Praying, marching and cooking out: Violence prevention workers fan out for Memorial Day as shootings continue to rise in ChicagoSophie Sherryon May 30, 2021 at 4:51 pm

Dozens join 18th District Chicago police officers for a “faith walk” on the Near North Side, Friday evening, May 28, 2021. | Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

“This is our city that we love, and there is loss of life, and it should make us weep and roll up our sleeves,” said John Fuder of Chicagoland United in Prayer.

Cook-outs, prayer circles, marches, pony rides.

As police step up patrols in Chicago’s hot spots to contain violence this holiday weekend, community workers will fan out to some of the same places to draw people out of the line of fire.

“This is our city that we love, and there is loss of life, and it should make us weep and roll up our sleeves,” said John Fuder of Chicagoland United in Prayer, whose group is sponsoring prayer marches across the city this weekend.

The city has been relying more and more on violence prevention groups like Fuder’s in its strategy to reduce shootings. Their help is more crucial than ever.

Shootings are up 36% this year compared to the same period in 2020, according to Sun-Times data. Homicides are spiking in areas long afflicted with gun violence.

Eight neighborhoods have seen more homicides this year than at this time last year: South Shore, 9 last year and 12 this year; North Lawndale, 6 and 16; West Garfield Park, 11 and 13; Near West Side, 1 and 4; Grand Boulevard, 1 and 8; Austin, 17 and 23; Englewood, 8 and 17; East Garfield Park, 9 and 14.

Last year, the Lightfoot administration released a report titled “Our City Our Safety” that relied heavily on violence prevention groups in the community to connect with people caught in the cycle of violence.

“Gun violence is a reflection… of a lot of things — racial and economic injustice, high incarceration rates, high unemployment rates, poor neighborhoods and under-resourced schools,” said Jahmal Cole, founder of My Block, My Hood, My City. “If you have those five things, that’s the perfect conditions for gun violence.”

For the second year in a row, the nonprofit is funding dozens of events over the long weekend on the South and West sides, investing nearly $50,000 in community groups.

“I feel like the more positivity we put out in the streets this weekend, the more we can create ripples of hope,” Cole said. “I don’t expect to end 400 years of disinvestment with one weekend of giving out grants. But at the same time, I love seeing good stuff happening in the communities.”

This weekend, religious leaders in Chicago will lead prayer marches Saturday and Sunday along major economic corridors. “We feel the urgency that on our watch as faith leaders … we need to take this personally,” Fuder said.

There are also weekend-long “Hand’s Across Chicago” events held in coordination with the Chicago Police Department, with some officers leading prayers.

“Police (have) got to keep the peace … the church has to make the peace happen,” Fuder said.

Earlier this week, Chicago Police Supt. David Brown announced the department was canceling days off for the weekend and putting officers on 12-hour shifts.

“From a historical perspective, [it’s] better to prepare for the worst … than, you know, not be prepared,” Brown said. Last year, 10 people died and 39 others were wounded in shootings over the Memorial Day weekend, the deadliest since 2015.

Arne Duncan, founder of the CRED violence prevention group and former U.S secretary of education, told the Sun-Times he was “very concerned” about the months ahead and was implementing “an all-hands-on deck approach.”

Chicago CRED, CP4P, READI and other organizations have again partnered this year for the FLIP program — Flatlining Violence Inspires Peace — where people with influence in neighborhoods canvas hotspots and work to mediate conflict.

Duncan said they aim to have up to 400 Chicago CRED members working as extended outreach workers under the program this summer, targeting 77 hotspots across 12 neighborhoods.

“It’s so important for our city to understand that our men who are in these cycles of violence, they are also the solution… the only solution, to moving us out of these cycles of violence,” Duncan said. “We can’t arrest our way out of this.”

Steve Perkins, director of outreach at Metropolitan Family Services — which oversees CP4P — said their frontline FLIP workers do not work with Chicago police but have a “professional understanding.”

