KCMO Police and City Hall Need to Maybe See What Chicago is Doing About Gun Violence

Chicago hit the news this week, this new year and in good ways for them. Surprisingly, at least to me, it's pretty big news.

Homicides, shootings decline for 3rd consecutive year in Chicago, Police Department says

Homicides fell below 500 last year in Chicago for the first since 2015, marking the third consecutive year of double-digit decreases, official Police Department statistics show.

Anyone can and no doubt will say what they will about the Windy City but if it, the city and the police, are getting good results, this kind of results, cutting homicides and shootings, with their population and size, it seems we here in Kansas City could likely learn things from them. Someone--the police chief, our new Mayor, someone, ought to maybe get up there, ask some questions and see what they're doing to get good results.

Here's hoping.

Mayor Lucas?  Police Chief Smith?

Worst Run Cities and Missouri Takes a Hit

There's another one of those "Best in America" and "Worst in America" lists out on the interwebs this week and once again, Missouri takes a hit. Here you go.

Worst-run cities in America

To start, neighbor Topeka is on the list at 48.

The bad news? Kansas City, Missouri is on the list. The good news? It’s in the bottom half at 42

KCK, however, is in the top half and very nearly in the top 10 at 13.

And side note, once again, they show a picture of KCMO when trying to represent the cities.

Makes one wonder about the scale they use.

Anyway, other rather comparable notables from here in the Midwest:

Indianapolis #46
Nashville 43
KCMO 42
Wichita 38
Tulsa 34
Ft Smith and Little Rock, 30 & 29, respectively
Chicago 25
Memphis 9
Toledo 8
Gary IN 7
Flint MI 5

But dang.

St. Louis.

What a ranking. 

Check this out.

2nd worst in the nation at number 2 for worst run city. 

 Ow.

Worst----Detroit. Not a shock.

The flip side?

Best-run cities in America

Las Vegas 47
Washington DC 46
Denver 44
Minneapolis 40
Des Moines 39
St Paul 37
Cedar Rapids 23

New York 16

Lincoln NE 14

Number one belongs to Huntington Beach, CA, which is outrageously unfair. Mountains, ocean, beaches, great weather, all that and well run, too.

Disgusting.

Route 66 Endangered---And What You Can Do

I saw this news just broke yesterday:

U.S. Route 66 on national list of 11 endangered historic places

Seems the National Trust for Historic Preservation just came out with its list of endangered historic places---and Route 66 is on it.

A proposal has been made, to help save it, by making it a National Historic Trail, officially. To do this, to  support Route 66 becoming a National Historic Trail, the trust has set up an online petition. You can go to it here and sign up/sign on:

I Support a National Historic Trail Designation for Route 66!

Thank you in advance for your support, for signing.

Now, let's do this!

Beginning National Gun Violence Awareness Month

Gun Violence Awareness Month: June

Today begins National Gun Violence Awareness Month and thank goodness. All across America, along with here in Kansas City, more locally, we need to be aware of and pay attention to gun violence and the shootings and killings. We need to be aware of it, certainly, but more importantly, we need to do something about it. We shouldn't normalize this. We shouldn't just say or think this is the way it is and the way it must be. No other educated, industrialized nation in the world lives like this. We shouldn't, either.

We need to see, need to know the statistics about guns and shootings and the violence in America and then we need to say "Enough!" and work to put an end to it. Here are just a few local headlines on it all.

Shooting spree shakes up 

South Kansas City neighborhood

4 children inside KC house hit by gunfire from drive-by shooter

Police investigate shooting 

at Austins Bar and Grill

KCMO drive-by shooting caught 

on personal dashcam

And the shootings and killings are all up in America, across the nation.

