Chicago police sergeant: "Tribal warfare" on the streets

(CBS News) CHICAGO - Chicago is in the grips of a deadly gang war. At least 275 people have been killed in the city so far this year and many more have been shot, many of them innocent bystanders to the gang violence. Among the latest victims were 12- and 13-year-old girls shot Tuesday night. They survived.

Sgt. Matt Little leads one of the teams in Chicago's Gang Enforcement Unit. There are about 200 such officers in the city-- versus 100,000 gang members.

"Almost all the violence we're seeing now is from the gangs," Little said. "When there's a shooting we'll respond to the shooting. We'll figure out where we believe the most likely area for retaliation is and we'll work that area trying to both prevent retaliation and possibly build a case on offenders."

CBS News rode along with Little's team as dusk fell on poor neighborhoods of vacant lots and high anxiety.

"The gangs have lost their hierarchy, so to speak, and without a chain of command, there's really nobody keeping things in check," Little said. The leaders are mostly in prison -- or dead. Those left are young, reckless, and often terrible shots.

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"Instead of a bullet with somebody's name on it, we have a bullet that reads 'To whom it may concern,'" Little said. The result is a spate of shootings that have killed or wounded young children, even toddlers.

Heaven Sutton

/ CBS News

The victims include 7-year old Heaven Sutton, at left, shot to death selling candy outside her house. Ten-year old Kitanna Peterson, at left, was playing by a fire hydrant when she was shot last week. A stray bullet went through her wrist and abdomen.

"We care about the grandmother that lives in the Graystone who's raising her grandkids. We care about the guy who's a hard-working stiff who gets up in the morning and works two jobs," Little said.

The police are also establishing a data base gleaned from interviews with the gang members themselves -- on their whereabouts, grudges or habits -- to anticipate trouble before it erupts. Some businesses that serve as hideouts will also be shuttered.

Kitanna Peterson, 10, was among those shot amid high temperatures in Chicago.

/ CBS News

Little responds to a man with a gun call. In just two hours, we witnessed repeated stops, searches and arrests.

"They are smart enough and savvy enough to have people run interference, to have plausible stories, to have a whole system of things they can bring up to try to interfere with us doing our jobs," Little said. "They know we're out there and that has an effect on what they're willing to do."

He sees the same people "all the time."

Sgt. Little is a decorated veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. He said that parts of Chicago are comparable to what he saw in combat.

It's "tribal warfare," he said, "and as it continues to build unless we manage to interdict it, and manage to stop it long enough for the blood to stop boiling, the heat to die down."

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on how to stem the violence:

[uhurusandiego]

"Gang violence" is only happening because this is what the US wants: to continue to colonize a population stolen from African so we can continue to exploit them. If the money spent to turn police departments into paramilitary operations used to brutalize the African community and inflict police containment practices was used on true economic development for the Black community, you wouldn't see any of this. But the US continues to traffic drugs in the black community, continues to use federal funds to ensure police departments hit quotas so they can gain additional funding, and continues to create 3 strikes laws so that an everlasting supply of free labor can be supplied through privatized prisons.

Horizontal violence is a result of vertical violence which is US imperialism. When Africans develop consciousness in their resistance and unite one billion strong for African liberation (Uhuru Movement), they will be unstoppable in overturning this culture of violence inflicted upon them from the US and all imperialistic governments.

[Polly_Commentator]

TRIBAL WARFARE ....LOL...even Chicago's keepers of the Afro-America , bribed welfare hoards ...are starting to use language that is politically incorrect ..abeit..accurate !

They realize they attain power by bribing Blacks with more of the "rich white boys" money ...collected via taxes and "spread around" the black community ...BUT ...what to do about it being 100x more dangerous to live in Kabul , Afghanistan , in a war zone than in Chicago ?

Even Mayor Rahm looks pissed and disturbed & is NOW talking about "CHARACTER" !

It's hard to blame "whitey" for everything when the prisons are full of minorities and the crime committed of every variety ...from flash robbing the local 7-11's to killing whitey for his tennis shoes ...to killing a dozen or 2 of each other each week is so Front and Center now.

Rahm might be realizing he made a little mistake when Chi-Town is swimming in murder and lawless-ness and the perps are telling him what he told them to get elected ...." It's whitey's FAULT" !

