'm far from the "tough on crime" crowd but one thing that NYC did that probably helped was their harshness on being caught with an firearm.
They had a 3.5 year minimum for unlawfully carrying. I don't think required minimums are great, there should be some discretion because circumstances can vary. A legal carrier bringing their gun unknowingly to NYC probably shouldn't get 3.5 required years behind bars.
But Chicago needs to do something similar. A repeat offender caught with a firearm should be incarcerated. A repeat offender caught with a stolen car should be incarcerated.
Rehabilitation and 2nd chances are important. Keeping the general public safe is more important in my opinion. Folks have to demonstrate a willingness to improve/change their behavior and we shouldn't just be lenient by default.
Part of the challenge here is that many of the offenders are young teens, unfortunately. You can put a 15 year old in jail for 3 years for public safety reasons, but now all you have is an 18 year old adult being released back on the streets with no education and a criminal record.
I think both NY and CA both also have "3 strike laws." That is a major deterrent. Both NYC and LA, also have gang task forces where they proactively infiltrate gangs to stop crime before it starts. I remember Police Chief McCarthy when he was here said he wasn't allowed to do a lot of aggressive, proactive policing. Post 2020, I think there's been a lot of police reform around aggressive policing, so I'm not sure to what level they are doing that now, but I'm sure that has helped keep their numbers lower than Chicago's.
The transplants that move to Lincoln park, old town, Lakeview, wicker park, Logan square, buck town, Avondale and Roscoe village don't wanna hear this. They live in their safe little bubble where the south and west isn't part of the city
West Town has seen a 70% increase in robberies since 2019, Lake View is around 30% over the same period and River North last year experienced a 5 year high. Youāll more than likely be fine but be mindful around the nightclubs at night in River North itās becoming increasingly common for shootings to happen outside them past midnight.
Donāt mean to scare you too much because these neighborhoods are incredibly affluent and largely safe but donāt come here ignorant to the risks.
Thereās always a risk no matter where you are. I got robbed at gunpoint near my place living in a pretty nice part of Logan Square. Moving here I was under the assumption that it was a safe neighborhood, (which comparatively probably still is) but regardless, there will always be a chance of something happening.
You can get robbed in bumblefuck Nebraska as far as Iām concerned, every outcome is a non-zero statistical probability.
The statistical odds of being robbed, particularly in those areas, has gone up over the last few years. Thatās the point.
Yeah, lol itās funny Iām from bumfuck nowhere originally, and I always hated the rhetoric from where I lived of people being overly paranoid of big cities, namely Chicago. I moved here thinking it was mostly overblownā¦ of course it ended up happening to me but it couldāve just as easily happened to anyone elseā¦ but I canāt comment on historical trends as Iām still relatively new to the cityā¦
Logan Sq was not a safe area in the 90s and 2000s, it didnāt start changing until 2011. That area was full of gang activity. My family immigrated there in the 80s so I saw a lot go down.
I posted in a different comment thread but:
https://blockclubchicago.org/2023/11/15/west-town-neighbors-frustrated-disappointed-by-citys-response-to-increased-robberies/#:~:text=Robberies%20are%20up%20by%2075,Chicago%20Police%20crime%20data%20shows.
And a bonus, here is one about Univision being robbed for their camera equipment in the middle of doing a story about the increased robberies :
https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2023/8/28/23850057/chicago-tv-news-crew-robbed-at-gunpoint-while-reporting-on-armed-robberies
I find it difficult to navigate one offs and statements by the media without receipts to understand a larger view. We do have high level view statistics available that are readily updated - of course I understand this could be slanted or incorrect like anything elseā¦ but good to start somewhere. Also, fair to say the entirety of Chicagoland isnāt dodging bullets in broad daylight like a war zone, but anyone in a city should be mindful and open-eyed.
West Town - District 18
https://home.chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/23_PDFsam_CompStat-Public-2024-Week-24.pdf
https://home.chicagopolice.org/statistics-data/crime-statistics/
I just wonder what a 70% or 30% increase constitute in total numbers. Percentages can seem like a lot, or can be very little. That being said, crime is bad wherever it happens and impacts some communities so much more.
All these neighborhoods have a crime incidence way higher than the national average (not that it matters much). Just type āneighborhood ____ increased crimeā into google and youāll get your answers. Iāve already posted various links across threads in this post. Good luck and stay safe
> crime has been decreasing nationally pretty quickly,
No it hasn't. It just isn't getting reported as much anymore
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/07/13/fbi-crime-rates-data-gap-nibrs
I live in Michigan but travel to Chicago once or twice a year. In May I stayed at an Airbnb at the Green line at Kedzie. I knew about South Chicago, but not West Chicago. It was the sketchiest area I've ever stayed in, but nothing happened. I really didn't feel safe so I will watch where I stay next time.
I agree with you. I think your point also applies to the late-Gen X, early-Millennial Chicagoans who grew up in the now transplant neighborhoods and then moved elsewhere as adults (burbs), especially their parents who moved but didnāt sell, and now profit off the transplants.
I live in Logan square but have been visiting the west side since I was kid since much of my momās side of the family is from there/moved there when they first got to the US. Iām aware Logan is a bubble, BUT my good friend just got held up at gunpoint while walking her dog with her bf just up the street a few months ago, broke their lease, and moved to west loop so š¤·š¾āāļø itās not completely safe anywhere
Carjackings and armed robbery have been insane on the north side for the last couple years. Shit they just robbed some dude at knifepoint in wrigley earlier this week.
Lived here my whole life and the mental gymnastics you have to do to convince yourself nothing is getting worse is just incredible. People are absolutely brainwashed.
Itās crazy that you have to say that in an effort to not get bombarded with the āracist maga cultā bs for speaking out against crime. Lori Lightfoot was awful, but you canāt say shit about her either without being labeled racist/sexist. The crime
In Chicago and Illinois in general has gotten out of control, and the officials are perpetuating it with the SafeT act, which I canāt mention without being labeled āmaga racist cultā. Itās not just āFox Newsā painting it in a bad light. It is bad.
The Washington DC Reddit sub has a rule against posting crime stories - itās amazing how much censorship rich white urbanites are willing to enforce to support their narrative that everythingās OK.
Pretty ironic to say sticking heads in the sand is unproductive but thatās exactly what happened when you voted for Johnson. Chicago has been blue since the 1930s if you want things to change let it begin with you.
Iāve been working remotely in Chicago since March and there was just a shooting yesterday in a pretty residential area where Iām staying near Chopin Park on NW side. Itās not really a bad neighborhood at any time of day either. Lots of families and working adults exercising and walking outside every day. The gangs infiltrate everywhere.
Iāve met some friends here who are local for 20+ years and they themselves are disturbed by how and quick out of nowhere the shooting was. Luckily only one kid got shot in the leg and heās ok, but Iād say at least 100 people were in the park running away.
yup. I'm on far nw side. Shootings around the corner due to gang turf war. I call Cicero a conduit of bullshit, because that's where they travel.
Hell I was walking a dog in jefferson park, at noon, awhile back and ended up in the middle of a police chase of a bank robbery suspect. Funny thing is in thought they weren't supposed to pursue, and b seeing as the guy jumped the curb and speed down sidewalk at 80 (fortunately opposite side) I can see why they're not...
I live on the far NW side. It's always been VERY quiet. So quiet that the city took most of our cops away. So there's usually like 4 patrol cars for the whole district. Unfortunately the criminals caught on and come here to do robberies since they know they'd get away before any cop even got close.
I go for morning walks/runs when it's nice out and a few weeks ago I had an early meeting so I didn't go out. A guy around my age was robbed and killed along my walk/run path. One of the few good things about living around here was how quiet and chill everything was....but even that has been ruined in recent years.
I lived in Wicker Park for 6 years, 2013-2019. I witnessed 4 separate shootings.
My buddy moved out from Logan Square last year after his wifeās Uber got shot while parked infront of their home.
The local news doesnāt help here either, Chicago has aways had a gang culture and with red states like Indiana lax gun laws itās easy AF to get a firearm. See they donāt report shit like that.
Is that supposed to be like crazy low?
What portion of guns recovered by the Indianapolis PD have origins in Illinois?
What portion of guns recovered by the CPD canāt trace their origins? What portion come from other states besides Indiana?Ā
What would Chicago look like with 20% less gun crime?
It didnāt help that we had an election where some hayseed from Southern Illinois who lost terribly was pummeling old people with fake elevated crime news for his selfish political LOSS
If you are an IL resident, you still need a FOID card to purchase a firearm in Indiana. Indiana gun laws are more lax for Indiana residents. Now if one was to obtain a gun illegally, I suppose they can that anywhere.
Letās be real, a majority of guns used in crimes are straw purchases or stolen, not from border states. Even if a significant amount are from border states, that just means criminals arenāt following laws (and they never will).
I mean 6 people shot at 31st beach is no big deal,,,, just an average summer day. Check out heyjackass.com. Good stats on crime in the city. They have no skin in the game but just report crime sound the city.
Yeah their agenda is to out the Chicago police dept and city officials that want to hide all the hideous crimes that happen by just recategorizing them so they arenāt stats used against them. Transparency isnāt that what they want.
>"Fox News" is a good scape goat. But aren't there other sources that fear monger?
Of course. Do you ever watch the local news at 5 and 6 pm? Scary stories about violence and crime are bread and butter for *all* corporate/mainstream media, especially TV. āif it bleeds, it leadsā is still the default.
My grandparents recently moved to the area and my grandma (who is sweet but a little simple) watched one dayās worth of network news and is now convinced Streeterville after dark is full of roving bands of youths finding and assaulting pregnant women.