Shootings, homicides in Chicago 

both higher than start of violent 2016

Chicago's murder rate soars 72% in 2016; 

shootings up more than 88%

Chicago murders up in January 2017 

compared to last year

Denver's homicides hit 

a 10-year high in 2016 

Violent crime in L.A. jumps for third straight year

Mother of 3-year-old, killed in crossfire, was the ‘backbone’ of close-knit family

4-year-old boy killed in rolling Kansas City gun battle

MetroLink passengers take cover as bullets hit train in St. Clair County

12-year-old boy shot in St. Louis, rushed to hospital

'It happened again,' father says after 2nd son murdered in New Orleans

Man shot at prayer vigil in St. Claude neighborhood: New Orleans police

Recess guarded by cops after killing outside school: 'They should be able to play'

Two juveniles, ages 12 and 13, arrested 

in connection to fatal shooting

Boy, 6, found shot dead in stolen car 

on day of 1st grade graduation

Then, compare us to the rest of the world when it comes to guns and shootings and killings. It's insane.

U.S. Leads World in Mass Shootings

Compare These Gun Death Rates: 

The U.S. Is in a Different World

U.S. Has More Guns - And Gun Deaths - 

Than Any Other Country

Here's a stunner:

More Than 6 Million Americans 

Own Ten or More Guns

We have to recognize that this is no way to live. We have to recognize that America has far, far too many guns.

And what can be done? 

Like it or not, agree with it or not, Australia seemed to have led the way on this issue.

Strict gun laws ended mass shootings in Australia

Australia data shows gun controls a huge success 20 years after mass shooting

Don't get me wrong, here, either. I wish a gun/weapons ban could be passed here and that it would work but I think that ship has sailed, figuratively speaking. We have far too many weapons now in the country to make that work. We also seem to have a different, very different kind of "Wild West" mindset regarding guns no other nation has, sadly, unfortunately.

There are some good statistics on guns in America, however. Here's a big one, for me, anyway.

Fewer and Fewer Americans Own Guns

Just three percent of adults own 

half of America's guns

Fewer Americans Own Guns, 

But Those Who Do Own More Than Ever

Another:

Most Americans don't own a gun, 

and want more gun control

So what do we do? What can we do?

We have to do at least two things and those are, first, let our governmental representatives know we are against the NRA, the National Rifle Association and the weapons manufacturers having their way with our nation and our laws. We have to let them know that they can't sell all weapons, everywhere to everyone at all times. We don't need or want automatic weapons on our streets, made available to anyone and everyone that can buy them and we certainly also don't need or want armor-piercing bullets available on our streets. Neither has a place in a modern society.

Then, second, we must vote. We must vote for sanity in our gun laws. We have to vote for people who are not just blindly behind, again, the NRA and the weapons manufacturers. We can't be "all guns, all the time." That kind of thinking has gotten us more shootings and killings, per capita, than any other of the industrialized nations, far and away.

Speaking of Breaking Records and Making History

So the Chicago Cubs win the World Series of baseball after all these years.




What's next? A woman president?

Rather Monumental Question For A Sunday Morning

"Who'd have thought that in our lifetime we'd see the first black president, the first woman president, and the Cubs in the World Series?"

--Linda Tilsen, FB friend, to her husband.

Movie I'd Like To See

I keep thinking of movies I'd like to see. Here's another.

I'd like to see a movie about someone who attended these two events.

Chicago World's Columbian Exposition

and

Saint Louis Exposition

Only 11 years apart---1893 and 1904. Reasonably close to one another, not that far away, and yet both so huge, such big, national and even international events of their day and that time. 

Surely there is, or could be, a story.

Notes on "America's Most Dangerous Cities"

The online blog site, 24/7 came out with their annual list of "America's Most Dangerous Cities" at the end of last month, and it's pretty interesting. Their data is compiled from the FBIs own list. There some interesting points in and on it, worth noting.

Let's start with a bit of their overall data:

24/7 Wall St. reviewed violent crime rates in major U.S. cities from the FBI’s 2015 Uniform Crime Report. Violent crime includes all offenses involving force or threat of force and are broken into four categories: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. For every 100,000 U.S. residents, 372 of these crimes were committed in 2015.
Then, some notes.

