I am a life long Chicago resident. Consider myself moderately conservative. The following are just my observations, and I have no political or racial bias in making them. The vast majorities of these shootings are gang related and occur in either black or hispanic neigborhoods. Chicago is historically one of the most segregated cities in America, although some progress has been made, it is still this way. An educated, well off minority, may live in Lincoln Park or the Gold Coast, where the white residents are more accepting and liberal in their views, he would almost never live among working class whites. That is just a fact. Black bus drivers, policemen, tradesman, live in black hoods, that is just a fact. In fact, most working class white neighborhoods still cling to their original ethnic identities, with Irish, Poles, Italians, living in seperate areas. Of course this breaks down due to upward mobility, it is still very much alive here. chicago has always been a city of ghettos. Traditional Organized crime in Chicago, mostly Italian, Jewish, Irish, and Greek, shunned the Narcotics business. They concentrated on labor rackets, politics, restaurants, et cetera. Into this void stepped the Black/Latino criminals. For most of my lifetime the drug trade was dominated by either Vice Lords/Gangster Disciples (Black) or Latin Kings. These groups were ostensibly competitors, yet worked together to divide sections of the city, insure business profits, and encourage stability. Their leaders were multi millionaires whom the Federal Government deemed threats to society and prosecuted vigorously. These men, guys like Larry Hoover and Jeff Fort, contolled huge organizations, made a ton of money, and like Traditional O.C. enforced an iron system of street justice and discipline. To give an interesting example of the power of these groups, Chicago has never had a crystal meth problem, in fact, it was almost completely non existent in the city. The gangs considered it's relatively simple production method a threat to their well developed networks in Cocaine and Heroin, which require a greater degree of sophistication to bring to market. So it was quite simple, if you dealt meth in any reall quantity, you died. The Organization that enforced that edict is now gone, and Mexican and Hillbilly groups are starting to dip their toes into the Chicago market. Since these men have been brought down and incarcerated, the gang culture in chicago has disentegrated, but the money potential for drugs is bigger than ever. Open air drug spots abound in the cities West, South, and to a lesser degree far Northeast Sides. These operations have become more autonomous, with less to no direction from a larger, cooridinated operation. Why the police have allowed these splinter groups to exist and remain viable is anyone's guess. The violence spawned by intense internicene competition is now out of control. Members of these splinter groups are finding themselves having to defend drug territory from block to block. Enemies and friends alike are vying for the same little piece of turf that yields anywhere from 1K to 30K per day in sales. Add all that to the fact that your average chicagoan, living in a good area, just doesn't care. North Lake Shore Drive is less than a mile from some of these Drug Spots, but it might as well be in a different Country. As far as the good Citizens of these depressed areas, what would you do? Call the Police, who have habitually underserved and abused your community? Confront the criminals, who are armed and dangerous, and willing to die to hold onto their business? The only way to stop the violence is to either stop the drug trade or organize it like it used to be, or legalize and cheapen the product to a point that their is no profit in smuggling or trafficing. Those are the only three solutions. By the way, the safes guy in a black neighborhood is the white 27 year old in a volkswagen picking up his shi t, believe me he is protected from harm by the gangbangers.
Typically inside of major cities where there is a source of tax revenue from non-hyphenated Americans