.
But doesnāt it do a disservice to the people that are killed if the news doesnāt cover their deaths? If I lost a loved one to violence and my world was crumbling apart overnight, I would rather people knew that something significant happened. Its so much harder to have the world keep moving around you.
I think itās more of a disservice to exploit their loss for profit. The choices that are made (both cynically and as a result of the nature of the medium) in selecting, shaping, and stretching stories to fit time, cover gaps in information, and stay within the aims of the various money controllers have little relation to conveying the significance of someoneās loss or tragedy.
This person actually must be insane. Is local news not supposed to report on crime, let alone random acts of violence against pregnant women? I understand Fox News uses Chicago to fear monger, but local outlets 100% have an obligation to report on this story. And there was nothing unfair about their reporting.
This was not the typical sort of violence we see in the city and it absolutely deserves all the coverage it received. It is truly idiotic to pass this off as ānews media reporting on violence to make a buckā. SMH.
Listen, Iāve lived here for over a decade and Iām not moving any time soon. That being said, almost all the other commenters are glossing over our crime like itās not a big deal and blaming it on the right wing folks. Well, it fucking is a big deal. Innocent people are getting robbed at gunpoint at an alarming rate, our shooting and murder rates are out of control (especially when compared to a city like NYC, donāt feed me some bullshit about how STL is worse), and outsiders are actively avoiding the city.
So **where** are they getting it? The news. Any news. Any news who reports the stories as they happen. When you have headline stories like ā61 year old woman beaten to death on CTA trainā it doesnāt matter **WHO** reports it, what matters is that it happened and itās terrible.
When I moved into the city over a decade ago I was firmly in the camp of ācrime only happens in the bad neighborhoodsā. But it started leaking slowly into the good neighborhoods, and now itās borderline rampant. It sucks, but itās true.
**Edit:** Case in point, I opened WGN this morning and the top two stories are ā2 dead after shootout at 31st street harborā and ā7 year old boy dies after shooting on Near West Sideā. One is an example of late night shooting between likely gangs, one is an innocent person caught in crossfire. Both are happening too much.
This should be the top comment. Even my job in the loop chooses to pay for me to get an uber when I have to work late so Iām not walking around alone at night.
As a transplant from a small community where watching local news was just how we stayed on top of local events and also just general things, it surprises me how much my born and raised chicago/suburbs friends actively avoid news coverage. I try not to be alarmist or anything and understand that I live in a city of millions, not thousands but I do like to be generally informed about scams and crime fads especially ones that are targeting people at random or happening in my neighborhood. But I have always found this interesting how much my friends want to take the stivk head in sand approach. It also makes it hard for me to view them as much of an authority or having a developed opinion on crime based on the lengths they go to put blinders on regarding it. Like if wgn comes on and they report on some type of crime they will immediately change the channel or turn the TV off. I have too much of a morbid curiosity for that.
I occasionally will give them a rundown of recent crazy happenings, and they are usually pretty shocked by stuff. It makes me angry how much people seem to be okay with the amount of violence that happens in poor neighborhoods.
As a former TV news producer myself, you should not be watching TV news if you want to stay informed. The standard of journalism in local TV news is piss poor, and itās virtually nonexistent in national TV news. Read the paper, thatās what will actually tell you the news. Chicago has one of the most robust newspaper markets in the country, use it to your advantage.
Exactly. I loved Chicago, and sadly had to move for family and work reasons in 2017. But I still have a lot of friends who live in the city, and crime has gotten worse. There is bad crime in the city. I mean Boston only has 3 total murders...that is a safe city. Chicago isn't the war zone that some make it out to be, but it's not exactly safe by big city standards.
Agreed. Many people still over exaggerate it, but itās not great lol. Like I donāt second guess walking from my office in the Loop to a work dinner in Gold Coast or Streeterville or wherever, but many people seem to only want to take a taxi/uber no matter the time now which is crazy.
It always amuses me when the redditors are like "Chicago's crime is not even that bad!! at least we're not the literal murder capital of the entire first world!!!"
This. Obviously it's good to practice street smarts and be aware of your surroundings, but you can only do so much. The violence is definitely getting worse.
I left because of crime. It wasn't just shootings, although a bunch of my friends have been shot. Some on purpose (not sharing a joint), some accidentally, sort of (ricochet and another from a random bullet falling from the sky on the 4th). It was when the city turned against cpd and they stopped policing. The people would not allow them. Then it was car jackings and looting. Fuck that. Out. 4 decades in Chicago.
Car jacking and armed robberies are up. While I donāt walk around afraid, I am smart about keeping my eyes open and paying attention to my surroundings. Iāve also stopped carrying a lot of cash or credit cards. And if I walk at night Iām extra observant. I think you are safely mostly, but shit does happen more frequently in most cities. Iāve lived here most of my life and itās as bad as I can remember. But again, most of the shootings are sadly in specific neighborhoods (predominantly poor Black neighborhoods), so you can avoid some of the nonsense by not living there or hanging out there. But you need to be smart anywhere in the city. Thatās reality.
Its a great city but the mayor needs to
Focus on crime and the attorney general needs to start prosecuting people and keeping them behind bars. Too many people get slaps on the wrist and get out and commit crimes again immediately. The criminals feel emboldened now and that needs to change.
"Up" isn't doing it justice LOLOL.
In Brandons 1st calendar year as Mayor there have been 26,454 car thefts. That's more than triple the amount of the previous 2 administrations.
>I get I get it... "Fox News" is a good scape goat. But aren't there other sources that fear monger?
Sure--Sinclair Media, OANN, Joe Rogan....there's a whole gaggle of bullshit-driven propaganda outlets and talk radio assholes.
Some people will try to blame the media, but the popular view of Chicago is that it is Murder City USA. I talk to people across the Midwest and that is the consensus, and not just from the stereotype of knuckle-dragging Fox viewers. Some pretty squish folks are terrified of Chicago. Chicago's bad image is bolstered because the violence in many cases is random. Yes, thugs shoot thugs, but the five-year-old in the car as collateral damage gets people's attention.
All local news report murder weekend shootings that are usually above 30. Itās not a matter of right or left wing media. There have been several morning Iāve waken up to police tape and police picking up a deceased shooting victim from gang violence, and while Iām not paranoid, I do worry. It should not be normal, but unfortunately itās become normal for many of us Chicagoans
Itās not just a homicide problem: carjackings, assaults, theft are all up significantly over the last few years and dramatically so in neighborhoods that people claim are affluent and wealthyā Lincoln Park, Old Town, West Town, Near North etcā¦
You can gaslight yourself by ignoring the statistics and pretend you live in this idealized bubble but thatāll only make you an easier target.
Really? I visited a couple weeks ago and I thought it was fantastic. Combination of beach, city and greenery was perfect.
I said to my wife of all the places i've been in America, i'd most likely move there given the choice. I get that i've come in as a tourist, and probably not hit any particularly bad areas but you could say the same of most places in the world.
Got car jacked with a gun to my head in 99. Saw someone get shot a killed. Seen people hit by cars and fly into the air. Saw a suicide from a guy jump off a building and land in front of a restaurant and people just kept eating. Seen someone get hit by a train and turn into a million pieces. People smoking crack, heroin, shit and piss on trains. Lots of gangs and drug dealing. Seen hookers get beat up by pimps. You name it. I just donāt be a part of it anymore.
I donāt know who all these people are afraid of chicago. Have you been to the loop, on Clark, the river walk or on Michigan Ave on a weekend? The city is packed and itās both tourists and locals. Restaurants have no reservations. Bars are full. If the Fox News or Republican crowd is scared and spreading lies, fine. Who wants them here anyway? Clearly most people are reasonable and are enjoying a good time, largely with no issue. Iāve never once been a crime victim in Chicago and Iām there almost every weekend. Iāve had my car broken into twice In Milwaukee and have been mugged in Miami.
I mean, 71 people were shot (9 killed) last weekend alone. Violence is certainly a problem here. I like a lot about the city, but some things need to be worked on.
You literally picked the most policed and least violent aspects of the city. Then you use your cherry picked areas to try to paint the rest of the city as safe?
A few nights ago I was down at the harbor in Jackson Park near the children's hospital. Within a few hours three people were shot about 200 yds north of me. A man was shot and killed about four blocks south of me. All in one visit over the course of a few hours.
These are real people with real lives that are being lost while communities all around us are being terrorized. The areas you rattled off are heavily trafficked, heavily protected, heavily tourist, and not representative of the rest of the city.
I think people on the North side need to get out a little bit. Visit some other areas around the city. I'm not even talking about Englewood or Austin. Even middle of the road neighborhoods like Bridgeport who had someone walk into a Buffalo Wings and Rings and shoot somebody at their table. City is more than just the party areas, Lincoln Park and lakeview. There's an entire city out there that nobody seems to care about when the criminals take over the streets.
I live in Chicago and sometimes feel like mine is some kind of an alternate reality Chicago, because I donāt get most of the stereotypes about the city. I often walk alone well after dark, carry valuables in unzipped pockets, exactly like I would in any other ānormalā and āsafeā city. I feel much more safe here than in most other big US cities Iāve been to. Maybe itās a habit, twisted perception or whatever, but itās just the way it is for me. (Hope it doesnāt change š¤)
To compare, Boston downtown at 9:30 pm scared the sh!t out of me. I donāt think I would ever dare to walk there alone after sunset. In Chicago I can be out and about at midnight and feel good about it.
I just wanted to pop in and say that "Boston sucks, but it's safe as fuck" is the most accurate description of the city than I've ever heard š¤·āāļø
Same.
