{"id":107844,"date":"2017-05-31T15:10:48","date_gmt":"2017-05-31T19:10:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/breaking911.com\/?p=107844"},"modified":"2017-05-31T15:15:50","modified_gmt":"2017-05-31T19:15:50","slug":"fbi-deployed-streets-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/breaking911.com\/fbi-deployed-streets-chicago\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI Deployed To The Streets of Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

FBI, Chicago Police Department Work to Combat Violent Crime<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Tuesday, April 18, 8:15 a.m.: Along the 5100 block of Halsted Street on the South Side of Chicago, a quiet spring morning is interrupted by gunfire. Police respond to a gas station and discover a drive-by double homicide. As they secure the crime scene and work to identify the bodies and recover evidence, distraught family members of the victims begin to arrive, their faces full of anguish and disbelief. They will not be alone in their grief. By the end of the day in a city reeling from violent crime, there will be 13 more shootings and another murder.<\/p>\n

Chicago\u2019s extreme gun violence\u2014762 homicides last year and more than 4,000 people wounded\u2014has been described as an epidemic. Primarily gang-related, the shootings are often spontaneous and unpredictable, and the toll on victims, families, and entire communities cannot be overstated. That\u2019s why the FBI\u2019s Chicago Division, working with the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and other agencies, has undertaken significant measures to address the problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe FBI sometimes battles a perception that we are only interested in terrorism or public corruption or large drug-trafficking organizations,\u201d said Michael Anderson, special agent in charge of the Chicago Division. \u201cThe fact is, we are interested in those things, but in Chicago we are also getting down to the street level to address violent crime, and we are specifically going after the trigger-pullers and shot-callers.\u201d<\/p>\n

That street-level focus is in response to a city homicide rate that has \u201cincreased exponentially,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cThe number of shootings is at a level that hasn\u2019t been seen here since the early 1990s.\u201d As a result, he explained, \u201cwhat you are seeing and will continue to see in Chicago is a sustained FBI effort to support and supplement our local partners.\u201d<\/p>\n

That effort involves three major areas:<\/p>\n

– The creation in 2016 of a homicide task force\u2014in addition to the FBI\u2019s existing violent crimes squad\u2014in which agents work alongside CPD detectives and other law enforcement officers to assist in solving the city\u2019s murder cases;<\/p>\n

– Increased intelligence-gathering efforts to identify shooters and \u201cdirectors of violence,\u201d which includes embedding FBI analysts at CPD headquarters; and<\/p>\n

– Stepping up community outreach efforts to gain the public\u2019s trust and enlist their help in solving crimes and making communities safer.<\/p>\n

\u201cSimply put,\u201d said CPD Superintendent Eddie Johnson, \u201cthe FBI has more resources than we do. We combine the resources we have with the ones they have to fight these crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

FBI and CPD personnel working together in the city\u2019s most violent neighborhoods \u201chas helped quite a bit,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cAnd we get real-time intelligence from the FBI that we didn\u2019t get before. They can look at our crime picture and help us figure out where to best deploy our resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson, a Chicago native and 29-year veteran of the police force who spent many years as a patrol officer, believes a key reason for the city\u2019s current violence is inadequate gun laws.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe flow of guns into Chicago is just insane,\u201d he said. \u201cYou will find that gang members would rather be caught with a gun by law enforcement than caught without one by their rivals. What we have to do through legislation is create a mentality where gang members won’t want to pick up a gun,\u201d he explained. \u201cYou create that by holding them accountable for their actions. We simply don’t do a good job of that right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson recalled that when he joined CPD in 1988, he and fellow officers responded daily to calls of gang fights in progress. \u201cWe rarely hear that call anymore,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat we hear now is a person with a gun or a person shot. They just go straight to a firearm and they resolve their disputes with a weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCommunities are being hijacked by a relatively small percentage of people,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cThe overwhelming majority of residents are hard-working citizens going to work, going to school, trying to go about their daily lives. These communities are under siege, and they are desperately looking for help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of Chicago\u2019s 22 police districts, the majority of violent crimes are taking places in a cluster of neighborhoods on the South and West Sides. \u201cA handful of districts\u2014probably five or six\u2014are responsible for the disproportionate number of homicides and shootings,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n

FBI and CPD investigators have focused considerable effort on two of the city\u2019s most historically violent areas\u2014the 11th District on the West Side and the 7th District on the South Side. \u201cSince we put the task force in place,\u201d Johnson said, \u201cwe\u2019ve seen significant drops in gun violence in these two districts. We are making some real positive gains,\u201d he said. \u201cBy no means are we declaring success, but we have seen some really encouraging results.\u201d<\/p>\n

Driving through the city\u2019s most violent neighborhoods\u2014Austin, Englewood, North Lawndale, Auburn Gresham\u2014the streets and parks appear peaceful, and often they are. But when the violence comes, it is sudden and usually without warning. One gang member might have disrespected a rival gang member\u2014increasingly through social media (see sidebar)\u2014and they go looking for each other to settle matters with their guns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I started as a cop,\u201d Johnson said, \u201cif you had a gang of 10 guys, maybe two of them at most would be armed. Now if you have a gang of 10 guys, probably nine of them are armed. And we\u2019ve seen kids as young as 10 and 11 with firearms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Investigators agree that gang members are arming themselves at younger ages. \u201cBased on what I\u2019ve seen over the last year,\u201d one FBI agent said, \u201cthese guys are carrying around guns as if it\u2019s a symbol of their pride or who they are\u2014and the bigger the gun, the better. We are seeing handguns with extended magazines and ammunition drums attached. It\u2019s like guns are a part of them, a part of their culture. And they are not afraid to use them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The FBI is working to reach some of these youngsters before they get involved with gangs\u2014it\u2019s one part of the Bureau\u2019s larger community outreach effort in the campaign to stop gun violence. At the Plato Learning Academy middle school in the Austin community recently, Special Agent Rob Fortt spoke to sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders about the choices they make and the consequences of those choices.<\/p>\n

The school\u2019s principal, Charles Williams, welcomed the opportunity for the FBI to give students a fresh perspective on law enforcement and a positive message about making good decisions. Describing the neighborhood\u2019s reputation for violence, Williams said he has heard gunshots in the middle of the day from his office, and violent crime is a fact of life. \u201cOur students are surrounded by it, unfortunately. It\u2019s just something that permeates the neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gang-related homicides in Chicago are most easily solved when witnesses come forward. But in the city\u2019s violent neighborhoods, many who witness shootings or have information don\u2019t cooperate with law enforcement, either because they distrust the police or they want to engage in \u201cfrontier justice\u201d and seek their own retaliation, the FBI\u2019s Anderson said. \u201cSo we are putting a lot of resources into community outreach. We are really focusing on going out in the community and building trust. If folks trust law enforcement, they are more likely to report crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FBI, Chicago Police Department Work to Combat Violent Crime Tuesday, April 18, 8:15 a.m.: Along the 5100 block of Halsted Street on the South Side of Chicago, a quiet spring morning is interrupted by gunfire. Police respond to a gas station and discover a drive-by double homicide. As they secure the crime scene and work […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5409,"featured_media":28610,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[1,54],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nFBI Deployed To The Streets of Chicago - Breaking911<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/breaking911.com\/fbi-deployed-streets-chicago\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"FBI Deployed To The Streets of Chicago - Breaking911\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"FBI, Chicago Police Department Work to Combat Violent Crime Tuesday, April 18, 8:15 a.m.: Along the 5100 block of Halsted Street on the South Side of Chicago, a quiet spring morning is interrupted by gunfire. 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