So many numbers floating around, so hard to nail down totals. Suffice it to say, this weekend was a disaster for Rahm, McCompStat and their contention that their crime strategies are working. Some of the highlights (lowlights?):
- Numerous downtown "multiple offender incidents," a.k.a. wildings. Any number of tourists got their asses handed to them, including a guy who's going to be eating through a straw for the next six weeks. We wonder if he'll ever come back to Chicago or any of his friends, family, acquaintances, etc. Tax payers already know to avoid downtown like the plague - tourists are going to learn one way of the other;
- An unverified story of the Critical Mass/Naked Bike Ride people getting jumped and lumped by the gangs roaming downtown. The mental picture is pretty scary.
- As the revelers were pushed onto the Red Line and out of downtown, numerous fights broke out at every single stop on the El. Reddit.com has some citizen reactions to the trail of mayhem as it headed back south. A couple of commentators related that not a single Mass Transit Unit was available for the fights and when the trains eventually got to 95th Street, the problem spilled out into the surrounding streets and neighborhood.
- Thirteen people shot in an eleven hour span in the 010 District.
Sounds like someone needs to be demoted in 010. After all, CompStat doesn't tolerate mis-deployment of resources. And McCarthy has said we have all the police we need to control Chicago street gangs. So obviously, someone is fucking up big time in 010 and the only one we can think of is the triple "meri-clout-orious" promoted political hack in charge.