Karl Klockars

It’s been the story du jour for the last couple news cycles in the City of Chicago.  For some reason, the fact that people are getting their asses handed to them in Lincoln Park is practically above-the-fold news in this town, which shows you exactly where our priorities are located.

Over the past few days, I’ve seen story after story about a roving band of ne’er-do-wells wandering the LP area beating the bejesus out of people late at night.  Despite the fact that we live in an urban area where violent acts happen on probably a minute-by-minute basis, the fact that a handful of wandering white guys have recieved pummelings means this is news!

Ironically, this is all happening just days after I posted this nugget of wisdom on that tome of knowledge:  Facebook.

For some reason, we’re collectively fine with shrugging off the fact that there have been dozens of murders and hundreds of shootings this summer.  Is CNN going to have to come back and highlight the murder rate again?  That wouldn’t bode well for our Olympic bid, now would it?

The excuse I’ve heard for the fact that this is being reported so heavily is the fact that “since it’s happening in Lincoln Park and it’s so uncommon there we need to talk about it.”  Maybe it doesn’t happen often on Fullerton, but let’s go ahead and take a look at the other details.  Because it seems like we’ve lost our shit.

What are we dealing with here?  Groups of people, and random violence.  First things first:

A group of 3 black and 1 hispanic men are roving around the Depaul area beating up white folks.  A group.  Of people.  Committing crime.  (The conservative-radio producer in me says “are these guys gonna get charged with a hate crime?”)  Some of us might consider something like that…

…a gang.

This is not my neighborhood. But it could be.

Let it be known that Chicago might also just have a gang problem.  I don’t know if you’ve heard of groups like the Latin Kings, the Black Gangster Disciples, or other sub-groups that basically controlled the city’s housing projects and other low-income areas for decades around this city?

And it’s not like gangs are only located in Englewood and Garfield Park and the like.  We’ve been paying attention to the graffitti around our apartment since the economy went to shit – the Lincoln Square area isn’t exactly gangbanger central – and the tags have been slowly rolling in.  So it’s safe to assume that since you can get off the Red Line at Fullerton, maybe some bad influences get railed in from 63rd Street.  You think?

Believe it or not, there is a benefit to these stories.  From time to time when we actually do hear news about a mass shooting on the South Side or some sort of dramatic flare-up of gang violence (more than usual, that is) someone will say something to the effect of “you know, it used to be that fights only happened with fists.  Nothing is safe any more.”

Well, guess what, ye yearners for nostalgic violence?  The week of the fistfight is back.  Imagine how wall-to-wall all of this would be if there was a band of armed gunfighters wandering the university corridor shooting overprivileged incoming freshmen.  We would, as I explained graphically above, lose our shit.

City to citizens: "Stop beating people up here!"

But no.  It’s a bunch of good old fashioned passionate asswhoopin’s like you don’t see these days.  And that leads us to point number two as delineated above:  Random violence.

Does anyone actually think that with all the bars and gin joints and party places around Depaul, combined with an excess of cash and a healthy dose of youth ever erupts into fights?  Into asswhoopins’ a-plenty?  That maybe Backwards Hat A will give a cross look to Hollister Tshirt B and maybe Anthropologie Clad Girl C might get into the mix and all of a sudden punches start getting thrown?

That certainly sounds like random violence to me.  Exactly what this group of people – or something resembling a gang – is also doing.  Thus far we’ve established that A) gangs exist in Chicago and B) random violence exists in Lincoln Park, especially late at night.

"We've got fights there! Let's freak 'em out!"

Look, I get it.  There’s tons of money in Lincoln Park and lots of eyeballs from that area get put on newscasts and hey, let’s freak them out about 5 or 6 fights that have happened in the last couple days.  But don’t bullshit us.  I understand that the hook is the fact that it’s a group of guys.  But let’s not pretend that this is anything that unnatural to happen in an urban setting.

Fear sells, and we all know that.  It’s just be nice if we could get a little less concern about a few black eyes and one broken jaw, and a little more concern over a hell of a lot of bulletholes in buildings and cars and cops and citizens in a low-income neighborhood.  Oh wait, they don’t chart on news advertising research.  Never mind.