olent crime in city up virtually across the board
Violence in Chicago again is making national news, with the nine people killed Monday marking the city’s highest single-day toll of shooting deaths in years.
But the Chicago Police Department and City Hall are grappling with more than a rise in shootings and killings. Citywide, other violent crimes — sexual assaults, robberies and aggravated batteries — also are up this year compared with year-to-date totals for the same period in 2015.
Some parts of the city also are facing particular issues with certain types of violent crimes — robberies on the far North Side, for one, and sexual assaults in lakefront police districts, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of police department crime data found.
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On a weekly basis, the police department reports the numbers of murders, sexual assaults, robberies, aggravated batteries, burglaries, thefts, auto thefts and shootings.
Citywide, each of those categories saw an increase in the department’s latest report, through Aug. 7, with murders up 43 percent over last year, shootings up 48 percent, robberies 27 percent and sexual assaults 20 percent.
The statistics don’t paint a complete picture of crime in the city. They can include complaints that might not always be substantiated. And the department’s murder count doesn’t include cases handled by the Illinois State Police.
The Sun-Times had tallied 425 homicides in Chicago as of Friday morning.
“You are correct that other crime categories are up year over year,” police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi says. “And while that is unacceptable, it is also not the whole story. Taking a broader look citywide when looking at total crime, Chicago is actually down 24 percent over the last four years. Robberies, aggravated battery, burglary and theft are also down over that period.”
Still, the year-to-year rise in crime citywide and this latest bloody week — which saw 84 people shot, 19 of them killed as of Friday — are signs that criminals have become emboldened as cops “stand down” amid heightened attention over the police shootings of Laquan McDonald, Paul O’Neal and other young, black men, says Eugene O’Donnell, a professor of police studies at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
“I think what you have now is the worst of all worlds,” says O’Donnell, a former New York City police officer. “Cops have just checked out physically or physiologically. And the bad guys know this. . . . It’s a national phenomenon.”
Dean Angelo, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, the union that represents most Chicago cops, rejects the idea that his members aren’t protecting people.
But he says officers aren’t “as proactive as they used to be,” in part because of concerns they’ll be branded racially insensitive at a time when the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating the Chicago Police Department over issues including possible racial bias.
“I don’t believe they’re out there driving and looking for groups like they used to,” Angelo says of Chicago cops. “In the old gang-crime days, we would go out, search them, take their names, identify them and tell them we would be back.
“I’ve been saying this for two years now, that we’ll be seeing upticks” in crime, Angelo says. “We have a much more emboldened criminal population out there.”
The police statistics show traditionally high-crime areas in Chicago have grown even more dangerous.
Three West Side police districts that include the Austin, Garfield Park and Lawndale neighborhoods all have seen the number of shootings more than double. Two of those three districts also have seen a doubling in the number of murders.
In the police department’s Englewood district, shootings are up 30 percent, to 213 so far this year. The South Side district has seen an even bigger increase — 168 percent — in the number of murders this year, from 19 killings at this point in 2015 to 51. That’s the biggest percentage increase in murders among the city’s 22 police districts.
“This year, we are seeing unacceptable increases caused by a variety of factors and driven by violent repeat gun offenders who often fail to be held accountable for their crimes,” Guglielmi says. “Of the increase in gun violence happening this year, we know that there are only five districts on the South and West Sides of the city that account for 64 percent of the year-over-year increase in shootings and 82 percent of the increase in homicides.”
Police Supt. Eddie Johnson is formulating strategies to deal with those areas, including Englewood, where organized-crime officers on Friday “executed a series of targeted gang raids . . . where individuals are being sought on drugs and weapons charges,” according to Guglielmi. “Operations to disrupt gang activity will be continuing over the next several weeks.”
As for other crime, the number of robberies went up from 61 percent to 93 percent in each of three far North Side police districts that include the Portage Park, Irving Park, Rogers Park and West Ridge neighborhoods.
In the Town Hall district — which includes Lake View, North Center and part of Uptown — robberies were up 40 percent and burglaries 55 percent.
The Lincoln district — which includes parts of Lincoln Square, Uptown and Edgewater — saw a 146 percent rise in the number of sexual assaults, to 32 this year.
Other lakefront police districts also saw big increases in sexual assaults, including the Wentworth district, which saw the number nearly double, to 48. That district includes Douglas, Oakland, Washington Park and Hyde Park.
The Central district — which includes the Loop and the Near South Side — saw a 77 percent increase in sexual assaults, to 39. The number of property crimes downtown increased, too, with robberies up 47 percent, to 241, and thefts up 38 percent, to 686.
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CRIME TRENDS BY POLICE DISTRICT
Crime in virtually every category in Chicago is up citywide so far this year compared to the same time last year, according to Chicago Police Department data. The following shows the type of crime that has increased the most in each police district, along with the number of cases last year and this year.
District 1 – Central
Murder
Up 150%
2016: 5 cases
2015: 2 cases
2 – Wentworth
Sexual assault
Up 92%
2016: 48 cases
2015: 25 cases
3 – Grand Crossing
Murder
Up 57%
2016: 22 cases
2015: 14 cases
4 – South Chicago
Sexual assault
Up 30%
2016: 61
2015: 47
5 – Calumet
Sexual assault
Up 82%
2016: 60 cases
2015: 33 cases
6 – Gresham
Sexual assault
Up 50%
2016: 69 cases
2015: 46 cases
7 – Englewood
Murder
Up 168%
2016: 51 cases
2015: 19 cases
8 – Chicago Lawn
Murder
Up 76%
2016: 30 cases
2015: 17 cases
9 – Deering
Murder
Up 100%
2016: 32 cases
2015: 16 cases
10 – Ogden
Aggravated Battery
Up 41 percent
2016: 338 cases
2015: 239 cases
11 – Harrison
Murder
Up 100%
2016: 48 cases
2015: 24 cases
12 – Near West
Robbery
Up 37%
2016: 270 cases
2015: 197 cases
14 – Shakespeare
Robbery
Up 71%
2016: 252 cases
2015: 147 cases
15 – Austin
Murder
Up 150%
2016: 35 cases
2015: 14 cases
16 – Jefferson Park
Robbery
Up 61%
2016: 119 cases
2015: 74 cases
17 – Albany Park
Robbery
Up 64%
2016: 195 cases
2015: 119 cases
18 – Near North
Aggravated battery
Up 77%
2016: 124
2015: 70
19 – Town Hall
Burglary
Up 55%
2016: 497 cases
2015: 321 cases
20 – Lincoln
Sexual assault
Up 146%
2016: 32 cases
2015: 13 cases
22 – Morgan Park
Robbery
Up 16%
2016: 168
2015: 145
24 – Rogers Park
Robbery
Up 93%
2016: 191 cases
2015: 99 cases
25 – Grand Central
Auto theft
Up 12%
2016: 525 cases
2015: 467 cases