“We stay away from yellow tape or red tape … we understand that’s police business, and we also want that same level of respect when we’re in community and we’re working with community,” Perkins said. “We allow them to do their job, we do our job, and our methods may be a little different.”

Many of the programs by CP4P and Metropolitan Family Services had to shut down last summer due to the pandemic. This summer, Perkins said they aim to bring back large-scale events, through their Light in the Night program.

“We’re being deliberate and intentional … we’re trying to get in front of it,” Perkins said. “All of our outreach workers are on call.”

For many anti-violence workers, it has been that way since last summer.

“I’m not sitting by my phone to get a call from the mayor’s office to ask me, ‘What are we going to do this weekend to minimize the gun violence?’” READI senior director Eddie Bocanegra said. “Every weekend in Chicago since last year it’s been like a Memorial Day weekend.”

Last weekend, at least 12 people were killed and another 42 were wounded in Chicago, the deadliest weekend so far this year.

Nearly all of the violence happened in neighborhoods on the South and West sides identified by the city last fall as “priority community areas” where police and other resources were to be boosted.

According to “Our City, Our Safety,” 15 community areas have accounted for more than 50 percent of all shootings over the last three years.

“We’re anticipating the worst (this holiday),” Bocanegra said. “But the worst … it’s been like that for over a year already, every weekend.”

Jesse Howe contributed to this report

Praying, marching and cooking out: Violence prevention workers fan out for Memorial Day as shootings continue to rise in ChicagoSophie Sherryon May 30, 2021 at 4:51 pm Read More »

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‘You fight alone, you’re dead.’Neil Steinbergon May 30, 2021 at 3:15 pm

A Marine corps dress hat, called a “cover,” in the hands of the judge who wore it. — Judge William Hooks shows off his Marine Corps cover in his office at the the Leighton Criminal Courthouse, Friday afternoon, May 28, 2021. | Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times | Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times, Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

On Memorial Day, honor fallen vets by helping living ones.

Memorial Day, on Monday, honors the fallen, as opposed to Veterans Day, in November, which honors living vets. That must be complicated, because some folks always point it out. Which must also be necessary, since others still get it wrong.

I want to lump the two together and focus on the “honor” part. What does that mean exactly? What does honoring vets, living or dead, look like? Fly the flag, say the pledge —that’s what I do. Post on Facebook old photos of family members who served? Lots of that. Share stories of military bravery on social media, waved under the noses of other people, almost as a rebuke. I double-dog dare you to share this!

And all this honoring helps … who exactly? It certainly feels good for the person doing it. Nothing wrong with that. I like flying the flag. Going through the motions of respect has gravitas and the illusion of significance.

But honor, in itself, is overrated. Honor is so easy. A solemn nod. A ginned up tear. And back to the TV or barbecue. Everyone is so happy to congregate again; I’m hosting one barbecue and attending another.

It’s also easy for the holiday’s purpose to be overlooked entirely.

This at a time when the military is more important than ever. You can argue whether the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq made us safer. But I believe to the bottom of my heart that the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen. Mark Milley, and other career soldiers saved American democracy last fall. They never fired a shot, but they stood shoulder to shoulder and kept us from becoming a dictatorship. We don’t know the full scope yet. But we will.

In the meantime, entertain the idea that all that moist-eyed flag waving might wound the very people it is supposed to uplift.

“It upsets me when so-called Americans go and fly these flags on these various holidays, Memorial Day and Veterans Day,” said William Hooks, who served for 20 years in the Marine Corps. “They play the game, when the time to be compassionate toward veterans is when one needs bus fare. Who needs a second chance or a job.

“That’s when you show whether you are patriotic to this country or not. You don’t become a hero because you have an emblem on your car or salute the symbols of all these holidays. You do it in your unguarded moments. You do it in your attitude.”

