Area Soldier Killed In Fort Hood Rampage
Oprah's Leaving Chicago?
Strollergate 2009: Doubts Raised
Marcus Jordan Wears Nike, Adidas Bids Adieu To School
After The Flood
After an exceptionally violent weekend, some people are wondering if violence may have been worse than the city wants us to think. The anonymous police watchdog blog, Second City Cop, compiled their stories from the field at Taste and noted that the fireworks may have started half an hour early to stave off more violence. Mike Doyle rounded up comments and reports from the city, the media and the blogosphere on his Chicagosphere blog. Doyle's point is a good one: the disparity between eyewitness reports and ones filtered by City officials through the media can differ greatly.
So what really happened on Independence Eve? If the official version of events is to be believed, we had a relatively peaceful celebration. If the blogosphere/twitterverse version of events is true, then city officials are not giving the media the full story.
Of course, all eye witnesses reports should be taken with a grain of salt, but that the City would try to gloss over statistics is no surprise. Any Taste of Chicago evening without a shootout like last year is going to be peaceful by comparison. It's a similar spin to the one put on the recent report of lower crime stats.
And, just for further evidence of what goes on but doesn't get reported, here's a video of a fight at the Taste via Windy Citizen. We're pretty sure there was at least a dozen more just like this one.
Update: After a little digging, we found on the City's official Tourism website that the fireworks were, indeed, listed to go off at 9 p.m., not 9:30 as has been circulated. Still lacking: an explanation as to the new time. - M.G.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
And could it also be that all of those Twitter, etc. "eyewitness" accounts are multiple accounts of the same shooting?
"Hey Jess, want to check out the taste of chicago?"
"Sure, let me get my pepper spray, night stick, shotgun, armored car, batman armor and make sure my life/medical insurance is up to date"
I particularly enjoy that this video featured some inter-racial violence. Showing idiots know no color.
Don't forget to wear the right gang color. Know Your Affiliation!
Looks like there was some good family entertainment at the Taste this year.
Its hard to tell what the level of violence was. The city wants to make it seem that there was none because of the Olympics, and videos like this might be used as anecdotal evidence that the festival was violent. HOwever, given the fact that there were several arrests of people with guns makes me not want to go.
Samantha and Marcus, thanks for covering this. The following is BREAKING:
Here is an eyewitness account in my Chicagosphere comment thread that strongly suggests a young woman was shot at Buckingham Fountain around 8:30 on Independence Eve.
They should close the taste before the 4th of july and also close it after sundown.
Also I liked how all those guys kept falling over. Talk about a drunk fight.
"We're pretty sure there was at least a dozen more just like this one"
Im sorry but saying" were pretty sure" something happened is a little lazy. I do think that more happened an the city is down playing it. But please report on facts and inform us of other incidents don't blog hype us. Its no different then covering up the truth. I Love U Chicagoist!
point taken.
and we love you too.
Unbelievable accounts on ChicagoNow. How does that happen? I understand how fighting gangs throughout the entire city is a tough job...the city is just so big and there probably aren't enough police officers. But how does it get that out of control in an area that small? How does a gang just take over the Buckingham Fountain area? how does another gang walk 50 deep through the crowd with impunity?
Thank you all for posting this. I feel like there was some serious conspiracy happening around the events of July 3rd this year. The Tribune reported on Saturday that there were "a few" arrests for minor offense. I personally saw about 10 arrests myself as I was walking on Roosevelt Road TO the fireworks at around 8:30. Literally cop after cop dragging a dude in twist-tie cuffs to a paddy wagon. I got to about Michigan and Roosevelt and stopped. It was pretty clear that despite the enormous number of police present, things were completely out of control.
We left the corner about 2 minutes into the fireworks when people began setting off large, professional-type fireworks in between the individual statues of the Agora. I live on State Street, and the shouting and sirens continued well into the night. When I went outside the next morning, there was fresh graffiti all over the South Loop.
The city has to do something different in order to control the crowds at the taste.
There's about a billion ways to cook the stats. One popular method is to take suspects in for processing at a distant station, as far away as belmont/western. Changing addresses in the reports, "detaining" people and not charging them. Holding the charge for a day or two on more serious offenses so the weekend numbers look good.
Hence the reason "official" numbers are so suspect.
Was in Milwaukee at Summerfest. Sure the fireworks were pretty lame by "big city" standards and it was more crowded than I have experienced there, but had a good time.
Sorry I missed the action here...
I'm referring to the stuff I read on ChicagoNow, which someone posted a link to. Someone spotted a gang taking over the Buckingham Fountain area and the police not wanting to deal with it. another person said that a gang was walking through the crowd flashing signs. How is that allowed to happen? A gang took over the Buckingham Fountain area. TOOK OVER! What the fuck is this, Thunderdome?!
You're right. It's rediculous. I find it amazing that the city can show such force during the anti-war marches from 2002-3 but can't manage a simple fireworks display.
then again I bet the whole city's resources are stretched to the limit those nights.
To be fair, most protesters aren't armed sociopaths. I'm sure the piece of shit who took over the fountain area, or walked 50 wide through the crowd were heavily armed and itchy to pull a trigger or whip out a knife. I can understand that starting a war in a crowded public area like that is a bad idea. What needs to happen is to make sure it never gets to the point where all those armed scumbags are allowed to roam freely.
r-i-d-i-c-u-l-o-u-s. I don't know why your spelling is all over the internet, but it drives me nuts.
