The Insane “Just Say No” To Chicago Violence Policy
Sending In The Federal Troops: Solution or Accelerant For More Violence?
A Black teenager accidentally wanders into an area where white beachgoers had been relaxing on Lake Michigan in Chicago. A white man, offended at the incursion, began pelting the kid and other Black kids with rocks, eventually causing 17-year-old Eugene Williams to fall off his raft. He drowns and dies.
The white police officer called to the scene refuses to arrest the murderer. Anger escalates among the Black onlookers when there is no arrest, as more police pour onto the beach area.
Then things went from awful to worse.
A Black man pulls out a gun and shoots one of the officers, who dies on the scene.
This remains one of the deadliest days in Chicago history. White men begin marching into Black neighborhoods, assaulting Black people, and destroying property. Twenty-three Black people were murdered that day. Black folks, also angry at the murder of a teenage boy and the complicit police, retaliate.
Fifteen white people were murdered. Over 350 more injured.
This story isn’t from 2020. Nor from 2010. Or even in 1999.