Judge William Hooks in his office at the the Leighton Criminal Courthouse at 26th and California. The Latin on the box, “Semper Fidelis,” is the Marine Corp motto and means, “Always faithful.” | Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Hooks, who is a judge on the Cook County Criminal Courts, also regularly presides over sessions of Veterans Court, one of Cook County’s speciality courts that emphasize support rather than punishment. He sees how easily veterans are abandoned by the country they served.

“I sort through their problems,” Hooks said. “These are crimes of desperation. They’re coming in having committed crimes of poverty, crimes of hopelessness. They may have had that gun and decided to keep the gun but didn’t do the paperwork. Some problems start in active duty. They may use narcotics. They may have alcohol problems.”

Twenty-one U.S. veterans a day kill themselves.

“I don’t think I ever knew a combat veteran who did not contemplate it,” said Hooks’ former commander, Lynn Lowder, who served behind enemy lines as a Marine special ops team leader in Vietnam. “Not ‘line me up to do it.’ But thought about it.”

Lowder knows the best way to honor fallen soldiers is to help living ones.

“We’re quick to send them into fight, but we have not figured out an effective way to reintegrate them into society,” he said, pointing at the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“We said, ‘No more Vietnams.” That was nine years. We’ve been at war almost 20.”

Lowder said all veterans face two challenges when leaving the service.

“The first thing is they figure out: ‘What’s my lane in life going to be?’” he said. “The second thing (to) figure out (is) “Who am I now?” The person who went over is not the person who comes back. And if you’ve seen combat, you’ve seen a lot. It doesn’t mean you’re damaged goods, doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means you’ve got issues other people don’t have.”

Because of this, many vets, rather than being corporate employees, do well in small business. To aid this, Lowder created the Veterans Business Project to help vets purchase small businesses. It’s a 501(c)(3) you can learn about and donate to on their web site, www.veteranbusinessproject.org.

“We’re there to coach and mentor people through the process, to walk them through due diligence,” Lowder said. “If you get a job, they’re going to want you to fit into corporate culture and navigate through the pathways. Or you can create your own pathway.”

Which brings us back to why so many would rather recount Medal of Honor heroics than, oh, help a particular vet buy a dry cleaners. Helping is hard. It’s easier just to thank somebody for their service.

“You know what the veterans call that?” Lowder said. “Happy talk.”

People wonder what they should say instead of “thank you for your service.”

“Try, ‘How’s it going? Do you have a job?’” Lowder suggested. “If the kid says, ‘I don’t,’ maybe you could hook them up. Try to do something. It’s not that hard to do. Veterans are extremely relationship-oriented. It’s what they are. You fight alone, you’re dead. We tend to clump together. We know who we are. You can say, ‘Thanks for the courage you showed.’ But also say, ‘What’s going on?’”

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13 shot, 2 fatally since Friday night in ChicagoSun-Times Wireon May 30, 2021 at 11:26 am

Chicago police investigate Saturday night in the 3700 block of West McLean Avenue in Logan Square, where authorities said a 29-year-old man was shot multiple times. | Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

A 12-year-old boy was with a group of people about 1 a.m. Saturday when someone inside a black Dodge Charger fired shots in the 7100 block of South Dobson Avenue.

Thirteen people have been wounded, two fatally in shootings across Chicago since Friday night.

In the most recent fatal attack, a 29-year-old man was killed Saturday night in a shooting in Logan Square on the Northwest Side.

The man was on the sidewalk about 9 p.m. when someone got out of a vehicle in the 3700 block of West McLean Avenue and began shooting, according to Chicago Police.

He was struck in the arm and leg and taken to Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, police said. His name hasn’t been released.

The shooting happened in front of an apartment complex located in the middle of the residential street. At least four shell casings could be seen inside an area police taped off, which stretched for half a block.

Hours earlier, a 26-year-old man was fatally shot while driving in Lawndale on the West Side.

