A Wall Street rating agency that alone gave Chicago a junk bond rating on Friday branded as “credit negative” a bill Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed over Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s objections boosting pensions for thousands of Chicago firefighters.
“The legislation is credit negative for the city of Chicago,” said the advisory from Moody’s Investors Service, “because it will cause the city’s reported unfunded pension liabilities, and thus its annual contribution requirements, to rise.”
With pension contributions consuming 17% of the city’s operating revenue and total liabilities pegged at $46.6 billion in 2019, pensions are the “largest credit challenge facing Chicago,” Moody’s said.
Pritzker signed the bill on Monday, arguing the new law “creates a system that gives all firefighters certainty and fair treatment.” But Lightfoot, who had urged the fellow Democrat not to sign it, blasted it as a “fiscally irresponsible” law typical of Springfield’s “back room deals.”
Moody’s on Friday gave Lightfoot more ammunition.
The Firefighters Annuity and Benefit Fund has “asset/benefit coverage of just three years,” Moody’s wrote. That’s a “point-in-time estimate of the numbers of years of benefit payments pension assets can cover, assuming no further contributions or investment income and no further growth in benefits.”
Chicago Fire Department firefighters carry a house while trying to put out an extra-alarm fire in the Bridgeport neighborhood in February.Pat Nabong/Sun-Times file
“The city must continue to increase its contributions substantially to prevent the insolvency of its deeply underfunded retirement systems and eventually accumulate a more substantial base of pension assets,” Moody’s wrote.
But the rating agency also wrote, “While significant, the roughly $800 million liability increase stemming from House Bill 2451 that the city has forecast is not outsized relative to the scale of the city’s already extremely high liabilities.”
The bill, introduced by state Sen. Robert Martwick, D-Chicago, a Lightfoot political nemesis, passed in the waning hours of the lame duck session.
It removes the “birth date restriction” that prohibits roughly 2,200 active and retired firefighters born after Jan. 1, 1966, from receiving a 3% annual cost of living increase. Instead, they get half that amount, 1.5% and it is not compounded.
Martwick has argued the “birth date restriction” already has been moved five times as a way of masking the true cost to the pension fund.
Lightfoot strongly disagreed. She has argued the bill amounts to ill-timed and unaffordable pension sweetener that would saddle Chicago taxpayers with up $823 million in added costs by 2055 and trigger “another property tax hike for Chicagoans, which would regrettably add to the overwhelming economic duress that so many or our neighbors are facing.”
The mayor’s $12.8 billion budget already includes a $94 million property tax increase, followed by annual increases tied to the Consumer Price Index.
When he signed the bill on Monday, Pritzker argued that “hardworking men and women who have earned their pension shouldn’t pay the price for local or state budget challenges.”
“To make sure that the city can meet its obligations, my administration is working to sell the James R. Thompson Center, which will return to the city’s property tax rolls and is projected to generate $45 million annually for the city and its sister agencies,” the governor wrote in a statement.
Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Reasons” hung on a summer breeze as we bellowed the words from our souls and dreamed of life, love and making sweet memories. Having emerged from Jim Crow — still fresh from the Great Migration and still reeling from Dr. King’s assassination but standing in the dawning light of new possibilities, even amid our pain and poverty — we sang.
And we danced. And romanced. Black love. Black family. Back in a time before insanity and so much profanity. So 70s …
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Back then, the libretto of the days of our lives was sung in Philip Bailey’s falsetto, which rose higher and sweeter than a morning bird, fluttering above a rippling blue lake against a golden sunrise. The music made us live, love, laugh, cry.
Even when times were bad, songs seasoned our days and nights, like Grandmother’s cornbread and collard greens. They composed the soundtrack of our times, chronicled life and death, struggle and breath, and the yearning souls of Black folk. Nothing compared to the songs that Earth, Wind & Fire and the Isley Brothers wrote.
And time stood still.
I can still see my uncle’s candy apple red Delta 88. See us dance and skate. Smell my Aunt Scopie’s garlic fried chicken. See adults and children alike shimmy and shake.
Back then, songs spoke to our spirits in smooth and funk-filled grooves and harmonies, in honey-laden melodies with timeless lyrics that worked like good medicine to soothe our sometimes-wearied souls as they spilled from AM radios.
Songs made us whole. They flowed through West and South Side blocks, like rivers of milk and honey, amid the cool white spray of fire hydrants on blazing summer days. Made us feel rich, even when we had no money.
For the sun shone as brightly on the Cold Coast as it did on the Gold Coast. And the scent of barbecue at a block club party in the hood — white smoke billowing from grills saturated with ribs and tips and hotdogs, burgers and corn on the cob–made ghetto life all good.
