Giving cops even more power
IN A city with a high unemployment rate, infected with crime, and equally ladened with reports of police brutality and corruption, the days seem to be getting darker, so to speak, for African American and Hispanic working-class families in Chicago.
Despite the open and peaceful protests of youth organizations such as Kuumba Lynx, Connect Force, the Multicultural Youth Project, Media Masala, Generation Y and many more, late last year, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and Police Superintendent Jody Weis began equipping police officers with M4 carbine assault rifles.
The M4, developed and produced for the U.S. government by Colt Firearms, comes from the same family as the AR15 and the M16. These are some of the most notorious and powerful guns found in gang-infested neighborhoods across America.
There is much speculation as to how the AR15 and M16 found their way into poor communities. Some have blamed owners of gun shops for inconsistently administering background checks, or simply selling guns to known criminals. Others place the blame on police corruption. The M4 fires ammunition that is said to be able to penetrate walls of homes and cars.
With weaponry such as this at the disposal of the Chicago Police Department--a police department known for showing racial bias, well-documented cases of police brutality in African American and Latino communities, and accusations of corruption--it is only a matter of time before an innocent bystander is maimed or murdered.
Also, the question must be asked: how long will it be before this new model of assault rifle finds its way into the hands of the very criminals the police are trying to fight?
The argument being made by community groups like the Southwest Youth Collaborative is that the Daley Machine should use tax dollars to invest in failing schools, instead of putting more guns on the streets.
In an investigation done by Robert Wildeboer, in association with WBEZ, Superintendent Jody Weis is quoted defending the implementation of the M4 into the police department by saying the police need weapons that can compete with the increase firepower of gang members. He goes on to say that an officer with a handgun does not have a chance against a gang member with an assault weapon.
On the other hand, in mid-December 2003, 17 people were fatally shot by Chicago police armed with handguns--double that of 2002 and triple that of 2001. On December 5, 2007, the Chicago Tribune reported:
Chicago police shoot a civilian on average once every 10 days. More that 100 people have been killed in the last decade; 250 others have been injured...Police shootings have led to more than $59 million in settlements and civil judgment against the city [money that most certainly comes from tax dollars] in the last decade.
Freddie Wilson, a 34-year-old African American male, was shot by police on November 15, 2007. Police claimed Wilson threatened them, and a gun was recovered--but at least one eyewitness says Wilson never made it to his car, and they never saw a gun. According to an article on the Chicagoist Web site, another witness stated that Wilson "was holding his hands up, letting the officers know he didn't have a gun or anything on him. They kept firing anyway."
These are prime examples of some of the concerns that community leaders, South Side youth, and South Side residents are expressing about the increased firepower of the M4 assault rifle in the hands of the trigger-happy Chicago police.
Christopher Collins, Chicago