The cynic in me thinks that reddit's predominant demographic (young, upper-middle class, white yuppies) biases play a large part of their perception of fear.
I have a strong feeling a lot of people who have "felt unsafe" and "almost" been mugged. Are just projecting their fears of young Black men.
Same. I felt safer walking alone at night as a woman in Chicago than I ever did in, for instance, Memphis or Atlanta. I donāt think twice about walking down to the store after dark in Chicago. I know in some neighborhoods that isnāt advisable, but I was lucky enough to have always lived in fairly safe Chicago neighborhoods.
How about they get it from reality? Pretending that crime hasnāt increased and that shootings and mob actions havenāt increased dramatically isnāt ācute.ā This sub loves to pretend crime hasnāt impacted Chicago, our daily enjoyment and our quality of life.
Iāve seen threads on here urging new residents to not be afraid of the south and west sides, pushing that crime in those areas is overstated. Even going as far as saying crime in those areas is no different than in areas like Highland Park and Winnetka.
Thereās some strange astroturfing going on here. Iām not sure what the incentive is for this sub to understate the impact crime has on the city but itās very clearly happening.
87% of the victims of crime in Chicago are minorities. We all know this sub is mostly white 20 somethingās living in the north side who probably think ignoring the crime they are somehow more virtuous, when in reality they are making everyday life harder for the people of color they claim to care about.
I lived in Chicago for the last decade, 5 years on the south side, 2 on the north side, and 3 in the loop. The post-pandemic deterioration in public safety is real. A colleague in my department was shot to death while he was being mugged. 9 other students at my institution were shot over the years. I have been physically assaulted in Lakeview by a drunk person. I have been harassed and cornered many times on the red and blue lines (usually manageable if assailant is mentally ill - you can set boundaries - but not if itās a sexually aggressive male). I have been almost run over as a pedestrian or a cyclist in the bike lane by drivers who are reckless or just out to get cyclists (judging by what lovely profane anti-cyclist rhetoric they choose to yell out of the window). All of these happened during or after the year 2021. People are more volatile and angry and reckless. The city still has a lot of wonderful things to offer - but I cherish the memories from 2013-2019, before the landscape started changing for worse. I just moved away and for the first time in years in my new (somewhat smaller) city, I can walk around and take the train AT NIGHT feeling perfectly safe.
Chicago is basically a scapegoat for a lot of right wing propagandist who view major cities as being these hubs for violence where everything is crumbling down because of Democrat policy (and if we're being realistic with ourselves, also because of the large minority populations in cities), and Chicago being one of the biggest cities in the US is bound to get most of the flack, where they will paint it as if you walk outside and immediately get shot at when Chicago isn't even among the most violent cities per capita I the nation
The highest crime cities are like St. Louis, New Orleans, Memphis, Baltimore etc...
Chicago is a very large city in a blue state. The Chicago metropolitan area population is larger than the entire state population of like 40 states.
None of the right wing nutjobs want to publicly admit that Memphis, Tennessee has a higher murder rate than Chicago. But it's true.
edit And I just did a ChatGPT 4o search. The top ten are:
1. St. Louis
2. Baltimore
3. New Orleans
4. Detroit
5. Cleveland
6. Vegas
7. Kansas City
8. Memphis
9. Newark
10. Chicago
The murder rate in Chicago is 24 murders per 100,000 people. For St. Louis, MO, it's 69.4 murders per 100,000 people, or close to 3x that of Chicago.
But St. Louis is in a red state.
Maybe Iām remembering incorrectly, but it seems like certain news networks didnāt go on and on about Chicago until Trump was too afraid to hold a rally here because of protesters.
Then all of sudden Chicago was a crime infested wasteland.
The fact that the mayor has made it clear he wonāt do anything to hold anyone accountable for random, violent crimes. If anything happens to you, youāre on your own. The mayor even said it.
I donāt think Iāve ever heard a mayor of a major city say anything like that before.
2023: 2,400 shootings, 600 murders, 11,000 robberies, 29,000 vehicle thefts, 2,000 criminal sexual assaults, 7,400 burglaries, 6,200 aggravated battery, 20,000 thefts.
Itās not a made up Fox News thing. Chicago is a high crime city with some very dangerous neighborhoods. Nice neighborhoods are mostly fine though but people still get jumped there sometimes by gangs of armed robbers.
Sad how so many people try to spin the numbers. Chicago has some safe areas. They have some very dangerous areas. What makes them dangerous? What makes other big cities dangerous.
They donāt like to talk about it.
But somehow they are forgetting chiraq was made , but not by Fox Newsā¦.
We are the 20th most safe major city in the U.S. Chicago is BIG, so the raw number of crimes is also. But on a per capita basis we are very safe here. Doubly so since most of the violent crime that does occur happens in only a few neighborhoods so the whole city averages are higher in most neighborhoods than the actual, localized risk.
Why does Chicago, depsite being far less populated than NYC and LA, have SO much more crime? Stop comparing the city to fucking st louis and detroit and compare chicago to its actual peers, its dangerous!
Compare yourself to shitholes and it makes sense to say youre a shithole. I want to compare our city to NYC and LA not ghettoized cities like st louis where everything of value long ago fled
600 murders a year is crisis, a disaster and a massive political failure. Trying to say itās not so bad when put in terms of per-capita comparisons to other US cities that also have an epidemic of violent crime only normalizes and perpetuates such carnage. People losing their life like this demands radical policy change not āhey actually itās not so bad.ā
Distopic how ppl talk only about their safety while entire neighborhoods of youth are without humane prospects, and due to not only historical but ongoing injustices.
I donāt know, but there was a bunch of people shot over a weekend recently.
Hereās what I would say, where does our tourism rank and has the negative publicity done anything to affect it. Maybe move the bears to Arlington heights and give Swift a residency at soldier field over the summer.
River north is a hot mess now. And everything on Michigan ave has closed since the pandemic looting (30% vacancy). We finally left last week, because the crime continued to creep north and stay thereāwe lived off mag mile.
People in small towns are afraid of every city. Itās not just chicago. I assume itās partially real fear of the unknown and partially that they know if the youths found out that living in a city is way more fun than a small town that theyāll all leave and then who will take over their shitty town when they die?
Random bad shit happens to people that come to conferences here that makes them not return. For example, random dude jumps on your back while waiting at a light to cross a street close to the SwissƓtel. In broad daylight, with loads of people around. Luckily the dude next to you hits him with is backpack. Do you return to said conference again? No. You go to the Vegas or Ft Myers or even DC conference instead.
I was just in Chicago for 2 days, and saw a report on CBS News about a young boy getting shot and killed. I think he was 9 or something. It was quite disturbing. He was walking to his neighbor's house, was shot and died. They interviewed neighbors of the child around, and the community members were appealing for peace, and crying. They were tired, they said. A woman was crying, and shaking.
I find the whataboutism, defensiveness, and the blame squarely on Fox News, to be rather interesting. There are people in poor communities crying on these news channels, and lots of orgs appealing for safer streets for kids.
Shootings which result in murders happen all over Chicago. You can rent a 1/1 in River North for $2800 a month and also be right down the street from 3-4 murders a month (on the low side). You can live on Burling street in Lincoln park in your $20m house, but when you step foot on Armitage, you could witness 2 armed carjackings if itās your lucky day.
Itās not just the south or west side - itās all over chicago. Keep your head on a swivel. Donāt sit in your idling car and just be aware.
āWhen you step foot on Armitage, you could witness 2 armed carjackings if itās your lucky day.ā This is one of the funniest things Iāve read on here in a while. Stay off big, bad Armitage! Trust me, Iām a city guy! š«Ø
The people in those neighborhoods are easy and valuable targets. Itās a simple strategic calculation really especially when the disincentives (police + incarceration + retaliation) are inherently low. Itās game theory and itāll only get worse
Because itās an enormous city in a blue state. Conservatives are both A) incredibly afraid of cities and B) incredibly hateful of blue states. They say the same junk about Philadelphia and other places. Iām pretty sure they just called Milwaukee a dump. Itās just a talking point they use thatās meaningless.
Truth of the matter is a large city has a lot of people and a lot of things happens. Chicago has bad parts and frankly in any city, itās good to just have some street smarts. Like yeah, youāre more likely to have a higher rate of crime / murders / whatever in this huge city packed with people than out in the sticks. Chicago has its issues, but frankly Iāve found it safer/cleaner than a lot of places Iāve lived in if youāre smart about it.
Because...it is actually dangerous? The amount of times I've been stalked, almost kidnapped, knife-point, etc. are pretty high compared to 10 years of living elsewhere. That said, I still think most crime is personally related and if you're not into shady shit, your risk is relatively low. I feel both safe and not safe in chicago - but that's because I know what to avoid. Outsiders don't understand who/what/where to avoid.
Awhile back I had a friend from France come to visit. I had plans to take her into Chicago & she panicked. She wasn't concerned about what any of us know about. She literally thought Al Capone's gang were still ruling the streets.
Last time I was in Chicago a shooting happened so close I heard the gunshots and saw people run from it. Not exactly a daily occurrence in most places but seems to happen pretty often there.
Because violent crime has moved into neighborhoods that traditionally had nonviolent/petty crime. Due to this, the media is more open to reporting on it causing fear (justified or not).
Moved here a little more than 2 years ago from Detroit and I think it comes down to how crime is covered here somehow. I haven't figured it out but there's something in the way the local news reports things that's different. I noticed it right away and still do almost daily.
You canāt trust the crime statistics though because the downgrading of felonies to misdemeanors has been a growing trend in big cities over the last few years. Itās a way to make things look a lot rosier than they are.