About 2:15 p.m., he was driving east on Ogden Avenue, when he was shot in the face and chest, police said. The vehicle he was driving came to a rest after striking a light pole in the 3100 block West Ogden Avenue.

He was brought to Mt. Sinai Hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said. He has not been identified.

In nonfatal attacks, a man was wounded in a shooting on Lake Shore Drive early Sunday in the Near South Side.

The 20-year-old was traveling south about 12:30 a.m. in the 1200 block of South Lake Shore Drive when he heard shots and felt pain, police and Chicago Fire officials said.

He was shot in the face and was transported to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where his condition was stable, police said.

A 12-year-old boy was grazed by a bullet early Saturday in Great Crossing on the South Side.

The boy was with a group of people about 1 a.m. when someone inside a black Dodge Charger fired shots in the 7100 block of South Dobson Avenue, police said.

A bullet grazed his leg and he was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital in good condition, police said. He may not have been the intended target, according to police.

Also Saturday, a 40-year-old man was wounded in a drive-by shooting in the Brighton Park neighborhood.

The man was standing outside just after midnight in the 3300 block of West 47th Street when a pick up truck drove by and a male from inside fired shots, police said.

He suffered two gunshot wounds to the back and was taken to Mount Sinai in good condition, police said.

The gunman is about 27 to 29 years old, according to police.

On Friday, a ride-share driver was grazed by a bullet during a struggle with a person who tried to rob him in Bronzeville.

About 6:55 p.m., the driver was in the 4000 block of South Wabash Avenue when a male got into the back seat of the car, pulled out a gun and demanded the 42-year-old get out of the vehicle, police said.

The two struggled over the gun, causing it to discharge, police said. The man was grazed in the abdomen and the attacker fled the scene.

The man was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center in good condition, police said.

At least seven others were wounded in citywide gun violence since 5 p.m. Friday.

Last weekend, 12 people were killed and at least 42 others were wounded in shootings across Chicago, making it the deadliest of the year.

Read more on crime, and track the city’s homicides.

13 shot, 2 fatally since Friday night in ChicagoSun-Times Wireon May 30, 2021 at 11:26 am Read More »

Chicago Blackhawks: 3 Nashville Predators free agents to snatchon May 30, 2021 at 11:00 am

Apr 19, 2021; Nashville, Tennessee, USA; Nashville Predators center Luke Kunin (11) battles for a loose puck in front of Chicago Blackhawks goaltender Kevin Lankinen (32) during the first period at Bridgestone Arena. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports

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(Photo by Frederick Breedon/Getty Images)

The Chicago Blackhawks had the Detroit Red Wings back in their division this season but it didn’t have the same feel as their normal rivalry before Detroit moved to the Eastern Conference. The Wings also weren’t very good either which waters down the rivalry a little bit. It still felt like the Nashville Predators were their biggest rival this season. The St. Louis Blues weren’t there as they temporarily played in the West Division this year.

The Chicago Blackhawks couldn’t get by the Nashville Predators in 2021.

Nashville battled until the end with the Blackhawks and Dallas Stars for the final playoff spot and ended up taking it. It started to become obvious that the Carolina Hurricanes, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Florida Panthers would be the top three in the division and Nashville deserves credit for making it in as the number four seed.

They were matched up with the number one seeded Carolina Hurricanes in the first round. They went down 2-0 on the road and then tied the series with two straight home wins. Unfortunately for Nashville, they lost two straight games which eliminated them from the postseason. Game six ended with Carolina scoring in overtime to take them down.

Now, Nashville has a lot of questions to answer as they go into the offseason. They are not as good as they were when they reached the Stanley Cup final in 2017 but they are certainly good enough to compete for the playoffs. They have some free agents coming off the books this year so it is going to be interesting to see what they decide in the end. There are some free agents for the Chicago Blackhawks to consider if Nashville doesn’t bring them back:

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Chicago Blackhawks: 3 Nashville Predators free agents to snatchon May 30, 2021 at 11:00 am Read More »