The Return of The Chicagoist Reader Meet-Up
Cubs Combat Casino
Notre Dame Fan Takes It Too Far, Allegedly Punches Clausen
County Sales Tax Rollback Vetoed - Here We Go Again
PHOTOS: Peaches And Amanda Blank At Metro
According to the blog Uptown Update, there's all kinds of craziness that's been going on this week at the corner of Leland and Sheridan. Here's some video:
What a riot! from Joe Gray on Vimeo.
Thanks for the tip, James!
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebookTips
Contribute
Latest Tip:
A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant at the Red Orchid Theatre--it made Crains
[more]
Of course the cops show up and do nothing. Of course, if I were the first-arriving cops, I'm not sure I'd get out of that car at that point either. Amazing how they try to continue fighting while the cops are 10 feet away.
Stupid. Nothing happened. Just a lot of barking.
Weird how they didn't even register the police presence.
If those dumbasses had any sense they could spend their energies doing something productive and positive like choreograph a Jets and Sharks like number and become a Youtube Sensation.
Seriously, I was think about West Side Story watching this silliness.
Well, there wasn't really anything the cops could do at that point, as they were vastly outnumbered. How do they pick out which of the 20 or 30 kids to detain? And once they focus their attention at one or two guys, that gives the rest license to go to town. The cops made the best move ... they made their presence known, told everybody to leave, and kept an eye on the mass. By not letting themselves get sidelined by one or two, they kept the entire mass on guard.
What a bunch of pieces of shit. lock these scumbags up in County for a night and see how tough they are.
Yeah, lets round 'em up and brand 'em too. Yeah. We'll put metal collars on 'em, show them what a real man is. Yeah.
Mike Thorns: Internet hardcase, real-life desk troll.
It's a bunch a hooligans being hooligans. Maybe if there was anything in uptown open that wasn't a tattoo parlor after 9pm these punks would have something to do?
Nah, lets just put them in county for...runnning around yelling.
Something has to be open for them to keep busy?
The group my son hangs with plays Capture The Flag every Friday night from 8 pm til whenever the cops kick them out of the park.
They always find something constructive to do. They don't depend on "something being open". It's called 'personal responsibility. And having a brain.
It's called you live in a world of privilege. Your son and opie can go fishin' down by the crick any old day in Mayberry. Life is different in a poor urban neighborhood.
Capture the flag? Right.
"....because we are poor
Shall we be vicious?" - John Webster
Give me a fucking break...privileged my ass, this group of kids my son hangs with comes from every side of the tracks. The one thing that unites them is their nerdness and innate goodness and intelligence.
Get over yourself, for once, and try to see that there are thoughts and ideas out there besides your own, sometimes deluded ones.
Maybe if there was anything in uptown open that wasn't a tattoo parlor after 9pm these punks would have something to do?
There's plenty open in Uptown after nine that has nothing to do with tattoos. But what do you think would be a welcome diversion for these guys? A place where they could play fantasy board games? Seriously, what sort of establishment do you think Uptown needs that woudl have kept these guys off the street and engaged in a non-violent endeavor? Seriously.
Seriously? Remember when everyone mocked the hell out of "midnight basketball"?
Gyms/Athletic Centers/Non-profit drop-ins with computer/games. You've got the community college right there, why not make it a proper 24/7 community center? A lot of these are dumb bored kids getting into trouble because it's summer and they've got too much energy and nowhere to put it. It's the counter-intuitive part of a poor neighborhood. People get scared, close up shop early, the city cuts services, things spiral.
Yeah, of all those guys there are a couple truly hardened guys who are gonna end up in bracelets or on a slab no matter what you do. But the hangers on? They just need somewhere to go.
Ingrid can yammer on about personal responsibility all she likes. Given the choice between doing nothing and some fun trouble, what is any kid gonna pick?
Oh...the only two choices they have are "doing nothing" and "fun trouble"...whatever you say Mother Theresa.
Maybe you can load up the kinder in the SUV and drive on over to Wilson and Broadway this weekend. Have them start a rousing game of capture the flag or touch football.
