Chicago City Wire

Wirepoints has issued the following press release:

CHICAGO - Yesterday, Chicago’s 15th Ward Alderman Ray Lopez joined Ted Dabrowski and Matt Rosenberg of Wirepoints to present key findings of a comprehensive analysis on homicides in major cities, Chicago, New Orleans were the nation’s murder capitals in 2022: A Wirepoints survey of America’s 75 largest cities.

Ted Dabrowski, President of Wirepoints, presented the report's key findings and offered the organization’s policy prescriptions for reducing homicide rates in the City of Chicago. Dabrowski stated, “Overall major crimes in Chicago grew 41% in 2022 over 2021. In the first eight weeks of 2023, crime is up 55% over the same time last year. Why isn’t everyone talking about that? These are the facts that Lori Lightfoot, Governor Pritzker and our leaders should be screaming about:

1. The arrest rate for the seven major crimes in Illinois in 2022: 5 percent. Just 5 percent. You can’t have a functioning city with an arrest rate of just 5%. 

2. For 400,000 high priority 911 calls in 2021 there were no police available to respond. 400,000. That included 15,000 assaults in progress, 1,300 instances of people shot, 14,000 instances of domestic battery, and other serious crimes.

3. The ‘no or low cash bail’ orders that Cook County Chief Justice Tim Evans instituted back in 2017. As a result of that policy, as of mid-2022 15,000 offenders have been put back on the streets on pretrial release, nearly 3,000 of those were facing charges for a violent crime.

4. We have 1,000 more defendants on electronic monitoring walking around the streets of Chicago today than we did 5 years ago, before Evans’ changes.

5. Mayor Lightfoot said recently she increased the number of cops on our streets. That’s not true. Today, there are almost 1,500 fewer beat cops on our streets than when she took office in 2019. Our streets are not safer.

“The bottomline is Chicago’s leaders - Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Lori Lightfoot, Governor Pritzker, Tim Evans, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx - have had years, some of them more than a decade, to fix the city’s problems. But everything they’ve done has led to worse and worse results. The crime data tells us so. 

“There is no ‘equity’ in a city where blacks and Latinos make up 95% of all Chicago murder victims. The obvious thing to do is unwind the destructive policies that treat criminals like victims, while real victimization of ordinary citizens continues to spike.” 

Matt Rosenberg, Senior Editor for Wirepoints, emphasized that leadership’s failure to combat crime in Chicago infringes on the rights and liberties of Chicagoans. Rosenberg stated, “I want to frame the issue in terms of the Declaration of Independence. We are granted the inalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. There is a social contract that stems from the Declaration: We give the government our tax money, and in return our government provides us and our property with protection from crime. In Chicago, sadly, we are not protected. It is the first and foremost duty of our city officials, our prosecutors and our judges to protect citizens… If you are scared to walk down the streets of your neighborhood or go downtown you are not able to enjoy Liberty or the Pursuit of Happiness. We have a very big problem here.” 

Finally, 15th Ward Alderman Ray Lopez concluded the press conference by reminding Chicagoans that changing policy and holding failed leaders accountable has to begin with recognizing the truth. Lopez stated, “These numbers do not lie. In 5 days, we could see change in the City of Chicago. It’s important that voters understand the truth. That’s why this report will be available on Wirepoints, on their social media and on mine so voters can read it and understand the truth. The challenge I have today is to the voters of Chicago: Take what we are presenting here and make the decision for yourself. Decide whether the politicians who say they care about you, they care about your family, they care about your community, they care about your safety, are willing to answer the tough questions. Or are they going to deflect to “root causes” and “trauma” and all the other catch phrases that do nothing to address the criminality in our midst.

“We have a chance on February 28th to send a message to all politicians and all candidates that if they are not starting their conversations with a point of truth, we won’t vote for them. We’ll vote for the individuals who take this seriously.

“This is about action. This is not about warm, fuzzy feelings. This is about doing what’s necessary to ensure that our police can arrest individuals who commit crimes, to ensuring that we have people on hand to answer a 911 call when you're at your most vulnerable. This is about doing what’s right and having a truthful conversation in the City of Chicago.”