First, unfortunately---and no surprise, really---Kansas City is on it. Second thing to note about it, we were in the top ten, too.

10. Kansas City, Missouri
> Violent crimes per 100,000: 1,417.3
> 2015 murders: 109
> Poverty rate: 19.4%
> Unemployment rate: 5.5%

While the nationwide violent crime rate rose by 3.9% in 2015, the increase in Kansas City was far more dramatic. With homicide and aggravated assault rates surging, the city reported a 14.4% spike in violent crime last year. Crime in the city is up even more from five years ago. The city’s violent crime rate increased by 21.2% from 2011 through 2015, even as the nationwide rate declined by 0.7% over that period.

Not good.

In fact, we, Kansas City, were worse on this list than Washington, DC (15), Indianapolis, Indiana (13) and Stockton, California (12).  That hurts.

Next thing to note about the list is that Missouri gets hit pretty hard. We are on the list three different times.

Then on to this note from the list, our own Springfield, Missouri, "Queen City of the Ozarks", followed as close as could be at number 11 on the list.

11. Springfield, Missouri
> Violent crimes per 100,000: 1,355.6
> 2015 murders: 10
> Poverty rate: 26.4%
> Unemployment rate: 4.3%

Crime rates tend to be higher in economically depressed areas where opportunities are scarce. In Springfield, Missouri, more than one-quarter of area residents live in poverty, one of the highest poverty rates in the country. After spiking by 73.2% over the five years through 2015 — the second highest increase of any major U.S. city — Springfield’s violent crime rate is the 11th highest in the country. In 2015, there were 179 rapes for every 100,000 residents, the highest incidence of rape in the country.

In fact, along with Missouri's Springfield, there were two more on the list. Springfields Illinois, at number 23 and Massachussetts at 21. I guess that all comes from it being such a common name in this country, maybe.

Next note, right next door in Arkansas, little old Little Rock comes in at number 9, higher and so, worse than Kansas City. Who'd have guessed?

Which brings us to our last point (points?) and the highest, worst ranking of all the most dangerous cities in America this year, at this time.  It ain't good, Missouri.

1. St. Louis, Missouri
> Violent crimes per 100,000: 1,817.1
> 2015 murders: 188
> Poverty rate: 27.8%
> Unemployment rate: 6.1%

Including 188 homicides, there were 5,762 violent crimes in St. Louis in 2015. Adjusting for population, the city’s murder and violent crime rates, at 59 murders and 1,817 per 100,000 city residents, are each the highest in the country. The number of violent crimes reported in St. Louis increased by 7.7% last year, faster than the national uptick of 3.9%. Over the last five years, however, the incidence of violent crime is down by 3.2%.

Yes sir, good ol' St. Lou.  

Not Detroit. Heck, not even Chicago.  In fact, check out the list, folks. Chicago isn't even on the list (it's too large a city for this study).

It's not looking good for us, danger-wise, Missourians. Heck, remember this study, that came out in 2012?

Missouri: 

Ranked one of the "Most Depressing States"

We have to work on our safety and image, folks. These are some pretty awful lists.

WWI Memorial in Washington, Too

Seems the Federal government in Washington, DC just can't keep from spending money or creating a second World War I memorial. This broke today.

Chicago architect, 25, wins design contest for World War I memorial in D.C.

It's not a huge surprise. Maybe a bit of a local disappointment, for us, certainly, not that people would come here instead of going to Washington for one of these memorials.

We'll just know ours is better.

Check that. 

Best.

Chicago's--and Mayor Emanuel's--Continued Troubles

So Chicago's Mayor Rahm Emanuel fired the Police Superintendent today due to the shooting and killing last year of Laquan McDonald.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel Fires Chicago Police Superintendent

And that's all well and good, at least something is being done about the public slaughter of Mr. McDonald but it certainly also raises questions.

