Not even Mother’s Day could stem the bloodshed in Chicago. It was the city’s most violent weekend on record since the end of September—a situation Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson deemed “totally unacceptable.”
At its current rate, the Windy City is on track to top 500 homicides for the year for only the second time since 2008. It’s also on pace for the fewest drug arrests since the Nixon era. This downturn has been occurring for years—from more than 57,000 arrests in 2004 to less than half that number in 2015.
Yet even when criminals are arrested, they’re back on the streets far too quickly. In discussing the weekend’s tally, Johnson noted of the perpetrators, “Many have previous arrests and convictions.” And while he goes on to assure that “essentially we know who they are,” his words ring hollow to those whose lives have been destroyed by senseless violence.
