- Amid media reports highlighting Chicago’s rise in homicides and shootings so far this year, police Superintendent Garry McCarthysaid Tuesday he is facing “a perception issue” when it comes to crime.
Speaking to the Union League Club in the Loop, McCarthy pointed to declines in homicides and shootings in recent weeks but said he’s having a hard time getting that message to register with the public.
“Would anybody believe me if I told you that murders in the city were down 17 percent in the last month? Probably not, right?,” McCarthy told about 100 people at the breakfast. “Would anybody believe me if I told you that shootings are down in the last two months, 10 weeks? Would anybody believe if I told you that we had less shootings on Memorial Day this year than we did last year? Probably not.
"We’re having a perception issue. And perhaps it’s my problem. Perhaps it’s my fault. I don’t know how to change this.”
That quote....
- Would anybody believe if I told you that we had less shootings on Memorial Day this year than we did last year? Probably not.
It bothered us, so we did a little research, and found this on the ABC site (29 May):
- Chicago's homicide rate at this point of the year is up nearly 50 percent. The vast majority of those homicides are gang-related.
"It's not OK that we had 53 shootings last week, but that 53 shootings is the same exact number of shootings that we had last year, so this is not a new problem. What it is is a new is the solution that we are applying to it," McCarthy said.
He's playing the numbers game again and no one is calling him on it (besides our readers and us). Claiming shootings are down on Memorial Day, but admitting the year-to-year comparison is exactly the same.
And the "perception" thing? We've argued before that the Supernintendo isn't responsible for each and every shooting that occurs on his watch. Even the commanders he attempts to blame at CompStat meetings aren't going to be stopping each and every shooting as shorthanded as they are. But McCarthy pretends he has some magical formula and a whiz-bang computer system that still isn't predicting shit and won't address the elephant in the room - that we are shorthanded, and badly so.