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Sorry, no easy answers for Chicago homicides

By Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

"Hey, more than 500 people have been murdered in Chicago this year," says one of my conservative friends. "I can't wait to see what you write about that."

Why? You didn't listen to me the last time. Are you really listening or just waiting for your own turn to complain?

"Jeez, why are you so touchy?"

I'm just tired of hearing your usual one-note analysis and solution: Black people are having too many babies out of wedlock. Hey, do you ever ask what happened to the jobs that used to enable workers to support a family? Do you ever notice how the poverty, crime, opiate addiction and out-of-wedlock birth rates are growing among poor whites, too? When are you people going to pull yourselves up by your bootstraps?

"Hey, you don't think fathers are important?"

Of course, we're important. But where are you going to find all the marriageable black men to fulfill your dream?

 

"Hey, OK, I'm listening. Tell me what you would do about the killers roaring out of control in Obama's adopted hometown."

Hey, that's President Barack Obama, pal. Respect. Look, 500 murders and it's only September? There's a horrible thing. But it's not a first. Violent crime is like a Zika virus. You don't know when or where it's going to surge but you have to deal with it when it does.

We've been through this before. I was covering Chicago cops as a young reporter in 1974 when murders in Chicago peaked at 970 -- or about 29 per 100,000 -- after rising for more than 10 years. And I remember when murders peaked again in 1992, this time at 943 or 34 per 100,000.

You could almost hear the rejoicing in December 2004, when the Chicago Tribune headlined: "City murder toll lowest in decades." For the first time in almost four decades, there were fewer than 500 murders in Chicago. Break out the champagne.

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(c) 2016 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

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