Clear the Streets?

Wilding in the South Loop area over the weekend:

• Two teenagers were shot, one fatally, when a large gathering of mostly teenagers in the South Loop turned violent on Saturday evening, Chicago police said. Dozens of arrests were made as the crowd, drawn to the area by social media posts, overwhelmed community outreach workers and Chicago cops.

  Hundreds of people converged in the area of Roosevelt and Canal after 7 p.m., and police officers were already arresting people within the hour. But the event soon turned violent.

  Part of the group was gathered in the parking lot of BMO Harris Bank, 522 West Roosevelt, when at least one gunman fired shots at 8:06 p.m., according to a CPD media statement and witnesses. Officers, already in the area, immediately called out shots fired on the radio and responded to the scene. They began lifesaving efforts, detained the gunman, and recovered a firearm, police said.

The Contrarian has video at this link here.

Unfortunately, we believe this is going to be the situation all summer long. There is no plan, there is no manpower to field a quick reaction force, and there is no plan to prosecute and hold the demonized yutes responsible. August is going to be insane with the convention here.

Here's the worrisome part we see:

• “Anybody that’s on the street, they’re going to jail,” David Harris, commander of CPD’s Central (1st) District, announced on the radio. “We’re going to do a mass arrest. All these kids are going to jail.”

  The exact number of arrests made was not yet available, but a source who was at the scene said “dozens” of people, mostly juveniles, were taken into custody.

There were eight juvie arrests, one adult arrest and three curfew violations. Does that compare exactly to the number of persons removed in handcuffs? Although it may feel good to say "clear the streets!" every single discrepancy is a potential Civil Rights lawsuit and the commander (who was suspended for lying about crime numbers AND for getting into a verbal altercation with a crossing guard over a traffic barricade AND accused of striking said crossing guard with his city automobile) doesn't seems to be a meticulous rule follower. 

The order for Mass Arrests runs eight pages long. Did you know there are seventeen separate notifications that have to be made for a Mass Arrest incident? And the number of teams (detectives, ETs, outside personnel, etc) that have to be assembled is quite lengthy, not to mention the transportation issue of moving large amounts of prisoners. And believe it or not, you still need observable, articulate-able and preferably recorded Probable Cause to arrest people in a Mass Arrest situation.

It's enough to give Conehead a stress episode.