Go back to arguing for dogs to have civil rights lady, the heavy concepts just make you sound even less informed than usual.
If you learned ANYTHING from when matilda was here it would have been to stop with your inane assumptions. Makes you look like really lame.
Your insufferable foot stomping little pisher-ish ways are starting to show again.
Seriously? Remember when everyone mocked the hell out of "midnight basketball"?
I kinda figured this was coming. I won't even get into the whole here's-a-bunch-of-black-kids-throw-'em-a-basketball thing. It offended me even when I was a kid...and I sucked at basketball. But if you have proof that midnight basketball reduces crime, I'd love to see it.
Gyms/Athletic Centers/Non-profit drop-ins with computer/games. You've got the community college right there, why not make it a proper 24/7 community center?
My problems with this is there are ample places to go practially for free to get training in computers right now (screw giving them games to play on them, how about giving them a skill), but I don't agree with adjusting everything to fit their chosen late-night schedule. Twenty-four hours? Really? So because some teenager doesn't feel like going home ast 2 a.m. we have to accomodate them with a 24/7 computer center? You make it seem as if they're on the street at that time of night out of necessity and not choice. Fights between various gangs can happen in 24/7 computer centers too. If these are truly "kids" then they shouldn't be out on the streets brawling at 10 p.m. anyway. And anyone older than 18 that chooses fighting in the streets (or worse) knows the risks, including jail.
...some fun trouble...
LOL. God, you've really been brainwashed, haven't you? Those poor underprivledged kids...
Note: I used to BE one of those kids. Robert Taylor. 43rd and Federal. 16th floor. Building was so fucked up they shut it down BEFORE the CHA's Plan for Transformation. I could have used you then to provide readymade excuses for me if I ever did anything fucked up and stupid.
Lets go with the "round em up" approach. Now they're juvenile offenders, now they're in the system. For petty offenses. What do they learn from the system? Nothing. They're out of school in jail, where they're around kids even more "advanced" and they learn some great new "skills". They come out pissed off and go right back to it. You can't scare these kids with jail.
You take Ingrids darlings, have a cop pull up on them and dollars to donuts they grab ankle and cry for mommy. They learn a lesson because they have something to lose. "I don't want the bad cop to take away my chance of going to a good school." All a cop is gonna do to kids like the ones in the video is put them in lock-up, it's just time in a box. How many more young black men are we gonna "teach a lesson" by locking up before we learn our lesson?
The militarized police approach isn't working. Big honking armored SUVs and Machine guns isn't making these communities more liveable or addressing the underlying issues; poverty, lack of education, lack of social networks, lack of oppurtunity and simple lack of anything to do.
I've worked in neighborhoods here and in St. Louis where cops told me to "buy a gun and wear a vest". I worked with kids who everyone assumed were just doomed thugs and found they were scared shitless most of the time and had just given up on living past 25. It's not fucking "Dangerous Minds" to reach out to these kids and try to make it better, even just for a few you can reach.
I'm not some guilty liberal who's gonna go out on broadway at 1am with lemonade and snickerdoodles. But I'm also really damn tired of the idea that warehousing a generation of poor young black men in jails and prisons is somehow making society safer. It's not working.
So maybe you think I'm pie-eyed and brainwashed for wanting to try something different. You're the one clinging to the hope that the same failed proposition will somehow, magically start working. That sounds like your cerebellum and amygdala have have a much more tidy fluff and fold. :)
jess...regarding my 'darlings'...really, you don't know what you're talking about.
And as for your 'privileged' theory, my son starts school at a suck ass community college in the fall because we can't afford a good college. His plan is to save the money for the first two years, as is a trend these days, and then go to a good school for the last two years where he'll rack up loans that won't be paid off til he's in his thirties and get a couple of jobs while attending school full time.
Oh...and that car that you claim I chauffeur them around in is 12 years old. It's paid off, has low mileage and has no problems, so I'll probably be driving that for another 4 or 5 years or until it drops dead. Oh....and I'm a single mom whose son has not seen his father in years, and yet he excels in school and life.