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We sang: “Hearts of fire creates loves desire, Take you high and higher to the world you belong…”
We sang: “Through devotion, Blessed are the children, Praise the teacher, That brings true love to many…”
And time stood still…
No drive-bys. No crack. No carjacking. No COVID-19.
And yet, they were no-less imperfect times filled with red tape and white lies. But the music helped us just get by.
We sang: “Drifting on a memory, Ain’t no place I’d rather be, Than with you, loving you…” The Isley Brothers’ silky soulful sounds melted away our troubles–wet our palates like the White Port and Kool-Aid mix the alley winos called shake-n-bake. And Ernie Isley’s guitar serenades transported our hearts and imaginations all the way to heaven.
We sang, “I keep hearin’ footsteps, baby, In the dark, in the dark…”
We sang, “Smiles in the makin’, You gotta fight the powers that be…”
We sang, “Sometimes you can’t be with the one you love, honey, love the one you’re with.”
At their best, they were among the songs that uplifted us. That time-stamped upon our hearts and souls memories of first loves, first times, and seasons now passed. Of family no longer here. Of bid whist and ice-cold beer, of moonlit nights without trepidation or fear. Songs that filled our ghetto atmosphere with serenity and serendipity that chased away our troubled days like Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September.”
It was a Verzuz battle last Sunday between Earth, Wind & Fire and the Isley Brothers that helped me to remember. And time stood still.
Chicago rapper D2x has poured all 23 years of his life so far into his debut album, The Color Blue. Across its 13 tracks, he delivers lines about his childhood in the south suburbs, his time playing basketball as a student at Western Illinois University, his struggles with depression, his faith in God, his recent marriage—and his desire to make a classic album that sums it all up.…Read More
Vietnam War veteran Jim Zwit was the “hero of the day’’ at a Cubs-Sox game in 2016 at Sox park. | Chicago White Sox
It took him 40 years, but he never gave up hope. A fellow Vietnam veteran says: ‘He let the families know their sons did not die alone and they’d never be forgotten.’
Jim Zwit never forgot the hot, sticky smell of Vietnam. And he never forgot the eight Army buddies he lost there in an ambush in 1971.
He made it his life’s mission to track down each of their families, spread across the United States. And that was in an age before finding people was made easier by the likes of Google, email and social media.
It took him 40 years, but he finally found the last of them.
“He let the families know their sons did not die alone and they’d never be forgotten,” said Pat Condran, a fellow vet who plans to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., to mark the 50th anniversary of the April 15, 1971, firefight that forever changed the lives of those who survived.
Mr. Zwit, 70, a former Chicago cop who later ran his own investigations agency, died last month at his home in La Grange Park of bladder cancer, though his doctors think his wartime exposure to the chemical Agent Orange contributed to his health problems, according to his wife Grace.
Honor Flight ChicagoJim Zwit.
Young Jim grew up on the Southwest Side and went to St. Bede the Venerable grade school and Bogan High School.
He was a student at what was then called the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle when he decided to enlist in the Army.
He served in the 501st Battalion of the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division. In Vietnam, whenever he met another kid from Chicago, he had one question: “Cubs or Sox?”
He was all Sox all the way.
In an interview for Honor Flight Chicago, Mr. Zwit said he and fellow GI Robert C. Hein bonded over their love of motorcycles. They dreamed of riding the Pacific Coast Highway when they returned home.
“He made a pact with me, don’t ask me why,” Mr. Zwit said, that “ ‘If something happens to one of us,’ he goes, ‘the other guy has to go back and see the family to explain what happened.’ ’’
ProvidedYoung Jim Zwit before being badly injured in an ambush in Vietnam on April 15, 1971.
In 1971, Mr. Zwit and 77 other members of D Company were assigned to retrieve a soldier’s body from the A Shau Valley.
ProvidedJim Zwit in Vietnam.
“Our motto is: You never leave a man behind,” he said in another interview, with the Veterans History Project.
Mr. Zwit said he and his comrades didn’t realize they were surrounded by 1,500 North Vietnamese regular Army troops who shadowed them for two days without their knowledge.
ProvidedJim Zwit was sent to Vietnam at 19. By 20, he’d suffered massive injuries in a firefight that required 20 months of recovery. Doctors didn’t think he’d live.
“They watched us land. They followed us for two days — and our command knew this,” Mr. Zwit told the Veterans History Project.
On April 15, 1971, “All hell broke loose,” he said in the Honor Flight Chicago interview.
Eight men were killed and 13 wounded in an ambush — more than a quarter of his company.