The biggest issue, to me and to a lot of people,

I think, is that it took more than a year for anything to be even examined about this killing. The police had the video. They knew what was on it. They knew it might be a problem, at least. Not only did the police department and the city, in fact, know there were problems with the killing of Laquan McDonald but the city knew so well there were problems, they gave the McDonald family 5 million dollars.

Five million dollars.

The McDonald family hadn't sued at all.

Oh, yeah. The city of Chicago and the Chicago Police Department knew. They also knew the video was a problem and that it was incriminating.

If it hadn't been for one reporter, pushing for release of the video, we wouldn't know to this day how the officer ran up and shot down Laquan McDonald with 16 rapid shots.

Then there's the question of what other shootings and killings by the Chicago police have maybe been covered up?  The fact is, the city of Chicago has more police shootings than any other major US city, according to PBS Newshour. What else don't we know? Who else was needlessly shot down? 1? 5? 20? 100? How do we know? How can we be sure? How can Chicagoans trust their police and police department?

Finally, how long now until Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has to step down, if, in fact, he needs to? What did the Mayor know and when did he know it? And if he didn't truly know anything further about the shooting and killing of Laquan McDonald, didn't he owe it to this citizen of the city and to his family and friends---heck, owe it to all the citizens of Chicago--to be certain this case and this person was handled properly? Doesn't he owe it to every Chicagoan to make sure no one is ever needlessly, unnecessarily and tragically, even criminally gunned down on their own streets by the police?

Is Rahm Emanuel done for?

The shooting and killing of Laquan McDonald is America's problem and troubles, too, let's never forget.

Link:  Chicago Mayor Fires Police Chief in Wake of Video Release

The Latest: Illinois Attorney General Asks for Federal Probe

How Chicago's Police Chief Lost His Job - Video - NYTimes

Cover-Up in Chicago 

On This Day, September 2

For whatever reason, I thought September 2nd to be a day of significance. With that in mind, I thought I'd put together a few highlights from the date, down through the ages. Partly fun, partly educational, partly historical significance. Hopefully enjoy.

490 BC - Pheidippides, Greek hero and inspiration for the modern marathon, dies

44 BC - Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt declares her son co-ruler as Ptolemy XV Caesarion.

- The first of Cicero's Philippics (oratorical attacks) on Mark Antony. He will make 14 of them over the next several months.

1649 - The Italian city of Castro is completely destroyed by the forces of Pope Innocent X, ending the Wars of Castro. (I love that. Pope Innocent)

1666 - Great Fire of London begins at 2am in Pudding Lane, 80% of London is destroyed

1732 - Pope Clement XII renews anti-Jewish laws of Rome. (Don'tcha' just love those oh-so-innocent Catholics?)

1864 - Union General William T. Sherman captures and burns Atlanta during US Civil War

1894 - Forest fires destroy Hinckley Minnesota: about 600 die (I can't even fathom that one)

1901 - VP Theodore Roosevelt advises "Speak softly & carry a big stick"

1902 - "A Trip To The Moon", the first science fiction film, by film great Georges Méliès released

1919 - Communist Party of America organizes in Chicago (It didn't really catch on. Not permanently, anyway)

1936 - 1st transatlantic round-trip air flight

1942 - German troops enter Stalingrad

1944 - During WW II, George H W Bush ejects from a burning plane

1944 - Holocaust diarist Anne Frank was sent to Auschwitz

1945 - Ho Chi Minh declares Vietnam independence from France (National Day) (Years later, Americans would learn nothing whatever from France's loss and exit from Vietnam and instead, attack the country)

1946 - Nehru forms government in India

1957 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

1962 - Stan Musial's 3,516th hit moves over Tris Speaker into 2nd place

1962 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR

1963 - Alabama Gov George C Wallace prevents integration of Tuskegee HS

1963 - CBS & NBC expand network news from 15 to 30 minutes

1964 - Keanu Reeves birthday, Beirut, "actor"

1969 - Ralph Houk signs 3-year contract to manage Yankees at $65,000 a season (think things haven't changed a lot?)
        - The first automatic teller machine (ATM) in the United States is installed in Rockville Center, New York.