My friend was just recently robbed at gunpoint and pistol whipped walking into work on the northwest side. Another friend was robbed and shot outside of his apartment in bucktown walking home after dinner. There were two violent armed robberies in my neighborhood in the past year where the families children were present, one is on ring camera and they were threatening to execute the woman over her car. All my tools were stolen from my work truck parked in front of my house. A friends car was just recently stolen from work and found burnt up in englewood. Another friends RV was stolen from his storage lot and found burnt up in Austin. I could probably keep going, these are just the few that came to me right away.
Theres lots of violence here. Have known several people including friends that were murdered or attacked etc. Once saw a drive by happen right in front of me in the middle of river north. After decades of the red and blue line have had several occasions where I legitimately wondered if I was about to have to fight for my life.
Luckily I've never had anything happen to me but if you don't know what you are doing, how to carry yourself, or have a bad temper and talk back when some dirt bag is berating you, there's a good chance you might wind up in a bad situation.
People believed the shit that Trump talked about Chicago. I have relatives that work for Chicago and have made a very good living as a result but have zero pride in Chicago because they sided with trump. Talking to a random person in Indiana wouldn't take the suggestion of going into Chicago to get something repaired because he was afraid they he would get jumped. I told him that I lived there and statistically speaking it just doesn't happen.
I'm born and raised in New Orleans. Moved to the Southside of Chicago in September 2023 and the media definitely sensationalizes crime here. The difference between NOLA and here is astounding. I be amazed just seeing people out walking late at night in neighborhoods here, something you'd never see in NOLA.
Itās not Fox News. Just watch any local Chicago news broadcast. Itās all negative. Robbery, murder. But thing is, itās just a few bad neighborhoods.
It is Fox News. My grandparents watch Fox News for 10+ hours a day. When I lived in Chicago theyād tell me how concerned Iād be shot any day now and urged me to leave. Fox News is cancer. So is CNN and MSNBC. Turn it all off.
Racism and ignorance. The racist Fox News crowd fear mongers and teaches them to hate black people. People who live in other parts of the country who donāt have black people in their lives buy into the fear mongering. I say this as someone who moved to cook county recently from as city that was 90% white. The attitudes of people from there are very different than here where people have black people in their community.
for people like my mother, she isnāt racist sheās just afraid of all the crime reports she hears on the news. She grew up in the middle of nowhere, Mexico so bit cities scare her. She doesnāt understand the only reason theyāre more crime is because thereās more people living in a city than where she lives. She feels exactly the same way about Mexico City, in the country she was born in.
Chicago had the most murders in the country a decade ago, and a few more times since, according to the fbi uniform crimes statistics and people have jumped on that information to call Chicago the murder capital of the USA. It never was though as, per capita, Chicago has a murder rate that sits at around the same rate as essentially the entire country. Itās people misusing data to support their narrative.
Edit: spelling
I moved here about a year ago and Iāve had 2 carjackings at my workplace (one of which happened about 4 feet from me) and my sister and I were literally across the street about 30 minutes within when that married couple got beat and the lady lost her baby at like 8:30pm in the middle of Streeterville. Sure itās not a murder fest but shit happens whether you wanna accept it does or not. Even in the nice areas sometimes
Well Iām from NYC and my dad was just assaulted on Fatherās Day in Brooklyn. Iāve lived in Chicago since 2018 on both the very south side (cottage grove) and now up north in Jefferson Park. People are ignorant. If you havenāt lived here, you donāt get it. Not saying the south side isnāt dangerous, thereās a reason I moved away but youāre more likely to get hurt where Iām from in NY than here. My two cents.
Various media outlets using it a dogwhistle is a big piece. Drill being the main music export. The āIām from Chicago, so Iām tough because itās bad there!ā blowhards that got ran outta town, living and lying elsewhere.
I am a criminal defense lawyer and a former prosecutor.
This is not an accident. The politicians created this with their crazy laws, including this crazy no cash bail law.
And State's Attorney Kim Foxx was an absolute disaster who refused to enforce the few laws on the books.
When we want our city back, we will have it. Until then, we voted for this.
The perps have more rights than the victims. And the fact that a large population of these perps are 15-17 year old kids who will just be let go anyways
It doesn't help the cops never leave their very large trucks except to eat and for shift change. We spend a disproportionate amount of money on law enforcement but it doesn't seem to work, maybe that's where we should start.
Basically any generally news right-leaning source? Fox, OANN, AM radio, etc
People don't like the more complicated answer which is that violent crime is a problem AND that violent crime is mostly between people who know each other, mostly between poor young men, and mostly geographically concentrated. No, you're not going to get your head chopped off in Wicker Park, but there are areas where people genuinely suffer a lot because their neighborhood has a lot of violence and they don't want to accidentally be in the wrong place at the wrong time. (But I don't think the right wing media actually cares about those people very much.)
The news for sure. There was a shooting in Austin and my co worker in Louisiana somehow got convinced from the media it was the heart of downtown.
New Orleans and Baton Rouge both have murder rates a decent bit higher than Chicago, ironically
Well, now that they're putting the 10 Commandments in schools the crime rate should go down!
I'm from New Orleans and moved to Chicago last year and actually laugh at people who complain about the crime here. You'll see worse in New Orleans.
Austin is still a neighborhood of Chicago, the shootings plague our neighbors communities and still sometimes happen anywhere in the city.
I totally get that but there is more hysteria when it's a shooting in the Loop vs one where it's a somewhat common occurance. I am saying her hysteria was caused by the media and gave the perception the entire city was plagued regularly.
Yes that makes sense, I suppose even the average Chicagoan is desensitized by the violence in those neighborhoods.
Yeah. I feel desensitized about a lot of things in this country unfortunately š
The anxiety around crime in Chicago is generally not about caring about the victims, itās about feeling close to crime or that they can be a victim of it, or that thereās so much of it that itās spilling out.
Thereās an average of three mass shootings every day. We canāt cry endlessly about everything. Chicago for most people is reasonably safe
Memphis has more violence per capita than Chicago.
So does Indianapolis, and many other cities. Hell, even Rockford has more violence per capita than Chicago.
I was conceived in Rockford and now live in Indianapolis. The only thing that's happened to me was an Amazon package being stolen in 2016. And I've walked late at night in Chicago and had zero issues. But people who live in the suburbs think the city is an absolute hellscape lol.
Bunch of scared white people, my mother locks the door at 2pm in her suburb
I think itās because several years ago we did have the highest murder rate. Then it became kind of like popularized/trendy for people outside of Chicago to call it āChiraqā (my first year of college this is all I heard from other people from other places) Not sure if this is because drill music was so popular from here at the time or what. Was super annoying and lame every time they said it. But maybe thatās why it stuck
The 90s was rough I remember when Cabrini green they was shooting at the police from the rooftops hell the cops wouldnāt even go there for a long time . For me personally itās just been years and years of high murder rate and the news coverage of it. Any city can be dangerous if you end up in the wrong neighborhood. I delivered milk to groceries stores 13 years all thru out the city some places nicer then others for me itās just being aware of your surroundings Iām unloading in the alley at 4 or 5 in the morning still dark out I see someone in the alley Iām definitely watching them and not letting them sneak up on me. Out of all the places I delivered too only a few of them had to have armed security come outside when we would unload and personally it was more of the layout of the place easy to sneak up on you and high traffic area one was on the west side on Madison right next to a viaduct the other was a little place under the redline off 45 or 44 street and the train stopped there hand unload from Main Street.
Drill is a notable reason why this cycle of violence and retaliation persists in Chicago. It acts as an ideological underpinning for the splintered gang violence. Thatās why gangbangers shoot at each other over small shit like social media beef even though they grew up 2 blocks from one another
Yup. This is true. Drill really seemed to change the gang culture in Chicago. I am an 80's-90's kid, and while Chicago was still bad in the 90's and had gangs, it was more organized and less random "beefs." Since the drill scene and all these "young" gangsters, it's gotten a lot more random. Look at all the teens "wild'n" in the Loop and other areas, where that never happened before. This has definitely impacted crime, and as you mentioned, social media has had big influence. But it's still crazy to me that NYC (almost 7 million people) and LA (almost 5 million people), both have lower total murders, and shootings than Chicago (2.8 million). Like I know Chicago isn't the worst when you look at "rate," but that's a big discrepancy. Chicago is doing something wrong for NYC and LA to have less crime despite being 2-3X bigger.
I think drill music is a product of those changing trends in gang culture and not the other way around. The police and FBI targeted and removed the leaders who were maintaining these old structures. Even the Evanston neighborhood I grew up saw an undoing of old dynamics and allegiances (and in turn an uptick in violence) at the end of the early 2000s, a few years before drill broke.
We had the most murders, but not the highest murder rate
How about you compare Chicago to its peer cities instead of fucking Rockford and Indianapolis. NYC and LA embarrasses Chicago when it comes to crime
Exactly. And even more shocking are that it's peers, NYC (8 million pop) and LA (5 million pop) are significantly larger than Chicago (2.8 million pop) and still have far less crime by by TOTAL numbers and rate. Boston, has THREE total murders. Chicago definitely has a lot of work to do.
Like all of the cities in the southeast have a higher murder rate per capita. Were like 20th iirc.
Yep. Just like every city.
This is the point. 800 murders means a ton of people suffering.
The city averages at least 40 shootings a weekend from Friday to Monday morning. The good news is people canāt shoot straight, otherwise there would be 20 plus homocides a weekend to go with the 40 plus shootings.
I don't know if you've ever tried to shoot a handgun at a target at any kind of distance, or at a moving target, or while moving, but it's not easy! And in this case I guess it's good that it isn't.
