Let's Have a Meeting!

But don't let the general public know what's going on in it:

• After yet another bloody summer weekend in which four people were killed and 39 people were wounded, Mayor Rahm Emanuel held a closed-door summit Monday with community leaders and law enforcement officials to discuss violence that continues to grip Chicago.
  
  “I think everybody here knows this is a deeper conversation. It’s more complex than how many ATF agents we have and how many kids we have enrolled in our mentoring program,” said Emanuel, before reporters were escorted out of the conference room at Chicago Police Department’s South Side headquarters.

No need to let reporters see what's going on. Rahm will treat them like mushrooms (kept in the dark and fed bull shit) and they'll run and print what he says to print, especially during an election year. Don't want ot lose that all important "access" you know.

• The summit was held just hours after a crowd of mourners poured out into a West Side street Sunday to hold vigil for Shamiya Adams, an 11 year-old girl who was killed Friday night when a stray bullet that flew into an apartment during a slumber party. So far, no arrests have been made, but police Supt. Garry McCarthy said detectives have some “good leads.”
  
  “The case is progressing nicely,” said McCarthy, who added that he couldn’t discuss specifics. “We have a lot of information and the case is developing quickly.”

"nicely" if you don't count that fact that an 11-year-old caught a bullet in the head in the middle of the "lowest crime stats in decades."

• “Often times you feel like you’re being talked at, or being told all the great things that are being done,” said the Rev. Michael Pfleger, the outspoken South Side pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church, on his way out of the conference room.
  
  But this time Emanuel opened the floor for community groups, allowing them to air their concerns and grievances — a move Pfleger called “refreshing.”
  
  “I don’t usually leave meetings feeling this good and I felt good today. Obviously ... action has to take place now, but to be able to lay it out on the table, I thought was very good,” he said.

Well, you know if Pfather Pfleger left the meeting "refreshed," then there must be hope for the whole situation. After all, look at what great strides St. Sabina's has made in turning around that neighborhood - hardly a murder to be seen.

Anyone else get the feeling that their pockets just got picked, their Rights just got trampled and we're going to be told to smile-and-eat-shit in short order?