1971 - Chris Evert & Jimmy Connors win their 1st US Open tennis matches (Chris who? Jimmy who?)
         - Also his, Jimmy Connors', birthday, 1952

1972 - Rod Stewart's 1st #1 hit (You Wear it Well)

1973 - J. R. R. Tolkien, British author (The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings)--as if you had to ask--dies of an ulcer at 81

1982 - Rolling Stone Keith Richard's house burns down

1987 - Donald Trump takes out a full page NY Times ad lambasting Japan

1997 - Howard Stern Radio Show premieres in Montreal Canada on CHOM 97.7 FM (and we still haven't gotten rid of him)

2005 - Bob Denver, American actor (Gilligan of "Gilligan's Island"), dies of complications from treatment for cancer at 70
So now, get out there, kids, and enjoy your September 2nd.

On This Day, 1866

American history.

History they don't teach us.

Memphis riots of 1866

The Memphis riots of 1866 were the violent events that occurred from May 1 to 3 in Memphis, Tennessee. The racial violence was ignited by political, social and racial tensions following the American Civil War, in the early stages of Reconstruction.[1] After a shooting altercation between white policemen and black soldiers recently mustered out of the Union Army, mobs of white civilians and policemen rampaged through black neighborhoods and the houses of freedmen, attacking and killing men, women and children.

Federal troops were sent to quell the violence and peace was restored on the third day. A subsequent report by a joint Congressional Committee detailed the carnage, with blacks suffering most of the injuries and deaths: 46 blacks and 2 whites were killed, 75 blacks injured, over 100 black persons robbed, 5 black women raped, and 91 homes, 4 churches and 8 schools burned in the black community.

Modern estimates place property losses at over $100,000, also suffered mostly by blacks. Many blacks fled the city permanently; by 1870, their population had fallen by one quarter compared to 1865.

Public attention following the riots and reports of the atrocities, together with the New Orleans riot in July, strengthened the case made by Radical Republicans in U.S. Congress. The events influenced passage of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution to grant full citizenship to freedmen, as well as passage of the Reconstruction Act to establish military districts and oversight in certain states.

Investigation of the riot suggested specific causes related to competition for housing, work and social space between Irish immigrants and their descendants, and the freedmen. The white gentry also sought to drive freedpeople out of Memphis and back onto plantations where their labor could be exploited. Through violent terrorism, the white community at large sought to force blacks to respect white supremacy as the time of fully legal slavery was nearing its end.

Note there.

This wasn't the only time or place in American history this took place, either. It was, by no means, an isolated incident. It also took place in New Orleans.  And Tulsa. And Chicago. And I don't know where all. Again, it's history we don't like to teach, we Americans. It's history we don't really want to know. Or acknowledge. Or take responsibility for.

Why, if we took responsibility for all the things Americans have done to blacks in our nation, we couldn't blame them for being poor. And under-educated. And in poor jobs. And poor housing. And for having bad health. And for being in prison. Or for rioting.

Now could we?

This Week in American History

From the Facebook page of Isabel Wilkerson

On this day, Nov. 12, 1940, the Supreme Court ruled on a case that would inspire one of the seminal plays of the 20th Century, “A Raisin in the Sun.” The parents of Lorraine Hansberry, Carl and Nannie, a real estate broker and a schoolteacher, had left the Jim Crow South only to discover hostility in the North. 

It was in 1937 that they tried to move into the all-white Washington Park section of Chicago. Neighbors filed a lawsuit forcing the family out on the basis of restrictive covenants. Lorraine, the youngest of the couple’s four children, was eight years old at the time and witnessed violence against her family as her parents tried to stand their ground. The Hansberrys went to court to challenge the restrictive covenants and to return to the house they bought.