Mr. Zwit was badly injured by shrapnel.
But Hein dragged his 20-year-old friend to safety, propped him against a tree and kept fetching water for him.
ProvidedBob Hein, a fellow GI who Jim Zwit felt helped to save his life. Finding Hein’s family set Mr. Zwit on a journey to find the relatives of seven other men who died in a 1971 Vietnam battle.
“He’d crawl back every so often, canteen of water, canteen of water, canteen of water,” Mr. Zwit said. But then: “There was a point where he didn’t come back.”
Hein had taken a direct hit. He died instantly.
Mr. Zwit always wondered whether his friend died because he was trying to get him a drink.
“Something I have to live with,” he said later. “I think about it to this day.”
He was choppered to safety in a rescue so perilous that the helicopter had to zoom off with Mr. Zwit clipped to a cable, swinging through the foliage.
“I was kissing every tree that was in front of me,” he told the Veterans History Project.
Mr. Zwit suffered massive injuries. Much later, he found medical records that spelled out just how badly he was hurt. They said: “Doctors do not believe he will live.”
He underwent 12 hours of surgery and was given 25 units of blood. He lost 70% of his liver, part of his stomach, his gallbladder, a kidney and four ribs. It took him 20 months to recover.
“He was beat up pretty good,” his wife said.
ProvidedIt took 20 months for Jim Zwit to recover from his combat injuries in Vietnam.
Mr. Zwit told an interviewer, “I knew when I got better, I knew where I was gonna go.”
And so he set out to find Hein’s mother. That would take him 17 years.
Mr. Zwit’s backpack and address book had been destroyed the night of the attack. Hein had told him he was from Sacramento, so he called the Sacramento Bee, but the newspaper couldn’t find a death notice for him.
In the late 1970s, when a friend visited Sacramento, Mr. Zwit said he told him, “Go to a phone booth, and rip out all the pages with ‘Hein.’
“I called every one. Nothing.”
Then, in 1988, he spotted a story in a military magazine about a new Vietnam veterans’ memorial in Sacramento and wrote a letter to Sacramento newscaster Stan Atkinson, who was helping with the tribute. Atkinson alerted Mike Kelley, a 101st Airborne vet who was on the memorial committee. Kelley worked in the assessor’s office but had no luck finding Hein’s family through records there.
By coincidence, though, Kelley heard another volunteer, Doug Durham, say that Condran — Durham’s brother-in-law — was coming there from his home in Fairbanks, Alaska, to march in the parade for his fellow Company D member — Bob Hein.
It turned out that Hein was from Sacramento County, not the city. And his relatives were in a town Mr. Zwit hadn’t checked — Rio Linda, California.
Hein had made the same pact with Condran about getting in touch with one another’s relatives if either of them was killed.
Condran, who’d already met the Heins, gave Mr. Zwit the phone number for his mother, Catherine Hein-Markley.
“It was the hardest call of my life. I called her the next day,” Mr. Zwit said in the Honor Flight Chicago interview. Soon, “She was like another mom to me.”
He went to Sacramento and met Hein’s mother. And he and Condran both marched in her son’s place in the parade to dedicate the California Vietnam Memorial.
ProvidedVietnam veterans Pat Condran (left) and Jim Zwit visiting the grave of fellow soldier Robert C. Hein in Sacramento in 1988, when Mr. Zwit finally met the Hein family.
Hearing about how her son had helped Mr. Zwit that night, Hein’s mother told a reporter, “I’m real proud of my son, and it is as if just a part of Bob has come back now through Jim.”
“Meeting the first mother, the first parent of one of those eight guys that died that night, it was unbelievable,” Mr. Zwit told WTTW. “It was the most satisfying thing. . . From that day on, I said, you know, I’m going to keep trying to find the other seven families.”
Hein’s sister Toni Doucet said the meeting helped heal his relatives and that, like Condran before him, “Jim became part of the family.”
ProvidedAfter 17 years of searching, Jim Zwit met the family of his slain Army buddy Bob Hein in 1988 thanks to “a series of miracles.” At left is Hein’s mother Catherine Hein-Markley. At right: Hein’s sister Toni Doucet.
He and Condran made Hein come alive to the nieces and nephews who never met him. They explained the details in the Instamatic photos that soldiers took of each other when things were quiet.
ProvidedJim Zwit (center) going over photos from Vietnam with relatives of Bob Hein, an Army friend killed in the Vietnam War: Hein’s mother Catherine Hein-Markley (right) and Hein’s sister Toni Doucet.
Mr. Zwit stayed in touch with Hein’s mother. “She got 13 years with him” before she died, Doucet said. “Phone calls, emails, cards, letters.”
