Ken Berwitz
Chicagopoliticians are pretty much over Tyshawn Lee.
If and whenthe police lay out their theory of what occurred and file charges, yes, Tyshawnwill again be very big news. But only for a while. Then, unless this case isstartlingly different, the Chicago pols will move on.
SomeChicagoans never get to move on, of course. The many people consigned to liveon streets terrorized by gangbangers have to put up with perpetual gunplay.They pray that their children, their grandchildren, don\’t fall to someweapons-crime felon who did a customarily brief sentence and now roams free.They pray that someone stops the next shooter with a score to settle before hetucks another child into a coffin.
The nexttime a child is slaughtered here, all those Chicagoans will be just asoutraged, just as discouraged. But if they\’re fortunate enough to live on safestreets, they\’ll move on from that youngster, too. Again, no disrespectintended.
Statelegislators and aldermen shouldn\’t move on. Yet they always do:
•In the weeks since someone killed Tyshawn,how many Chicago state senators and representatives have you heard pledging totoughen Illinois\’ light sentences for gun offenders? Two years ago, thelegislators\’ power play blocked a mildly stronger gun-sentences bill thatunited Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the National Rifle Association as odd-couplesupporters. We don\’t know if that legislation would have protected Tyshawn. Wedo know that by keeping shooters off the streets longer, and maybe deterringsome gun crimes, it would make Chicago safer. Yet Chicago\’s lawmakers,legislative leaders included, do nothing.
•In the same three weeks, how many ofChicago\’s aldermen have you heard leading new initiatives for the fed-upcitizens in their wards? Initiatives encouraging neighbors to get past theirfears and tell the police who traffics guns, who did the killing, who ran fromthe scene. To help parents learn whether beat cops and tactical officers seetheir children hanging with gang members.
Nah, you don\’t hear that. When a Tyshawn Leehits the ground and the front pages, most pols shrewdly lie low and hope nobodynotices. They\’re fringe players, irrelevant, and comfortable in that bit role.They show up for wakes. But, quick now, when is the last time you heard one ofthem own the chronic violence in his or her district? In his or her ward?
True, the aldermen do get antsy when, in anygiven month, the city\’s homicide toll drifts above whatever the horrific butevidently tolerable level was last year. They call news conferences to blamemayors or police superintendents for the killings of the aldermen\’sconstituents. They\’re expert at denying that they have any responsibility totake direct actions that could coalesce their constituents and make them safer.That\’s the cops\’ job.
Against that practiced Chicago inertia, a caselike Tyshawn\’s doesn\’t have a prayer of outing derelict public officials. Thepols figure they must be doing something right. Voters keep electing them butnever demand action from them to confront the ritual slaughter.
The polswill move on. Tyshawn Lee\’s lyrical name joins the list of massacred youngChicagoans – Dantrell Davis, Chastity Turner, Blair Holt, Hadiya Pendleton …
The crisisisn\’t that Chicagoans won\’t stay focused on any one case.
The crisis is that Chicago legislators andaldermen don\’t feel threatened enough – by violent crime or public fury – topass the laws and launch the initiatives that would deliver solutions.
It\’s easiest for Chicago politicians to loudlydenounce violence, as children like Tyshawn Lee keep getting added to the list.
-Do you see one thing about more or stricter gun control laws in that editorial? The answer is that you don\’t. Because – though the Trib\’s editorial board members could not bring themselves to say it, that is not the answer. What good will more/stricter gun control laws do to prevent gun use by people who don\’t obey laws?-Do you see a statement that an imperative in lessening gun violence is to make it worth a potential gun user\’s while not to use his/her gun? The answer is that you do…sort of. Because – though the Trib\’s editorial board members, again, could not bring themselves to say it – they provide one excellent example: toughening (i.e. lengthening) the sentences for gun offenders.The longer someone who uses a gun will be put away, the more he/she has to lose by using a gun. Similarly, a mandatory sentence for anyone in possession of a gun during the commission of a crime, even if the gun were not used (which I have spent years proposing in this blog) might cause at least some criminal types think twice before walking on the street while carrying one.-And then we have the toss-off comment that a bill calling for stronger gun sentences “united Rahm Emanuel and the National Rifle Association as odd-couple supporters” – the implication being that the NRA would be expected to oppose such a bill. That is nonsense. The NRA, whatever you think of it one way or another, supports our right to have guns…but has never, ever supported light sentences for people who use them in the commission of crimes. Was it really necessary to add that gratuitous, dishonest characterization?