The case, Hansberry v. Lee, culminated in a 1940 Supreme Court decision that helped strike a blow against segregation, though the hostility continued. Neighbors surrounded their house at one point, throwing bricks and broken concrete, narrowly missing Lorraine’s head, and neighborhood children ganged up and attacked her at school.

The experience would plant the seed for the 1959 play and later the film, “A Raisin in the Sun,” starring Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil and Ruby Dee. It would not be until 1968 that the landmark Fair Housing Act would officially prohibit housing discrimination in the United States.

Her father would not live to see that day nor his daughter's Broadway triumph. Carl Hansberry, a Mississippian who had journeyed to Chicago during the Great Migration, never recovered from the family's housing ordeal. He died at age 50 in 1946 of a cerebral hemorrhage in Mexico, where he was planning to move his family out of disillusionment. Their house at 6140 South Rhodes is now a Chicago landmark and the beloved play their family's legacy.

-- The Warmth of Other Suns

For more on the family's ordeal:

"To Be Young, Gifted and Black" by Lorraine Hansberry
http://www.chipublib.org/lorraine-hansberry-biography/
http://www.theroot.com/…/cu…/2009/03/not_in_my_backyard.html

Timeline of the struggle for fair housing in the US:http://www.howardfairhousing.org/case_law/34/

The full moon this weekend

From the WGN Chicago's meteorologists FB page of Tom Skilling today:

It's the summer of the "super moon"--or what astronomers call "perigee moons". There are three of them on the way in the months ahead--the first Saturday morning at 6:25 am. Super moons occur when the moon is within 90% of perigee, in other words, within 90% of its closest pass to earth. Though not always easy to see, super moons can be up to 30% brighter and a bit larger than the conventional full moon. Saturday's full moon is known as the Full Buck Moon. NASA has put together a nice video on the "super moon" phenomenon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1KKpeW231Y&list=PL8F7BC3F1240213F5

On this day.... Recent American history

Recent history, at that.  And not far away.

On the evening of July 11, 1951, one of the biggest riots in U.S. history began after a young black couple moved into an apartment in all-white Cicero, IL, west of Chicago. The husband, Harvey Clark, was a World War II veteran who migrated to Chicago from Mississippi and was working as a bus driver. He and his wife Johnetta had been crammed with their two children in a two-room tenement with a family of five on the city's overcrowded South Side.

The couple found more space and cheaper rents in Cicero, closer to his work, but the sheriff turned them away when they first tried to move in. With a court order in hand, the couple finally moved their belongings into the apartment on July 11, as a mob formed around them, heckling and throwing rocks. The mob, many of them eastern European immigrants, grew to as many as 4,000 by nightfall. The couple fled, unable to stay overnight in their new apartment. 

That night, the mob stormed the apartment and hurled the family's belongings out of a third floor window: the sofa, the chairs, the clothes, the baby pictures. The mob tore out the fixtures: the stove, the radiators, the sinks. They smashed the piano, overturned the refrigerator, bashed in the toilet. They set the family's belongings on fire and then firebombed the building, leaving even the white tenants homeless. The rioters overturned police cars and threw stones at firefighters who tried to put out the fire. 

The Illinois Governor, Adlai Stevenson, had to call in the National Guard for the first time since the 1919 race riots in Chicago. It took more than 600 guardsmen, police officers and sheriff's deputies to beat back the mob that night and three more days for the rioting over the Clarks to subside. 

The Clarks were prevented from spending a single night in Cicero. A total of 118 men were arrested in the rioting but none were indicted. Instead, the rental agent and the owner of the apartment building were indicted for inciting a riot by renting to the Clarks in the first place. The Cicero riot attracted worldwide attention and became a symbol of northern hostility to the arrival of millions of African-Americans during the Great Migration. 

-- From the book, The Warmth of Other Suns www.thewarmthofothersuns.com

America.  You make us all so proud.