After returning home from Vietnam and joining the Chicago Police Department, where he worked for about a dozen years, Mr. Zwit started an investigative and process-serving agency.
He used his detective skills and the Internet to continue his research, locating relatives of six more of his buddies killed in Vietnam. But he was stymied finding the family of William J. Ward, who was from Greene County, North Carolina.
That is until he went to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington on April 15, 2011 — the 40th anniversary of the firefight. He noticed a woman kneel to study the bottom of panel 4W, where his friends’ names were.
“He asked me, ‘Ma’am, can I ask you who you came to see?’ ” Lois Daniels said. “And I said, ‘William Ward.’ He got all choked up, and he said, ‘William Ward — I’ve been looking for you all these years.’ We just cried together.”
ProvidedAfter 40 years of searching, Jim Zwit (rear center) finally found relatives of his war buddy William J. Ward while visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.: Lois Daniels (in V-neck shirt, holding papers), her granddaughters Charity and Taelor and daughter Kelly. Fellow vet Bob Gervasi is at left.
Daniels is married to Emanuel Daniels, a cousin of Ward.
She didn’t know it was the anniversary of the firefight. An educator from Hampton, Virginia, Daniels had decided to visit the memorial with her grandchildren while on spring break.
“I just call it a true miracle,” she said.
Mr. Zwit connected by phone with Ward’s family and got photos from Vietnam and news clippings to Ward’s mother Mary Lena Ward.
He regularly spoke at schools about his military service.
Mr. Zwit was buried this month at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery. In addition to his wife Grace, survivors include his daughter Jennifer Hennessy, sons Jeffrey, Vincent and Christian and four grandchildren.
“He lived every day to the fullest,” his wife said, “because he was so grateful he survived Vietnam.”
Illinois public health officials on Friday reported a second straight record-setting day for COVID-19 vaccinations — but the state also hit a worrying milestone by logging more than 4,000 new cases of the disease for the first time in 10 weeks as the latest coronavirus surge builds momentum.
With 164,462 doses administered Thursday, Illinois is vaccinating more people than ever, at an average clip of 118,336 shots per day over the last week, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.
That still hasn’t been enough to tamp down a sharp rise in infections over the past month, as most key metrics have almost doubled.
With another 4,004 residents testing positive for the virus — the most in a day since Jan. 29 — about 3,122 Illinoisans have contracted COVID-19 each day over the past week. That rate is up 91% compared to the first week of March, when the state was reporting an average of 1,663 daily cases.
5:15 p.m. After criticism of his handing of coronavirus, Indiana governor vetoes bill curtailing emergency power
INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb on Friday vetoed a bill that would have given legislators more authority to intervene during emergencies declared by the governor.
Holcomb issued the veto on the proposal that lawmakers approved over his objections, and which he and some legal experts have said they don’t believe is allowed under the state constitution.
Holcomb’s fellow Republicans pushed the bill after months of criticism from some conservatives over COVID-19 restrictions that he imposed by executive order during the statewide public health emergency over the past year.
“I firmly believe a central part of this bill is unconstitutional,” Holcomb wrote in his veto letter. “The legislation impermissibly attempts to give the General Assembly the ability to call itself into a special session, thereby usurping a power given exclusively to the governor.”
3:55 p.m. Olympic sports struggling to survive at many colleges because of coronavirus
The death of a 117-year-old program, one that captured championships and produced Olympians, ended with a gasp. And then a vote.
The fact the former did not alter the outcome of the latter offered a stark glimpse into the steadily eroding support for men’s gymnastics at the NCAA level, one that will eventually have a ripple effect up and down the food chain for a sport struggling for relevance inside the U.S. Olympic movement.
That gasp. John Roethlisberger could hear it during a University of Minnesota Board of Regents meeting last fall. At one point someone asked how much money the school’s athletic department would save by approving the proposal to cut men’s gymnastics, men’s tennis and men’s indoor track and field, a move athletic director Mark Coyle called necessary to help offset a $45 million to $65 million deficit due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The answer? $1.6 million. Or just more than 1% of the athletic department’s $123 million budget.
2:45 p.m. Biden to rush vaccine support to Michigan as governor urges limits
WASHINGTON — Washington will rush federal resources to support vaccinations, testing and therapeutics, but not vaccines, to Michigan in an effort to control the state’s worst-in-the-nation COVID-19 transmission rate, the White House said Friday.
The announcement came as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer strongly recommended, but did not order, a two-week pause on face-to-face high school instruction, indoor restaurant dining and youth sports. She cited more contagious coronavirus variants and pandemic fatigue as factors in the surge, which has led some hospitals to postpone non-emergency procedures.
