The ongoing North Side crime wave in Chicago brought three armed robberies on one day this week to Edgewater on the city’s North Side. The incidents were among a string of recent crimes in or adjacent to the community – including a drive-by shooting in the popular Asian restaurant district on Argyle Street in Uptown, and the shooting of a 17-year-old outside a CVS drugstore on Broadway. John Holden is an Edgewater community leader who has lived there or in adjacent Uptown for 35 years. He told Wirepoints each report “separately is disturbing, and all coming at once makes you start to wonder about the overall public safety profile of the area, which previously had been pretty solid.”
In the 20th Police District, which encompasses most of Edgewater, the Chicago Police Department’s Week 33 crime summary shows that “Part 1” major violent and property crimes are up 40 percent for the year-to-date versus 2019, compared to 16 percent higher citywide. In the 20th, thefts are up 118 percent, motor vehicle theft 44 percent, and robbery 35 percent. The 20th is just one of five police districts bordering Lake Michigan where many major crimes are rising sharply from the pre-Covid, pre-George Floyd baseline of 2019. We’ll get to that shortly.
Holden underscored his concerns. “In about the last week we’ve now gotten three public safety alerts from the alderman’s office on very disturbing public safety matters. One was a shooting in the parking lot of a nearby drugstore, one involved a series of armed robberies on one of our most pedestrian-friendly business strips in the ward, and the other involved a mid-day drive-by shooting in the most popular restaurant district on the north lakefront…These are things that happened in broad daylight, more or less. That adds an element to unnerving you. Am I going to get a stray bullet just walking into the CVS? We have overall a very safe community but we have to be cognizant that could change at any time.”
Holden is a local community group president, former Chicago journalist and top City Hall aide under mayors Daley II and Emanuel – and he says the biggest crime concern he hears about in Edgewater has to do with declining passenger safety on the CTA.
“I know people who work downtown and commute from Edgewater…and they are not using the Red Line because they are terrified of just the general conditions…We’re in the midst of a $1 billion-plus rebuild of the infrastructure of the Red Line up here and a lot of people are wondering, are people ever going to go back to it if we don’t see a major turnaround in this situation?”
Criminal case outcomes data needs to be liberally shared by officialdom
Holden also accented the importance of courts and the city sharing outcomes data on local crimes. Are perpetrators even identified and apprehended? And if yes, what then? He says, “Whatever happens to any of these cases, you never hear anything more past the initial episode.” Of the CVS shooting which involved two juveniles, he said, “Whether this case would be thrown out in court, or not prosecuted, is the kind of thing we should be asking ourselves. Absolutely, the community should be made aware of what’s going on with these cases and, if necessary, get pulled into the process of court advocacy or whatever it takes to make sure that these kinds of matters aren’t swept under the rug.”
The baseline of reported crime in lakefront communities is growing. Rogers Park, to Edgewater’s immediate north, is covered within CPD’s District 24. Through Week 33 of this year versus the same period in 2019, thefts are up 77 percent, motor vehicle thefts up 48 percent, aggravated battery up 43 percent, shooting incidents 22 percent higher, robbery up 20 percent, and all major reported crimes up 23 percent. Only burglaries are down.
South of Edgewater lies Chicago Police District 19, including the city’s neighborhoods of Uptown and Lakeview. In District 19 for YTD 2022 versus 2019, combined major crimes are up 31 percent. Motor vehicle theft is up 82 percent, robbery 54 percent, and thefts 43 percent. Robbery is the category in which CPD places armed vehicular hijackings – carjackings. To break them out separately you have to filter through a comprehensive city crime database, as we did last month.
Additionally in the 19th, murders have more than tripled and shooting incidents have doubled, but the raw numbers are relatively small.
In District 18 – or Lincoln Park, the Gold Coast, Old Town, Streeterville and River North – motor vehicle thefts are up 132 percent versus the same stretch of 2019, shooting incidents up 106 percent and criminal sexual assaults 56 percent, but all major crimes are just 3 percent higher due to drops in robbery, aggravated battery, and theft.
And then there’s District 1 on the near south lakefront which runs from the Chicago River downtown south to 31st Street. It remains a big trouble spot this year. So far in District 1 for this year versus 2019, motor vehicle thefts are up a stunning 284 percent, shooting incidents are 183 percent greater, robberies are up 41 percent, criminal sexual assault is up 31 percent, aggravated battery is up 15 percent, and overall reported major crimes are 37 percent higher.
Only theft is down in the 1st, marginally. There’ve been 10 homicides through Week 33 this year in District 1, 400 percent more than the two in 2019.
The data can lead only to one conclusion. Chicago needs competent political leadership more than ever. And at City Hall and in Cook County and state government, the aim should be to empower police, prosecutors, and judges, rather than weakening them.
Tragically, violent, deadly crime is now expected and all too commonplace on Chicago’s South and West Sides – where three were murdered and 10 shot last Wednesday alone. Then came three mass shootings yesterday Friday, also on the South and West Sides. They were in the neighborhoods of Washington Park, Back Of The Yards, and East Garfield Park.
Now add in the ongoing spread of crime along the lakefront. If all of this continues – and it shows no signs of stopping whatsoever – the city sinks deeper into purgatory. Never quite fully extinguished; but also neither whole nor really set right.
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