Kind of blows your 'privileged' theory, doesn't it?
Actually, you are probably the 'privileged darling' here...the way you're always going off on the subject...me thinks thou dost protest too much!
If they're breaking laws then they need to be taught a lesson. at the very least they're disturbing the peace. Turn off the liberal guilt for 5 minutes. I'm a liberal but I can clearly see that it's this kind of behavior that leads to worse kinds of behavior.
Agree. I'm very liberal on a lot of things, but not when the actions of one group threatens the livelihood of others. Admittedly Im conflicted on this, but I'll be damned if I'm going to start changing my lifestyle even considering moving from an area I like because of some aimless dumbasses. (I live a few blocks north of this mess)
I'm sure jess wouldn't mind if this activity was going on down his street seveal times a week. I can see him on his porch in his rocking chair drinking Country Time Lemonade and puffing on a pipe saying, "Ah, these rambunctious kids today. God love 'em!"
Uptown: Validating my decision to move out of it every day.
What is wrong with these people? They look like wild animals.
Also, is jess the new matilda??? The only thing that would be open after 9pm anyway is a bar, and they're probably not even old enough to drink. And if they are, liquor is definitely not what needs to be added to the mix.
Nah, lets just put them in county for...runnning around yelling.
Go read the accounts on Uptown UPdate from residents who actually live there. There was more going on that "running around yelling". A lot more.
Come on! It's not really a riot. They're not doing anything to private property. It almost looks like they were playing tag.
Since there is not even a gun present, let alone a gun fired, this whole thing seems almost wholesome. Quaint. Young people yelling without shooting, or even punching, for that matter.
Seriously? Did you miss the bottles being thrown? The cars that were backing up rather than continuing down the street? Or the car that got stuck in the intersection when they weren't allowed to turn out of it?
According to comments by residents of the area on the original site of the post, Uptown Update, there were apparently shots fired in the area.
Round em all up, get em out of the street, take them to a local high school and let them fight in the gym until they're done. Problem solved.
If you learned ANYTHING from when matilda was here it would have been to stop with your inane assumptions. Makes you look like really lame.
Also, is jess the new matilda???
I've come to the conclusion that Jess Nevins is Matilda.
In my opinion, jess is waaaay more like Albany Parkour with that immature know-it-all-nes-asserting-my-authority-my-way-or-the-highway, only Albany was a cat person and jess is a cat strangler, but they both hate dogs too. At least matilda would concede a point, or admit when he was wrong or at least misinformed.
You think about these things way too much.
I guess when the kids are out hunting snipe or having box car races you have plenty of time to speculate on internet handles.
I'm not matilda or albanyparker. Sorry to disappoint.
Oh jess....believe me...you never disappoint.
Our church is purchasing a few dozen wheelchairs, some basketballs, and telling these types of kids to hit the court and smash it up, MurderBall style.
And, one more thing: Sitting these bangers down for a group viewing of the Rodney Dangerfield movie LadyBugs would do wonders for their self esteem.
I love how the cops couldn't even *drive* the guys out of the street with their squad. These are the undermanned and demoralized CPD we'll rely on in our hour of need. What bothers me more than this kind of testosterone-fueled violence is the complete disregard of the police, traffic and the neighborhood in general. This is their time, their street. Thousands of law abiders are intimidated by a bunch of knucklehead antisocial assholes.
The same criminals and gangbangers rioting one el stop away from Lakeview are the same criminals and gangbangers terrorizing Lakeview and Lincoln Park. Keep all neighborhoods safe by getting rid of the gangs in Uptown, as well as their leader and the biggest criminal of all, Helen Shiller. They are just one el stop and mere minutes away.
whats with this boys will be boys attitude?
the police are obligated to raid this scene and make their presence known, and remind people that they're the baddest gang in town...i think more than one squad car would help.
Cops should start shooting and Tasering people. That'll get their attention. Fucking punks.
Uh, please go take a time out and sit in the corner for the rest of recess.