Statewide hospitalizations have quadrupled in a month and are nearing peak levels from last spring and fall.
“Policy alone won’t change the tide. We need everyone to step up and to take personal responsibility,” she said Friday, while not ruling out future restrictions. Michigan’s seven-day case rate was 492 per 100,000 people, well above second-worst New Jersey, with 328 per 100,000 residents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
1:30 p.m. No region in the world spared as coronavirus cases, deaths surge
WARSAW, Poland — Hospitals in Turkey and Poland are filling up. Pakistan is restricting domestic travel. The U.S. government will send more help to the state with the country’s worst infection increase.
The worldwide surge in coronavirus cases and deaths includes even Thailand, which has weathered the pandemic far better than many nations but now struggles to contain COVID-19.
The only exceptions to the deteriorating situation are countries that have advanced vaccination programs, mostly notably Israel and Britain. The U.S., which is a vaccination leader globally, is also seeing a small uptick in new cases, and the White House announced Friday that it would send federal assistance to Michigan to control the state’s worst-in-the-nation transmission rate.
The World Health Organization said infection rates are climbing in every global region, driven by new virus variants and too many countries coming out of lockdown too soon.
12:20 p.m. Riverwalk vendors begin phased reopening Friday
Vendors on the Chicago Riverwalk began a phased-in reopening Friday that will have all vendors open by the end of May.
Island Party Hut, Beat Kitchen on the River and City Winery opened Friday. A new vendor addition this year is Pier 31, which plans to open in May.
“The Riverwalk is not only an important part of our city’s economic engine, but it also adds to the liveliness of our iconic summers,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in a news release.
“This reopening serves as yet another indicator of our city’s resilience in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we look forward to making this Chicago staple available to residents and visitors this spring and summer.”
11:05 a.m. Aldermen move to prevent parade permit infighting
With 500 permits issued every year, it’s safe to say that Chicago loves a parade.
On Thursday, the City Council’s Committee on Cultural Affairs and Special Events proved that love by providing a bit of post-pandemic protection.
At Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s behest, aldermen endorsed an ordinance that preserves permit priority for “traditional parades” scheduled at around the same time along the same route “in connection with a specific holiday or consistent theme for at least the prior five years.”
That priority status would remain even though those “traditional parades” were canceled last year because of the coronavirus — and even though none have been held so far this year, either.
Deputy Transportation Commissioner Mike Simon said the goal of the mayor’s ordinance is to prevent the temporary hiatus from opening the door to post-pandemic feuds between parade organizers vying for permits on the same day.
10:30 a.m. ‘Trauma upon trauma’: Asian Americans say mental health has suffered amid COVID-19, anti-Asian violence
The coronavirus pandemic sparked a mental health crisis. For Asians and Asian Americans also facing a rise in hate incidents across the country, it’s been “trauma upon trauma,” says Anne Saw, a Chicago psychologist.
“A lot of our communities are experiencing so many pandemic stressors that are then compounded by a lot of anti-Asian discrimination that we’re also experiencing,” says Saw, who teaches at DePaul University and directs the Chicago Asian American Psychology Lab.
“It’s tough to, like, get your head above water and get some room to breathe when every day we’re confronted with new traumas,” she says.
We talked to seven Chicagoans about how anti-Asian violence coupled with the pandemic have affected their mental health and their everyday lives. Among them was Kaylee Cong, 32, of Uptown, who manages a nail spa.
On March 20, four days after the Atlanta shootings, Cong says, her 60-year-old Vietnamese father was punched in the head as he walked alone that night near Broadway and West Ainslee Street. He turned to run, saw a white man holding a baseball bat watching him and called 911.
“We’re really scared,” says Cong, who’d been talking with her father about the Georgia shootings the day before he was attacked. “What if the person come back and do revenge? My entire life living here, it was so peaceful. There was no violence like this.”
She says her father hasn’t wanted to leave the house since that happened.
Older Asian Americans “just want to keep quiet and don’t want to make waves,” Cong says. “I have really different mentality. We deserve to, you know, feel safe. And we shouldn’t be afraid to stand up for ourselves.”
9:56 a.m. CPS high school reopening agreement remains elusive
A final high school reopening agreement remains elusive between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union just days before high school teachers are due to return to classrooms — and the union president said Thursday the next few days of negotiations will determine whether workers show up on Monday.
Though the range of issues is smaller and disagreement over those items is not as severe as the hostile K-8 negotiations in February, there are still a few unresolved concerns the union is expressing as COVID-19 infections once again rise in the city.