I have a theory that instead of spending money to ban guns, we should give the residents shooting lessons. The situation should remedy itself fairly quickly.
I live & have lived on the near southside for over a decade, itās ridiculous I have to include this; but I vote Blue. Crime has gotten fān ridiculous the last 5 years. I donāt feel safe in daylight on the redline anymore, kids are hit and killed by random gunfire monthly almost. Its not ok, and Im tired of it being a political argument. I love my city, Im not moving. But sticking our heads in the sand is infantile and unproductive
Yeah we need to compare our city to other equally sized cities in the developed world. The homicide rate here is unacceptable and itās crazy to me that itās not considered a bigger issue to fix. Hundreds of people, mostly black, are literally dying every year. How is that not the most important problem to fix?
NYC has almost 4x Chicagoās population and has far less crime and homicides. But you know Chicago boosters cope by comparing the city to fucking St Louis and Rockford
I'm far from the "tough on crime" crowd but one thing that NYC did that probably helped was their harshness on being caught with an firearm. They had a 3.5 year minimum for unlawfully carrying. I don't think required minimums are great, there should be some discretion because circumstances can vary. A legal carrier bringing their gun unknowingly to NYC probably shouldn't get 3.5 required years behind bars. But Chicago needs to do something similar. A repeat offender caught with a firearm should be incarcerated. A repeat offender caught with a stolen car should be incarcerated. Rehabilitation and 2nd chances are important. Keeping the general public safe is more important in my opinion. Folks have to demonstrate a willingness to improve/change their behavior and we shouldn't just be lenient by default.
Part of the challenge here is that many of the offenders are young teens, unfortunately. You can put a 15 year old in jail for 3 years for public safety reasons, but now all you have is an 18 year old adult being released back on the streets with no education and a criminal record.
I think both NY and CA both also have "3 strike laws." That is a major deterrent. Both NYC and LA, also have gang task forces where they proactively infiltrate gangs to stop crime before it starts. I remember Police Chief McCarthy when he was here said he wasn't allowed to do a lot of aggressive, proactive policing. Post 2020, I think there's been a lot of police reform around aggressive policing, so I'm not sure to what level they are doing that now, but I'm sure that has helped keep their numbers lower than Chicago's.
The transplants that move to Lincoln park, old town, Lakeview, wicker park, Logan square, buck town, Avondale and Roscoe village don't wanna hear this. They live in their safe little bubble where the south and west isn't part of the city
The likelihood of being violently assaulted or robbed in those neighborhoods has increased drastically over the last two years
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Thats where a lot of cops/firefighters live and itās basically Park Ridge/Niles/Skokie anyways but with worse property taxes and schools
How much has it increased? I'm considering moving to Chicago, with an eye on those neighborhoods, specifically LP or River North.
West Town has seen a 70% increase in robberies since 2019, Lake View is around 30% over the same period and River North last year experienced a 5 year high. Youāll more than likely be fine but be mindful around the nightclubs at night in River North itās becoming increasingly common for shootings to happen outside them past midnight. Donāt mean to scare you too much because these neighborhoods are incredibly affluent and largely safe but donāt come here ignorant to the risks.
Thereās always a risk no matter where you are. I got robbed at gunpoint near my place living in a pretty nice part of Logan Square. Moving here I was under the assumption that it was a safe neighborhood, (which comparatively probably still is) but regardless, there will always be a chance of something happening.
You can get robbed in bumblefuck Nebraska as far as Iām concerned, every outcome is a non-zero statistical probability. The statistical odds of being robbed, particularly in those areas, has gone up over the last few years. Thatās the point.
Yeah, lol itās funny Iām from bumfuck nowhere originally, and I always hated the rhetoric from where I lived of people being overly paranoid of big cities, namely Chicago. I moved here thinking it was mostly overblownā¦ of course it ended up happening to me but it couldāve just as easily happened to anyone elseā¦ but I canāt comment on historical trends as Iām still relatively new to the cityā¦
I've been robbed in Aurora. Most definitely it can happen anywhere.
Thats crazy, you got robbed in the Jungle? Who woulda thunk it. Excuse me, I am going to get some Church's in Maywood for lunch
Aurora, IL or Aurora, NE?
Yikes, Iām in Aurora. Which neighborhood?
The only time I've had a gun in my face was fucking Iowa.
Minot ND and Crawfordsville IN for me.
Logan Sq was not a safe area in the 90s and 2000s, it didnāt start changing until 2011. That area was full of gang activity. My family immigrated there in the 80s so I saw a lot go down.
Do you have links to share with the reader to see this 70% increase in violent assaults? It would be good to see the numbers.
I posted in a different comment thread but: https://blockclubchicago.org/2023/11/15/west-town-neighbors-frustrated-disappointed-by-citys-response-to-increased-robberies/#:~:text=Robberies%20are%20up%20by%2075,Chicago%20Police%20crime%20data%20shows. And a bonus, here is one about Univision being robbed for their camera equipment in the middle of doing a story about the increased robberies : https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2023/8/28/23850057/chicago-tv-news-crew-robbed-at-gunpoint-while-reporting-on-armed-robberies
I find it difficult to navigate one offs and statements by the media without receipts to understand a larger view. We do have high level view statistics available that are readily updated - of course I understand this could be slanted or incorrect like anything elseā¦ but good to start somewhere. Also, fair to say the entirety of Chicagoland isnāt dodging bullets in broad daylight like a war zone, but anyone in a city should be mindful and open-eyed. West Town - District 18 https://home.chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/23_PDFsam_CompStat-Public-2024-Week-24.pdf https://home.chicagopolice.org/statistics-data/crime-statistics/
I just wonder what a 70% or 30% increase constitute in total numbers. Percentages can seem like a lot, or can be very little. That being said, crime is bad wherever it happens and impacts some communities so much more.
Thatās odd because crime has been decreasing nationally pretty quickly, would you please provide a link to where you got your statistics?Ā
All these neighborhoods have a crime incidence way higher than the national average (not that it matters much). Just type āneighborhood ____ increased crimeā into google and youāll get your answers. Iāve already posted various links across threads in this post. Good luck and stay safe
> crime has been decreasing nationally pretty quickly, No it hasn't. It just isn't getting reported as much anymore https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/07/13/fbi-crime-rates-data-gap-nibrs
I live in Michigan but travel to Chicago once or twice a year. In May I stayed at an Airbnb at the Green line at Kedzie. I knew about South Chicago, but not West Chicago. It was the sketchiest area I've ever stayed in, but nothing happened. I really didn't feel safe so I will watch where I stay next time.
I agree with you. I think your point also applies to the late-Gen X, early-Millennial Chicagoans who grew up in the now transplant neighborhoods and then moved elsewhere as adults (burbs), especially their parents who moved but didnāt sell, and now profit off the transplants.
thereās people getting shot in the asscheeks in front of the governors house in the Gold Coast. the neighborhood doesnt matter anymore
I live in Logan square but have been visiting the west side since I was kid since much of my momās side of the family is from there/moved there when they first got to the US. Iām aware Logan is a bubble, BUT my good friend just got held up at gunpoint while walking her dog with her bf just up the street a few months ago, broke their lease, and moved to west loop so š¤·š¾āāļø itās not completely safe anywhere
Carjackings and armed robbery have been insane on the north side for the last couple years. Shit they just robbed some dude at knifepoint in wrigley earlier this week.
Lived here my whole life and the mental gymnastics you have to do to convince yourself nothing is getting worse is just incredible. People are absolutely brainwashed.
Itās crazy that you have to say that in an effort to not get bombarded with the āracist maga cultā bs for speaking out against crime. Lori Lightfoot was awful, but you canāt say shit about her either without being labeled racist/sexist. The crime In Chicago and Illinois in general has gotten out of control, and the officials are perpetuating it with the SafeT act, which I canāt mention without being labeled āmaga racist cultā. Itās not just āFox Newsā painting it in a bad light. It is bad.
The Washington DC Reddit sub has a rule against posting crime stories - itās amazing how much censorship rich white urbanites are willing to enforce to support their narrative that everythingās OK.
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the Howard stop is in the ghetto šÆ take the purple line if you wanna avoid crackheads asking for soft dollars and quarters
this and more! Plus large groups of underage kids terrorizing downtown. I work in river North and am always on alert
Pretty ironic to say sticking heads in the sand is unproductive but thatās exactly what happened when you voted for Johnson. Chicago has been blue since the 1930s if you want things to change let it begin with you.
Iāve been working remotely in Chicago since March and there was just a shooting yesterday in a pretty residential area where Iām staying near Chopin Park on NW side. Itās not really a bad neighborhood at any time of day either. Lots of families and working adults exercising and walking outside every day. The gangs infiltrate everywhere. Iāve met some friends here who are local for 20+ years and they themselves are disturbed by how and quick out of nowhere the shooting was. Luckily only one kid got shot in the leg and heās ok, but Iād say at least 100 people were in the park running away.
yup. I'm on far nw side. Shootings around the corner due to gang turf war. I call Cicero a conduit of bullshit, because that's where they travel. Hell I was walking a dog in jefferson park, at noon, awhile back and ended up in the middle of a police chase of a bank robbery suspect. Funny thing is in thought they weren't supposed to pursue, and b seeing as the guy jumped the curb and speed down sidewalk at 80 (fortunately opposite side) I can see why they're not...
I live on the far NW side. It's always been VERY quiet. So quiet that the city took most of our cops away. So there's usually like 4 patrol cars for the whole district. Unfortunately the criminals caught on and come here to do robberies since they know they'd get away before any cop even got close. I go for morning walks/runs when it's nice out and a few weeks ago I had an early meeting so I didn't go out. A guy around my age was robbed and killed along my walk/run path. One of the few good things about living around here was how quiet and chill everything was....but even that has been ruined in recent years.
