Weis Meeting Fallout Day 5: Gang Leaders Call the WAAAAA!mbulance

By Staff in News on Sep 3, 2010 4:30PM

The fallout from Police Superintendent Jody Weis's meeting with gang leaders two weeks ago, where Weis let them know that they would be charged under RICO statutes if they don't work to stop killings by their foot soldiers, continued yesterday. Gang leaders held a press conference yesterday condemning Weis's actions as not being fair to them. John Kass's account of the press conference painted a portrait of a group of men who tried to deflect responsibility everywhere but on themselves. It was almost surreal, like when the titular character in "Black Dynamite" declares war on people who sell drugs to the community and one of the other gang leaders answers, "But Black Dynamite! I sell drugs to the community! "

Weis's meeting, for what it's worth, is starting to produce results. the Sun-Times spoke with Christopher Barbee, a member of the Unknown Vice Lords gang on probation for a drug conviction. Barbee said, "They can't hold me accountable for something other people do." all the same, he's been pounding the streets since the meeting, out of both concern for the neighborhood and self-preservation (not exactly in that order). Meanwhile, Neil Steinberg also weighed in on the controversy in his Sun-Times column, citing the oftten used examples of Larry Hoover and Jeff Fort as examples of why Weis's meeting was a good thing to put the gangs on notice while also mentioning the police department's rank-and-file of Weis as an interloper.

Indeed, it seems as though Weis can't win for losing with this meeting. Gang leaders accuse him of not being fair while the cops and some politicians say he's coddling the gang bangers. But these meetings have proven to deter vilolence in Boston, Cincinnati and other cities, so maybe inspiration is bred from desperation.