CPS officials have directed 5,350 high school teachers to return to buildings Monday with or without a CTU agreement, and about 26,000 students in grades 9-12 are expected back the following week.
Whether or not that timeline sticks is dependent on “how outrageous the board’s positions are as we go ahead,” CTU President Jesse Sharkey told a few hundred members at a virtual meeting Thursday that was closed to the public.
“I’ve heard people say, ‘Sharkey, I want a really definitive answer, am I going in on Monday?’” he said. “And my really definitive answer is, it depends on where we’re at.”
8:08 a.m. Spike in COVID-19 cases causes University of Chicago to announce stay-at-home period for students
University of Chicago announced a stay-at-home period for students Wednesday evening following the largest COVID-19 outbreak at the university since the start of the academic year.
After more than 50 cases of the coronavirus were detected among undergraduates in recent days, the university announced that students living on-campus must observe a week-long stay-at-home period immediately.
“We expect this number to increase,” university officials said in an email sent to members of the university community Thursday.
All undergraduate classes will be fully remote for at least a week starting Thursday and students can only leave their residence halls for food, medical appointments and short walks for exercise.
Illinois’ infection rate is still less than a third of what it was during the worst days of the pandemic last fall — but it’s doubled in the last four weeks.
Kayden Swann, the 21-month-old boy shot during a road-rage incident on Lake Shore Drive, remained in “very critical” condition Friday. | Legal Help Firm
After a week away from Chicago, the shooting of 21-month-old Kayden Swann has left me astounded that we all don’t have PTSD.
I returned from an out-of-town trip, and on the ride home from Midway Airport, I could feel the pulse of the city.
Cars sped past, engines roaring, as they weaved in out of lanes, oblivious to speed limits.
On the unseasonably warm night, with the passenger-side window slightly rolled down to catch some fresh air, the noise felt like an assault.
I closed my eyes and prayed: “Oh, God, please let us make it home in one piece.”
This is what it has come to.
We could blame guns for what happened to Kayden Swann, the 21-month-old boy who was tucked safely in his car seat when he was struck in the head by a bullet fired by a driver in the throes of road rage on Lake Shore Drive.
We could blame the angry adults who chose to settle a dispute over lane-merging with a gun for the ordeal the baby boy and his family are now going through. Though doctors at Lurie Children’s Hospital said Friday he was showing “some signs of improvement,” he remained in “very critical” condition.
And we could blame law enforcement for not having a squad car hiding somewhere between the testy merge and the Shedd Aquarium where the shots were fired.
But blame doesn’t stop the violence.
On Thursday, a driver shot an Oak Park police officer during a traffic stop on Harlem Avenue over the Eisenhower Expressway. Both the suspect and the police officer were seriously wounded.
And while the city was reeling from Tuesday’s shooting on Lake Shore Drive, Thursday morning somebody else shot at but didn’t hit three drivers on Lake Shore Drive near Bronzeville and on Halsted Street in University Village.
Traveling east on I-57 on my way home from the airport, I caught sight of the lighted heart on the skyline and marveled at our ability to project hope in such dire circumstances.
After all, Chicago is fighting two pandemics.
But while the pharmaceutical companies came up with a vaccine to fight the coronavirus in record-setting time, civic leaders still haven’t figured out how to eradicate the violence that is strangling the life out of our city.
I reached out to Ja’Mal Green, a community activist, former mayoral candidate and entrepreneur, to get his thoughts on: What now? Green and others in his generation have long pointed to the need for businesses to invest in communities plagued by violence.
“There is a lot of work that needs to be done,” Green said. “The problem is we have to be empowered by leadership to do that work. We can start coming together to invest in our community with the little that we have.”
Green said his nonprofit organization Majostee Allstars is transforming a former school building into an 80,000-square-foot community center to provide a safe haven for youth.
“We have been off-track and off-track for too many years,” he said. “We have to start implementing these things now. And our leaders — from the mayor to the county board president to the governor — have to make this a priority.
“There is no overnight solution. But there is a short time frame to reduce the violence.
“Just like we worked on COVID-19 every day and found the money that we needed to make things happen, we need to do the same thing for violence. Since we have invested neither time nor money, violence has just spiraled out of control.”
Green has pledged $5,000 of his own money for information leading to the prosecution of whoever’s responsible for the road-rage shooting in which Kayden Swann was shot.
It is on each of us to take our own stand.
Because on a beautiful day in Chicago a madman on idyllic Lake Shore Drive shot a baby boy in the head.
ALSO: The funeral of 99-year-old Prince Philip will probably be a humdinger, although all eyes will likely be on his outspoken grandchild, Prince Harry.
The back seat.