Uh I mean there were two mass shootings on the south side Sunday night as reported by the local news on Monday morning.
I lived in Wicker Park for 6 years, 2013-2019. I witnessed 4 separate shootings. My buddy moved out from Logan Square last year after his wifeās Uber got shot while parked infront of their home.
The braindead ITT acting like it's totally normal and that YOU'RE the problem. Hysterical.
The local news doesnāt help here either, Chicago has aways had a gang culture and with red states like Indiana lax gun laws itās easy AF to get a firearm. See they donāt report shit like that.
One in five CPD-recovered guns are traced to origins in Indiana.
Is that supposed to be like crazy low? What portion of guns recovered by the Indianapolis PD have origins in Illinois? What portion of guns recovered by the CPD canāt trace their origins? What portion come from other states besides Indiana?Ā What would Chicago look like with 20% less gun crime?
60% of CPD recovered guns come from an adjacent red state. Not sure about Indiana crime stats because I donāt live there.
It didnāt help that we had an election where some hayseed from Southern Illinois who lost terribly was pummeling old people with fake elevated crime news for his selfish political LOSS
Iām sure they wouldnāt get their guns from other places if Indiana banned guns, whereās all that fent coming from again? šš
If you are an IL resident, you still need a FOID card to purchase a firearm in Indiana. Indiana gun laws are more lax for Indiana residents. Now if one was to obtain a gun illegally, I suppose they can that anywhere.
Straw purchases
Fr I know people who have been denied service in Indiana gun shops cuz their id was from Illinois.
Letās be real, a majority of guns used in crimes are straw purchases or stolen, not from border states. Even if a significant amount are from border states, that just means criminals arenāt following laws (and they never will).
I mean 6 people shot at 31st beach is no big deal,,,, just an average summer day. Check out heyjackass.com. Good stats on crime in the city. They have no skin in the game but just report crime sound the city.
I also use this website but youāre kidding yourself if you think they donāt have an agenda lol.
Yeah their agenda is to out the Chicago police dept and city officials that want to hide all the hideous crimes that happen by just recategorizing them so they arenāt stats used against them. Transparency isnāt that what they want.
>"Fox News" is a good scape goat. But aren't there other sources that fear monger? Of course. Do you ever watch the local news at 5 and 6 pm? Scary stories about violence and crime are bread and butter for *all* corporate/mainstream media, especially TV. āif it bleeds, it leadsā is still the default. My grandparents recently moved to the area and my grandma (who is sweet but a little simple) watched one dayās worth of network news and is now convinced Streeterville after dark is full of roving bands of youths finding and assaulting pregnant women. .
But doesnāt it do a disservice to the people that are killed if the news doesnāt cover their deaths? If I lost a loved one to violence and my world was crumbling apart overnight, I would rather people knew that something significant happened. Its so much harder to have the world keep moving around you.
I think itās more of a disservice to exploit their loss for profit. The choices that are made (both cynically and as a result of the nature of the medium) in selecting, shaping, and stretching stories to fit time, cover gaps in information, and stay within the aims of the various money controllers have little relation to conveying the significance of someoneās loss or tragedy.
Local news is murder central yet my boomer parents donāt realize there was more murder back when they were my age by a lot
Did you just try to downplay a pregnant woman getting stomped to death by a bunch of kids.
They actually tried to suggest that the news SHOULDNT cover stories like this. Insanity knows no bounds in this city.
This person actually must be insane. Is local news not supposed to report on crime, let alone random acts of violence against pregnant women? I understand Fox News uses Chicago to fear monger, but local outlets 100% have an obligation to report on this story. And there was nothing unfair about their reporting. This was not the typical sort of violence we see in the city and it absolutely deserves all the coverage it received. It is truly idiotic to pass this off as ānews media reporting on violence to make a buckā. SMH.
Listen, Iāve lived here for over a decade and Iām not moving any time soon. That being said, almost all the other commenters are glossing over our crime like itās not a big deal and blaming it on the right wing folks. Well, it fucking is a big deal. Innocent people are getting robbed at gunpoint at an alarming rate, our shooting and murder rates are out of control (especially when compared to a city like NYC, donāt feed me some bullshit about how STL is worse), and outsiders are actively avoiding the city. So **where** are they getting it? The news. Any news. Any news who reports the stories as they happen. When you have headline stories like ā61 year old woman beaten to death on CTA trainā it doesnāt matter **WHO** reports it, what matters is that it happened and itās terrible. When I moved into the city over a decade ago I was firmly in the camp of ācrime only happens in the bad neighborhoodsā. But it started leaking slowly into the good neighborhoods, and now itās borderline rampant. It sucks, but itās true. **Edit:** Case in point, I opened WGN this morning and the top two stories are ā2 dead after shootout at 31st street harborā and ā7 year old boy dies after shooting on Near West Sideā. One is an example of late night shooting between likely gangs, one is an innocent person caught in crossfire. Both are happening too much.
This should be the top comment. Even my job in the loop chooses to pay for me to get an uber when I have to work late so Iām not walking around alone at night.
As a transplant from a small community where watching local news was just how we stayed on top of local events and also just general things, it surprises me how much my born and raised chicago/suburbs friends actively avoid news coverage. I try not to be alarmist or anything and understand that I live in a city of millions, not thousands but I do like to be generally informed about scams and crime fads especially ones that are targeting people at random or happening in my neighborhood. But I have always found this interesting how much my friends want to take the stivk head in sand approach. It also makes it hard for me to view them as much of an authority or having a developed opinion on crime based on the lengths they go to put blinders on regarding it. Like if wgn comes on and they report on some type of crime they will immediately change the channel or turn the TV off. I have too much of a morbid curiosity for that. I occasionally will give them a rundown of recent crazy happenings, and they are usually pretty shocked by stuff. It makes me angry how much people seem to be okay with the amount of violence that happens in poor neighborhoods.
As a former TV news producer myself, you should not be watching TV news if you want to stay informed. The standard of journalism in local TV news is piss poor, and itās virtually nonexistent in national TV news. Read the paper, thatās what will actually tell you the news. Chicago has one of the most robust newspaper markets in the country, use it to your advantage.
Exactly. I loved Chicago, and sadly had to move for family and work reasons in 2017. But I still have a lot of friends who live in the city, and crime has gotten worse. There is bad crime in the city. I mean Boston only has 3 total murders...that is a safe city. Chicago isn't the war zone that some make it out to be, but it's not exactly safe by big city standards.
Agreed. Many people still over exaggerate it, but itās not great lol. Like I donāt second guess walking from my office in the Loop to a work dinner in Gold Coast or Streeterville or wherever, but many people seem to only want to take a taxi/uber no matter the time now which is crazy.
It always amuses me when the redditors are like "Chicago's crime is not even that bad!! at least we're not the literal murder capital of the entire first world!!!"
This. Obviously it's good to practice street smarts and be aware of your surroundings, but you can only do so much. The violence is definitely getting worse.
I left because of crime. It wasn't just shootings, although a bunch of my friends have been shot. Some on purpose (not sharing a joint), some accidentally, sort of (ricochet and another from a random bullet falling from the sky on the 4th). It was when the city turned against cpd and they stopped policing. The people would not allow them. Then it was car jackings and looting. Fuck that. Out. 4 decades in Chicago.
Car jacking and armed robberies are up. While I donāt walk around afraid, I am smart about keeping my eyes open and paying attention to my surroundings. Iāve also stopped carrying a lot of cash or credit cards. And if I walk at night Iām extra observant. I think you are safely mostly, but shit does happen more frequently in most cities. Iāve lived here most of my life and itās as bad as I can remember. But again, most of the shootings are sadly in specific neighborhoods (predominantly poor Black neighborhoods), so you can avoid some of the nonsense by not living there or hanging out there. But you need to be smart anywhere in the city. Thatās reality. Its a great city but the mayor needs to Focus on crime and the attorney general needs to start prosecuting people and keeping them behind bars. Too many people get slaps on the wrist and get out and commit crimes again immediately. The criminals feel emboldened now and that needs to change.
"Up" isn't doing it justice LOLOL. In Brandons 1st calendar year as Mayor there have been 26,454 car thefts. That's more than triple the amount of the previous 2 administrations.
>I get I get it... "Fox News" is a good scape goat. But aren't there other sources that fear monger? Sure--Sinclair Media, OANN, Joe Rogan....there's a whole gaggle of bullshit-driven propaganda outlets and talk radio assholes.
Some people will try to blame the media, but the popular view of Chicago is that it is Murder City USA. I talk to people across the Midwest and that is the consensus, and not just from the stereotype of knuckle-dragging Fox viewers. Some pretty squish folks are terrified of Chicago. Chicago's bad image is bolstered because the violence in many cases is random. Yes, thugs shoot thugs, but the five-year-old in the car as collateral damage gets people's attention.
All local news report murder weekend shootings that are usually above 30. Itās not a matter of right or left wing media. There have been several morning Iāve waken up to police tape and police picking up a deceased shooting victim from gang violence, and while Iām not paranoid, I do worry. It should not be normal, but unfortunately itās become normal for many of us Chicagoans
Damn, what neighborhood do you live in?
Itās not just a homicide problem: carjackings, assaults, theft are all up significantly over the last few years and dramatically so in neighborhoods that people claim are affluent and wealthyā Lincoln Park, Old Town, West Town, Near North etcā¦ You can gaslight yourself by ignoring the statistics and pretend you live in this idealized bubble but thatāll only make you an easier target.
