Mayor Daley Defends City In Wake of Hudson Shooting, Balfour's Mother Defends Him

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Oct 29, 2008 7:00PM

In the wake of both the news that Chicago is tops in murder and the high profile triple homicide involving family members of Oscar-winning actress and Chicago native Jennifer Hudson, Mayor Daley took to the city's defense, saying he's "not proud" of Chicago's new #1 status and claiming that nothing could have been done to prevent the Hudson murders.

"We’re not proud of it. But, you don’t hide it. You don’t take the statistics, all the facts and say it didn’t happen. It happens,” Daley said, apparently referring to past attempts to re-classify homicides to hold down the murder rate.

“We’ll get it down next year. We’ll get it down. We’ll do things differently. But, this [Hudson family] crime could never have been prevented, unfortunately.”

Well, unless it turns out that William Balfour committed the crimes, in which case it would have been preventable because he should have been locked up for a parole violation back in June. Apparently possessing cocaine is not enough for a person convicted of attempted murder to violate parole. But we digress...

Daley also defended the Englewood neighborhood, saying, "There are good families in Englewood. Proud of it. We have to remind ourselves [of] that." He took the opportunity to further expound upon his own anti-gun stance, saying, "I ask anyone: If there’s guns in your home, call somebody. Tell a teacher there’s a gun in my home. Call the police. Get the gun out. Guns will kill more and more people."

Meanwhile, William Balfour's mother, Michele Davis-Balfour, took to Nancy Grace's show to - what else - proclaim her son William's innocence in the case. She claims William was with his girlfriend at the time of the shootings.