A death seat; a child’s seat in the back of a car.
Last week, it happened again. A space designated the safest place for a child in a car seat was violated by the trajectory of another bullet.
This time it was another 1-year-old, Kayden Swann, the victim of alleged road rage involving a gun while sitting in the back seat of a car driven by his grandmother’s boyfriend on Lake Shore Drive.
Last June, it was 1-year-old Sincere Gaston, who was shot in the chest in the back car seat while riding with his 22-year-old mother, who was grazed in the head, while driving in the Englewood neighborhood.
Someone had pulled alongside his mother’s car and fired seven or eight times.
Or DaJore Wilson, 8, who was shot last Sept. 7, when a light turned green and a gun unloaded a barrage of bullets into the back of the SUV she was riding containing several family members.
In 2020, there were 47 children who were 17 years old or younger killed by gun violence in Chicago.
In 2021, we are already ahead of the grisly game at 11.
America is forced to ask itself once again — where is it safe for a child in this world of guns and the death they spawn?
By now we know there is no place safe for our children, not a school or schoolyard or street corner or birthday party or back seat of a car.
We ask and ask and ask and then tsk tsk tsk when no laws ever seem to protect our children from the violence of a bullet; projectiles of death never familiar in a sonnet.
Although Kayden is still fighting for his life at Lurie Children’s Hospital, Gaston never left St. Bernard Hospital alive.
It drew an emotional response from then Chicago Police Department Chief of Operations Fred Waller, who has since retired:
“I don’t even have the words — the tremendous emotion, the tremendous strife that they [the family] were going through,” Waller said.
“And we’ll catch them. We will no doubt catch the person who did it. We’ll catch the person who killed this kid. But that’s not gonna bring that kid back. And that’s not gonna satisfy that family. When are we going to say enough is enough?”
It all seems unimaginable.
Is it within the realm of reality that pandemic shields being used to slow the spread of the virus now might morph into bulletproof back-seat shields to protect our children?
Is the quest for a solution like a merry-go-round leading nowhere?
On page 319 of author Robert Kolker’sbrilliant book: “Hidden Valley Road,” he quotes a researcher describing a similar dilemma, but in that case he was referring to studying schizophrenia.
“It’s like riding a merry-go-round. One chooses the horse. One can make believe his horse is leading the rest. Then when that particular ride is finished, one can step off … only to observe the horse has really gone nowhere.”
God help us.
GettyPrince Philip, Duke Of Edinburgh, seen in 2017
A royal note . . .
The funeral of 99-year-old Prince Philip of England, Queen Elizabeth’s husband who dutifully always kept two paces behind his wife, will probably be a humdinger.
If not because of the pomp, it could be the circumstance.
The Brit tabloids wielded rapiers. Meghan’s pregnancy may be a reason not to attend the funeral.
History will attend to Philip’s legacy, but amazingly, the royal consort dutifully attended 300 public functions a year until his retirement five years ago; answered his own telephone in the royal residence; and mixed his own cocktails.
Sadly, Philip thought his young son, Charles — who will become the heir to the British throne — was a “bit of a wimp.”
Condolences to the queen.
Sneedlings . . .
Saturday birthdays: Shay Mitchell, 34; Mandy Moore, 37; and Steven Seagal, 69. . . . Sunday birthdays: Alessandra Ambrosio, 40; Summer Walker, 25; and Michelle Phan, 34.
A movement for pay equity and transparency for theater designers scores a victory; Black Lives Black Words kicks off a new discussion series.
Back in 2019, I interviewed Chicago set designer Arnel Sancianco for a short Reader profile. In the course of our discussion, he mentioned that, while creating a sustainable career as a designer is never easy, he felt that his peers in costume design (a profession that tends to have more women in its ranks than other design fields) had a harder road.…Read More
DMX performs during the BET Hip Hop Awards in Atlanta on Oct. 1, 2011. | AP
The Grammy-nominated performer died after suffering “catastrophic cardiac arrest,” according to the hospital in White Plains, New York, where he died.
NEW YORK — DMX, the raspy hip hop artist behind the songs “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem” and “Party Up (Up in Here)” who had one of rap’s most distinctive voices — literally and metaphorically — has died, according to a statement Friday from his family. He was 50.
The Grammy-nominated performer died after suffering “catastrophic cardiac arrest,” according to a statement from the hospital in White Plains, New York, where he died. He was rushed there from his home April 2.
His family’s statement said DMX, whose birth name was Earl Simmons, died with relatives by his side after several days on life support.
“Earl was a warrior who fought till the very end. He loved his family with all of his heart, and we cherish the times we spent with him,” the family said, adding that his music “inspired countless fans across the world, and his iconic legacy will live on forever.”