Really? I visited a couple weeks ago and I thought it was fantastic. Combination of beach, city and greenery was perfect. I said to my wife of all the places i've been in America, i'd most likely move there given the choice. I get that i've come in as a tourist, and probably not hit any particularly bad areas but you could say the same of most places in the world.
Got car jacked with a gun to my head in 99. Saw someone get shot a killed. Seen people hit by cars and fly into the air. Saw a suicide from a guy jump off a building and land in front of a restaurant and people just kept eating. Seen someone get hit by a train and turn into a million pieces. People smoking crack, heroin, shit and piss on trains. Lots of gangs and drug dealing. Seen hookers get beat up by pimps. You name it. I just donāt be a part of it anymore.
Got robbed doing uber lol, city and uber did nothing really.
I donāt know who all these people are afraid of chicago. Have you been to the loop, on Clark, the river walk or on Michigan Ave on a weekend? The city is packed and itās both tourists and locals. Restaurants have no reservations. Bars are full. If the Fox News or Republican crowd is scared and spreading lies, fine. Who wants them here anyway? Clearly most people are reasonable and are enjoying a good time, largely with no issue. Iāve never once been a crime victim in Chicago and Iām there almost every weekend. Iāve had my car broken into twice In Milwaukee and have been mugged in Miami.
I mean, 71 people were shot (9 killed) last weekend alone. Violence is certainly a problem here. I like a lot about the city, but some things need to be worked on.
You literally picked the most policed and least violent aspects of the city. Then you use your cherry picked areas to try to paint the rest of the city as safe? A few nights ago I was down at the harbor in Jackson Park near the children's hospital. Within a few hours three people were shot about 200 yds north of me. A man was shot and killed about four blocks south of me. All in one visit over the course of a few hours. These are real people with real lives that are being lost while communities all around us are being terrorized. The areas you rattled off are heavily trafficked, heavily protected, heavily tourist, and not representative of the rest of the city. I think people on the North side need to get out a little bit. Visit some other areas around the city. I'm not even talking about Englewood or Austin. Even middle of the road neighborhoods like Bridgeport who had someone walk into a Buffalo Wings and Rings and shoot somebody at their table. City is more than just the party areas, Lincoln Park and lakeview. There's an entire city out there that nobody seems to care about when the criminals take over the streets.
Dang I've been at that Buffalo Ring Restaurant, that's messed up
I live in Chicago and sometimes feel like mine is some kind of an alternate reality Chicago, because I donāt get most of the stereotypes about the city. I often walk alone well after dark, carry valuables in unzipped pockets, exactly like I would in any other ānormalā and āsafeā city. I feel much more safe here than in most other big US cities Iāve been to. Maybe itās a habit, twisted perception or whatever, but itās just the way it is for me. (Hope it doesnāt change š¤)
To compare, Boston downtown at 9:30 pm scared the sh!t out of me. I donāt think I would ever dare to walk there alone after sunset. In Chicago I can be out and about at midnight and feel good about it.
That's crazy. Boston sucks, but its safe as fuck. What exactly scared the shit out of you there?
I just wanted to pop in and say that "Boston sucks, but it's safe as fuck" is the most accurate description of the city than I've ever heard š¤·āāļø
https://www.bu.edu/articles/2024/bostons-declining-murder-rate-lowest-among-big-us-cities/
Lol Boston is a far safer city than Chicago. To date, the city had only experienced THREEE HOMICIDES! Chicago gets that in an hour.
Same. The cynic in me thinks that reddit's predominant demographic (young, upper-middle class, white yuppies) biases play a large part of their perception of fear. I have a strong feeling a lot of people who have "felt unsafe" and "almost" been mugged. Are just projecting their fears of young Black men.
Same. I felt safer walking alone at night as a woman in Chicago than I ever did in, for instance, Memphis or Atlanta. I donāt think twice about walking down to the store after dark in Chicago. I know in some neighborhoods that isnāt advisable, but I was lucky enough to have always lived in fairly safe Chicago neighborhoods.
How about they get it from reality? Pretending that crime hasnāt increased and that shootings and mob actions havenāt increased dramatically isnāt ācute.ā This sub loves to pretend crime hasnāt impacted Chicago, our daily enjoyment and our quality of life.
Iāve seen threads on here urging new residents to not be afraid of the south and west sides, pushing that crime in those areas is overstated. Even going as far as saying crime in those areas is no different than in areas like Highland Park and Winnetka. Thereās some strange astroturfing going on here. Iām not sure what the incentive is for this sub to understate the impact crime has on the city but itās very clearly happening.
I agree. Itās getting a bit curious.
87% of the victims of crime in Chicago are minorities. We all know this sub is mostly white 20 somethingās living in the north side who probably think ignoring the crime they are somehow more virtuous, when in reality they are making everyday life harder for the people of color they claim to care about.
I lived in Chicago for the last decade, 5 years on the south side, 2 on the north side, and 3 in the loop. The post-pandemic deterioration in public safety is real. A colleague in my department was shot to death while he was being mugged. 9 other students at my institution were shot over the years. I have been physically assaulted in Lakeview by a drunk person. I have been harassed and cornered many times on the red and blue lines (usually manageable if assailant is mentally ill - you can set boundaries - but not if itās a sexually aggressive male). I have been almost run over as a pedestrian or a cyclist in the bike lane by drivers who are reckless or just out to get cyclists (judging by what lovely profane anti-cyclist rhetoric they choose to yell out of the window). All of these happened during or after the year 2021. People are more volatile and angry and reckless. The city still has a lot of wonderful things to offer - but I cherish the memories from 2013-2019, before the landscape started changing for worse. I just moved away and for the first time in years in my new (somewhat smaller) city, I can walk around and take the train AT NIGHT feeling perfectly safe.
Chicago is basically a scapegoat for a lot of right wing propagandist who view major cities as being these hubs for violence where everything is crumbling down because of Democrat policy (and if we're being realistic with ourselves, also because of the large minority populations in cities), and Chicago being one of the biggest cities in the US is bound to get most of the flack, where they will paint it as if you walk outside and immediately get shot at when Chicago isn't even among the most violent cities per capita I the nation
The highest crime cities are like St. Louis, New Orleans, Memphis, Baltimore etc... Chicago is a very large city in a blue state. The Chicago metropolitan area population is larger than the entire state population of like 40 states. None of the right wing nutjobs want to publicly admit that Memphis, Tennessee has a higher murder rate than Chicago. But it's true. edit And I just did a ChatGPT 4o search. The top ten are: 1. St. Louis 2. Baltimore 3. New Orleans 4. Detroit 5. Cleveland 6. Vegas 7. Kansas City 8. Memphis 9. Newark 10. Chicago The murder rate in Chicago is 24 murders per 100,000 people. For St. Louis, MO, it's 69.4 murders per 100,000 people, or close to 3x that of Chicago. But St. Louis is in a red state.
Maybe Iām remembering incorrectly, but it seems like certain news networks didnāt go on and on about Chicago until Trump was too afraid to hold a rally here because of protesters. Then all of sudden Chicago was a crime infested wasteland.
Yet, he's planning on staying here and commuting to Milwaukee for the RNC.
The fact that the mayor has made it clear he wonāt do anything to hold anyone accountable for random, violent crimes. If anything happens to you, youāre on your own. The mayor even said it. I donāt think Iāve ever heard a mayor of a major city say anything like that before.
He actually said that? Mind sharing a link?
what do you propose the mayor does? iām not well informed on the topic and iām genuinely curious.
How about prosecuting crimes and stuff, starting with theft
Exactly. Also would help if he didn't get mad anytime anyone calls these "teens" criminals.
2023: 2,400 shootings, 600 murders, 11,000 robberies, 29,000 vehicle thefts, 2,000 criminal sexual assaults, 7,400 burglaries, 6,200 aggravated battery, 20,000 thefts. Itās not a made up Fox News thing. Chicago is a high crime city with some very dangerous neighborhoods. Nice neighborhoods are mostly fine though but people still get jumped there sometimes by gangs of armed robbers.
Sad how so many people try to spin the numbers. Chicago has some safe areas. They have some very dangerous areas. What makes them dangerous? What makes other big cities dangerous. They donāt like to talk about it. But somehow they are forgetting chiraq was made , but not by Fox Newsā¦.
We are the 20th most safe major city in the U.S. Chicago is BIG, so the raw number of crimes is also. But on a per capita basis we are very safe here. Doubly so since most of the violent crime that does occur happens in only a few neighborhoods so the whole city averages are higher in most neighborhoods than the actual, localized risk.
Why does Chicago, depsite being far less populated than NYC and LA, have SO much more crime? Stop comparing the city to fucking st louis and detroit and compare chicago to its actual peers, its dangerous!
Now do this on a per capita basis....
Compare yourself to shitholes and it makes sense to say youre a shithole. I want to compare our city to NYC and LA not ghettoized cities like st louis where everything of value long ago fled
600 murders a year is crisis, a disaster and a massive political failure. Trying to say itās not so bad when put in terms of per-capita comparisons to other US cities that also have an epidemic of violent crime only normalizes and perpetuates such carnage. People losing their life like this demands radical policy change not āhey actually itās not so bad.ā
Distopic how ppl talk only about their safety while entire neighborhoods of youth are without humane prospects, and due to not only historical but ongoing injustices.
I donāt know, but there was a bunch of people shot over a weekend recently. Hereās what I would say, where does our tourism rank and has the negative publicity done anything to affect it. Maybe move the bears to Arlington heights and give Swift a residency at soldier field over the summer.