Dunno, this looks alot like gangs throwing up gang signs around Buckingham Fountain. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVQ521ZqS24
The problem I have with this story is the problem I have with a lot of new media citizen reporter twittery, or whatever the buzz words are at the moment. So far, I've seen little more than collections of pixels with icons repeating whispers and rumors of things some other collection of pixels with icons might have heard from someone else. It all reeks of hyperbole and hysteria.
I went to the fireworks Friday night with the expectation that they would start at 9 p.m. just as I'd read, parked myself happily along the lake trail by the Shedd Aquarium, and peacefully watched the fireworks go off. After that, I walked with the masses through the southern end of Grant Park and through South Loop, up State to the Blue Line station on Congress at Lasalle. I did not witness any acts of violence, not did I hear anything I might take to be a gunshot.
Now, my experience is just as valid as that of any other collection of pixels with an icon, but I doubt it will be repeated in panicked phrases as an example of Chicago police covering up a relatively peaceful night. The other stories sound better and fit a preconceived notion we'd prefer to believe, so those are the stories we repeat, and in repeating, exaggerate.
Good point. And I guess the cops deserve more credit for doing as much as they did. I mean, how else are you supposed to police amillion people?
I would certainly not fault any of the Chicago Police Department for their actions this weekend. In fact, I think they performed phenomenally given the level of chaos that descended on Grant Park.
Any chance the tourism board changed the start time for the fireworks on their site?
So here's a thought, charge admission to Taste. Like 10 bucks a head for adults, 5 for older kids.
Take that nominal amount (you're going to drop that on your first cheesecake on stick) and put it to bettering security, improving foot traffic flow and generally making a better festival for all.
It's less than the price of a movie. Might even keep out some of the more opportunistic idiots who generally don't want to pay to be hooliganizing.
Quite frankly, I think Taste is too big, too expensive and generally a squalid waste of time. But if people really want it, they should pay for it to be civilized.
i couldn't agree more. actually, i could have my arm twisted in attending one year if this was the case.
Addendum:
I went out to Des Plaines for fireworks this year with some friends. They run them at Oakton Community College. It's a whole afternoon affair, food and face-painting and such, culminating in a really snazzy fireworks show. Not a bad seat in the house, as they use the parking lots and grounds of the college to maximum advantage. They charge 5 bucks for parking and the cops and campus security ran the thing like clockwork. We were deep in the lot and were out less than 20 minutes after the last boom.
You can run a large, public event in an orderly fashion. People in Des Plaines and Niles are not some derivation of the human species heretofore unknown. But the public planners of Chicago are for shit, the cops are swamped and no one wants to run the thing right, just make as much money as possible.
You really can't compare the two events. The scale of each event is grossly different. But if that's what your looking to do for your 4th of July celebrations then you should go there and not the crowded lake front of the 3rd largest city in the US. I agree with BlueFairlane I think a couple incidents are being blown up here. I would like to see the city acknowledge these incidents but this is what I have come to expect from our "honest" local officials. Please don't mistake a couple kids from the suburbs throwing haymakers as a "wild brawl".
Also if the city was to charge an admission for this event they would have to get a PPA and that's nearly impossible these days. "SNAP!!!"
You really can't compare the two events. The scale of each event is grossly different.
Bullshit. The notion that we can't have a civil lakefront event without violent thugs roaming the grounds simply because we're a big city is nonsense.
Yes, the scale is different, but so are the resources. Again, charge admission, make public safety a real priority. You want to have Taste, fine, but have people pay to make it an orderly event and not some big hot mess by the lake.
So you want the city to acknowledge the scope of the events that you yourself are minimize as "a couple of kids from the suburbs throwing haymakers"? I want an honest account of the events, which we're not getting.
"The notion that we can't have a civil lakefront event without violent thugs roaming the grounds simply because we're a big city is nonsense"
I really don't know how to respond to this. I have never felt threaten while downing a sweet turkey leg or watching fireworks.
Feeling annoyed because there are a lot people around you is one thing but i never felt unsafe at the taste. I have seen way worse things happen at cubs games then at the taste and i paid nearly $30 to go wrigley field.
I will now quote the greatest poet of our time Lil Wayne " Don't start no shit, it won't be no shit "
This might be a stupid question, but here goes: Why does this shit always happen at Taste/the Fourth and not, say, the much larger Air and Water Show? They're like a month apart and similar in scale and location. Yet whatever violence really happened this weekend will almost certainly not happen next month. What's the difference? Is the city/other organizers doing something differently? Is it just too difficult for thug wannabes to "roll 50 deep" on the beach?
Also, to the idea of charging admission: how are you gonna ticket and process a million people?
Air and Water show wraps up by the afternoon, Taste goes into the evening. People been drinking/getting high longer. More chance for people to get edgy, nervy.
I want to let commenters know I've posted a follow-up to my original story detailing the things that have happened since Monday--including the executive director of the Mayor's Office of Special Events, Megan McDonald, leaving an eyewitness account of her experience at Buckingham Fountain in my Chicagosphere comment thread, my ongoing activities to continue to investigate the story, and my rebuttal to a closed-minded response I got from a local print reporter.
If you're so inclined, you can find the follow-up post here.