Memorial plans were not yet set.
DMX — who rapped with a trademark delivery that was often paired with growls, barks and “What!” as an ad-lib — built a multiplatinum career as one of rap’s biggest stars of the late 1990s and early 2000s, but he also struggled with drug addiction and legal problems that repeatedly put him behind bars.
“His message of triumph over struggle, his search for the light out of darkness, his pursuit of truth and grace brought us closer to our own humanity,” his record label, Def Jam Recordings, said in a statement describing him as “nothing less than a giant.”
Fellow hip hop artists remembered him likewise, with Eve praising him as “one of the most special people I have ever met” and Nas calling him “God’s poet” in an Instagram post. Chingy recalled touring with DMX and being inspired by his style and struck by how “he always showed me love.”
“He was a true legend to the hip hop community,” Chingy said in a statement.
DMX made a splash in 1998 with his first studio album, “It’s Dark and Hell is Hot,” which debuted No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. The multiplatinum-selling album was anchored by several hits including “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem,” “Get At Me Dog,” “Stop Being Greedy” and “How It’s Goin’ Down.”
DMX followed up with four straight chart-topping albums including “… And Then There Was X,” “Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood,” “The Great Depression” and “Grand Champ.” He released seven albums, earned three Grammy nominations and was named favorite rap/hip hop artist at the 2000 American Music Awards.
DMX arrived on the rap scene around the same time as Jay-Z, Ja Rule and others who dominated the charts and emerged as platinum-selling acts. They were all part of rap crews, too: DMX fronted the Ruff Ryders collective, which helped launch the careers of Grammy winners Eve and Swizz Beatz, and relaunch The Lox, formerly signed to Bad Boy Records. Ruff Ryders had success on the charts and on radio with its “Ryde or Die” compilation albums.
Along with his musical career, DMX paved his way as an actor. He starred in the 1998 film “Belly” and appeared in 2000′s “Romeo Must Die” with Jet Li and Aaliyah. DMX and Aaliyah teamed up for “Come Back in One Piece” on the film’s soundtrack.
The rapper would later open Aaliyah’s tribute music video, “Miss You,” alongside her other friends and collaborators, including Missy Elliott, Lil’ Kim and Queen Latifah, after Aaliyah’s 2001 death in a plane crash at age 22.
The rapper also starred in 2001′s “Exit Wounds” with Steven Seagal and 2003′s “Cradle 2 the Grave” with Li.
But while DMX made his mark as one of hip hop’s most recognizable names for his rap artistry and as an actor, the rapper was personally stifled by his legal battles — he was repeatedly arrested and jailed within a decade — and drug addiction. His addiction first took hold at age 14 when smoked a marijuana cigarette that was laced with cocaine.
“You can’t be a fan and not feel empathy for him in his journey,” hip hop and electronic music producer Flying Lotus said in an interview while DMX was hospitalized this week. “You think of ‘Belly’ and all the great stuff that he was part of. But he was dealt such a weird hand, I think, with the drug stuff. And I just have empathy.”
DMX pleaded guilty in 2004 after he posed as an undercover federal agent and crashed his SUV through a security gate at New York’s Kennedy Airport. He was arrested in 2008 on drug and animal cruelty charges following an overnight raid on his house in Phoenix. He tried to barricade himself in his bedroom but emerged when a SWAT team entered his home.
In 2010, he was sentenced to a year in prison for violating terms of his probation. After he was admitted to rehab numerous times over the next year, he said he had finally beat his drug addiction.
First responders helped bring DMX back to life after he was found in a hotel parking lot in New York in 2016. The rapper said he suffered from asthma.
A couple years later, DMX was sentenced to a year in prison for tax fraud. Prosecutors said he concocted a multiyear scheme to hide millions of dollars in income from the IRS and get around nearly $2 million in tax liabilities.
After his release, DMX planned a 32-date tour to mark the 20th anniversary of “It’s Dark and Hell is Hot.” But the rapper canceled a series of shows to check himself into a rehab facility in 2019. In an Instagram post, his team said he apologized for the canceled shows and thanked his fans for the continued support.
Besides his legal troubles, DMX took the initiative to help the less fortunate. He gave a group of Philadelphia men advice during a surprise appearance at a homeless support group meeting in 2017, and helped a Maine family with its back-to-school purchases a couple years later.
Last year, DMX faced off against Snoop Dogg in a Verzuz battle, which drew more than 500,000 viewers.
Survivors include his 15 children and his mother.
Landrum reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writer Ryan Pearson contributed from Los Angeles.
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