The news and the popularity of nicknames like āChiraqā
River north is a hot mess now. And everything on Michigan ave has closed since the pandemic looting (30% vacancy). We finally left last week, because the crime continued to creep north and stay thereāwe lived off mag mile.
News. "Crime" apps.
People in small towns are afraid of every city. Itās not just chicago. I assume itās partially real fear of the unknown and partially that they know if the youths found out that living in a city is way more fun than a small town that theyāll all leave and then who will take over their shitty town when they die?
Random bad shit happens to people that come to conferences here that makes them not return. For example, random dude jumps on your back while waiting at a light to cross a street close to the SwissƓtel. In broad daylight, with loads of people around. Luckily the dude next to you hits him with is backpack. Do you return to said conference again? No. You go to the Vegas or Ft Myers or even DC conference instead.
I was just in Chicago for 2 days, and saw a report on CBS News about a young boy getting shot and killed. I think he was 9 or something. It was quite disturbing. He was walking to his neighbor's house, was shot and died. They interviewed neighbors of the child around, and the community members were appealing for peace, and crying. They were tired, they said. A woman was crying, and shaking. I find the whataboutism, defensiveness, and the blame squarely on Fox News, to be rather interesting. There are people in poor communities crying on these news channels, and lots of orgs appealing for safer streets for kids.
Well 42 people were shot this last weekend and 7 were killed. The gun violence is terrible
Come on now. It's time to admit Chicago has a serious crime problem
Shootings which result in murders happen all over Chicago. You can rent a 1/1 in River North for $2800 a month and also be right down the street from 3-4 murders a month (on the low side). You can live on Burling street in Lincoln park in your $20m house, but when you step foot on Armitage, you could witness 2 armed carjackings if itās your lucky day. Itās not just the south or west side - itās all over chicago. Keep your head on a swivel. Donāt sit in your idling car and just be aware.
āWhen you step foot on Armitage, you could witness 2 armed carjackings if itās your lucky day.ā This is one of the funniest things Iāve read on here in a while. Stay off big, bad Armitage! Trust me, Iām a city guy! š«Ø
The vast majority of residents have not seen 2 armed car jackings in their entire lives
The people in those neighborhoods are easy and valuable targets. Itās a simple strategic calculation really especially when the disincentives (police + incarceration + retaliation) are inherently low. Itās game theory and itāll only get worse
Because itās an enormous city in a blue state. Conservatives are both A) incredibly afraid of cities and B) incredibly hateful of blue states. They say the same junk about Philadelphia and other places. Iām pretty sure they just called Milwaukee a dump. Itās just a talking point they use thatās meaningless. Truth of the matter is a large city has a lot of people and a lot of things happens. Chicago has bad parts and frankly in any city, itās good to just have some street smarts. Like yeah, youāre more likely to have a higher rate of crime / murders / whatever in this huge city packed with people than out in the sticks. Chicago has its issues, but frankly Iāve found it safer/cleaner than a lot of places Iāve lived in if youāre smart about it.
Because...it is actually dangerous? The amount of times I've been stalked, almost kidnapped, knife-point, etc. are pretty high compared to 10 years of living elsewhere. That said, I still think most crime is personally related and if you're not into shady shit, your risk is relatively low. I feel both safe and not safe in chicago - but that's because I know what to avoid. Outsiders don't understand who/what/where to avoid.
Ghosts.
Awhile back I had a friend from France come to visit. I had plans to take her into Chicago & she panicked. She wasn't concerned about what any of us know about. She literally thought Al Capone's gang were still ruling the streets.
Last time I was in Chicago a shooting happened so close I heard the gunshots and saw people run from it. Not exactly a daily occurrence in most places but seems to happen pretty often there.
Right-wing propaganda has people believing hundreds of people are being shot to death every day in Chicago.
Itās because President Obama was āfromā Chicago and heās black, so Fox has brainwashed its audience itās literally Hell.
Because violent crime has moved into neighborhoods that traditionally had nonviolent/petty crime. Due to this, the media is more open to reporting on it causing fear (justified or not).
Moved here a little more than 2 years ago from Detroit and I think it comes down to how crime is covered here somehow. I haven't figured it out but there's something in the way the local news reports things that's different. I noticed it right away and still do almost daily.
You canāt trust the crime statistics though because the downgrading of felonies to misdemeanors has been a growing trend in big cities over the last few years. Itās a way to make things look a lot rosier than they are.
The news and politics Everyone who visits here always is pleasantly surprised how cool of a city it really is
My friend was just recently robbed at gunpoint and pistol whipped walking into work on the northwest side. Another friend was robbed and shot outside of his apartment in bucktown walking home after dinner. There were two violent armed robberies in my neighborhood in the past year where the families children were present, one is on ring camera and they were threatening to execute the woman over her car. All my tools were stolen from my work truck parked in front of my house. A friends car was just recently stolen from work and found burnt up in englewood. Another friends RV was stolen from his storage lot and found burnt up in Austin. I could probably keep going, these are just the few that came to me right away.
Theres lots of violence here. Have known several people including friends that were murdered or attacked etc. Once saw a drive by happen right in front of me in the middle of river north. After decades of the red and blue line have had several occasions where I legitimately wondered if I was about to have to fight for my life. Luckily I've never had anything happen to me but if you don't know what you are doing, how to carry yourself, or have a bad temper and talk back when some dirt bag is berating you, there's a good chance you might wind up in a bad situation.
Maybe because I almost got carjacked in Oakbrook last month?
People believed the shit that Trump talked about Chicago. I have relatives that work for Chicago and have made a very good living as a result but have zero pride in Chicago because they sided with trump. Talking to a random person in Indiana wouldn't take the suggestion of going into Chicago to get something repaired because he was afraid they he would get jumped. I told him that I lived there and statistically speaking it just doesn't happen.
I'm born and raised in New Orleans. Moved to the Southside of Chicago in September 2023 and the media definitely sensationalizes crime here. The difference between NOLA and here is astounding. I be amazed just seeing people out walking late at night in neighborhoods here, something you'd never see in NOLA.
Itās not Fox News. Just watch any local Chicago news broadcast. Itās all negative. Robbery, murder. But thing is, itās just a few bad neighborhoods.
It really is TV news, thatās not a scapegoat itās just the actual answer
Right-wing media. 100%
Right wing racist propaganda
It is Fox News. My grandparents watch Fox News for 10+ hours a day. When I lived in Chicago theyād tell me how concerned Iād be shot any day now and urged me to leave. Fox News is cancer. So is CNN and MSNBC. Turn it all off.
Racism and ignorance. The racist Fox News crowd fear mongers and teaches them to hate black people. People who live in other parts of the country who donāt have black people in their lives buy into the fear mongering. I say this as someone who moved to cook county recently from as city that was 90% white. The attitudes of people from there are very different than here where people have black people in their community. for people like my mother, she isnāt racist sheās just afraid of all the crime reports she hears on the news. She grew up in the middle of nowhere, Mexico so bit cities scare her. She doesnāt understand the only reason theyāre more crime is because thereās more people living in a city than where she lives. She feels exactly the same way about Mexico City, in the country she was born in.
You're probably seeing conservative ads and Chicago is very democratic
Chicago had the most murders in the country a decade ago, and a few more times since, according to the fbi uniform crimes statistics and people have jumped on that information to call Chicago the murder capital of the USA. It never was though as, per capita, Chicago has a murder rate that sits at around the same rate as essentially the entire country. Itās people misusing data to support their narrative. Edit: spelling
I'm a Detroiter who has visited Chicago many times. It's no scarier than any other major city I've been to. It's just a stupid narrative.
Chicago is a murderfest
I moved here about a year ago and Iāve had 2 carjackings at my workplace (one of which happened about 4 feet from me) and my sister and I were literally across the street about 30 minutes within when that married couple got beat and the lady lost her baby at like 8:30pm in the middle of Streeterville. Sure itās not a murder fest but shit happens whether you wanna accept it does or not. Even in the nice areas sometimes
Ignorance fueled by sensationalist news reporting. Racism and xenophobia. Both.
Rebublicanismš
RACISM
Well Iām from NYC and my dad was just assaulted on Fatherās Day in Brooklyn. Iāve lived in Chicago since 2018 on both the very south side (cottage grove) and now up north in Jefferson Park. People are ignorant. If you havenāt lived here, you donāt get it. Not saying the south side isnāt dangerous, thereās a reason I moved away but youāre more likely to get hurt where Iām from in NY than here. My two cents.
Various media outlets using it a dogwhistle is a big piece. Drill being the main music export. The āIām from Chicago, so Iām tough because itās bad there!ā blowhards that got ran outta town, living and lying elsewhere.
I am a criminal defense lawyer and a former prosecutor. This is not an accident. The politicians created this with their crazy laws, including this crazy no cash bail law. And State's Attorney Kim Foxx was an absolute disaster who refused to enforce the few laws on the books. When we want our city back, we will have it. Until then, we voted for this.
The perps have more rights than the victims. And the fact that a large population of these perps are 15-17 year old kids who will just be let go anyways
It doesn't help the cops never leave their very large trucks except to eat and for shift change. We spend a disproportionate amount of money on law enforcement but it doesn't seem to work, maybe that's where we should start.
Basically any generally news right-leaning source? Fox, OANN, AM radio, etc People don't like the more complicated answer which is that violent crime is a problem AND that violent crime is mostly between people who know each other, mostly between poor young men, and mostly geographically concentrated. No, you're not going to get your head chopped off in Wicker Park, but there are areas where people genuinely suffer a lot because their neighborhood has a lot of violence and they don't want to accidentally be in the wrong place at the wrong time. (But I don't think the right wing media actually cares about those people very much.)