[PoliceChiefDavidCouper]

Where to from here? It's not that Chicago and other cities don't have experience with gang violence (1930s?) but we have to re-think all this and its ties to the "war" on drugs. When we begin to think of ourselves (police) as hammers, all the world, they say, will begin to look like a nail. Time to think. Let me join the discussion with some of the ideas in my new book,"Arrested Development: A Veteran Police Chief Sounds Off About Protest, Racism, Corruption and the Seven Steps Necessary to Improve Our Nation's Police." My blog is at http://improvingpolice.wordpress.com/ where I discuss these and other current police improvement issues. Policing a democracy (and its gangs) is not always an easy task -- but we can always do things better if we listen to one another and have a commitment to continuously improve!

[uhurusandiego]

You cannot reform a system built on slavery and genocide, a system that continues to exploit, plunder and murder with impunity. A new system needs to be in its place and that will come through a full scale African liberation movement worldwide under the theory of African Internationalism.

[Dan_Boyd]

Its correct to be racist. Blacks are savages. Those who disagree are brainwashed or have very little contact with blacks. They will kill and mame you for little or no reason. Not all criminals are black but all ******* are criminals.

[doubleecho-2009]

You CANNOT label EVERYONE of a racial sterotype as "the same". It is not true and gets used to penalize some really upstanding, decent people.
SURE, I agree that the crowd in Chicago is exhibiting signs of a tribalism usually associated with third-world countries. The questions is WHY, and I don't think it can be so simply tossed off as "race".

[uhurusandiego]

Your ignorance is mind numbing.

[BigBlivefromny]

All you racist slugs can take a dump on yourselves! I grew up with black people and went to grammar schools that were half white and half black. My mother raised us to judge people individually by their character and actions not skin color or race or religion. I admit that most of my friends in life were white people, with a couple close black friends. People are people! Anybody raised in a sh*@tty environment will grow up messed up.The problems go back over 200 years, and yes black Americans need to help each other more out of poverty and despair.BUT, you rasict dogs need ta back down some, since it is historical fact that the slave labor of hundreds of thousands of black people helped to build this country from the foundations up!! Washington owned slaves, Jefferson owned slaves....yeah it was a long time ago and is now history...but have we ever really accepted these black Americans fully? Many of them are great people, and yes, some not so good, but are other groups here any different? There's a few white people around that i would put a bullet in w/out hesitation...crank heads and losers abound these days!!!!!!!!

[MagnaCartaUK]

Why listen to the views of rascists - views forged in rascism have no meaning or credibility anyway - they're merely those of 'little people'. The Slave Trade, abhorrent as it was, and to me knowing my country was one of the instigators, has long passed - look at the Jews and the Holocaust as an example of how to move on. Look at the contribution black Britons and Americans have made to their respective countries - the arts, sport, literature, science, well, the list goes on as you know. I know little of racism in modern America, or how much or little improvement there's been, but dragging up the painful past serves no purpose - it merely shackles you once again, and provides those racists with further stones to throw at you. It's about now, the choices we have, and the route we take. The fact that young black people are murdering young black people in Chicago and other cities is nothing to do with the Slave Trade, it's to do with criminality. In Britain, people of ethnic origin generally don't think in the same way as their counterparts in America, and whilst our social fabric is stronger than the States, there's a difference between condemning criminals and bowing to modern racism. Sad as it is, there's plenty of criminality regardless of race, colour, class and all the other barriers thrown at us. Do remember, however, these people are thugs = regardless of their colour, creed or class - and one day you, yourself could unfortunately be a victim of people with a similar mentality.

[Sallyberg]

Sorry, you can play with reason all you like, but there's no denying the race of violent crime in chicago.

[doubleecho-2009]

i agree, thank you!

[MagnaCartaUK]

If the figure or 100,000 people being members of gangs doesn't ring alarm bells, then what will? One can point to the fact that they don't seem to fear the law, but how do they obtain guns - or more importantly who supplied them? From what I've read of gang members here, most aren't too intelligent. They blame lack of opportunity, poor housing and living standards, lack of money and so on - all before rioting and destroying their own neighbourhoods. The truth is, they think everyone else is to blame - but never themselves. Go to anywhere in the developing World, and you'll see people their age in genuine, dire poverty - with notable differences - they don't blame others, many are lucky to have anything to eat, and most don't enjoy the benefits of living in an advanced society, yet the most baffling difference of all is they can still manage to greet strangers with a smile. Gangs and their sympathisers have long lost any real social credibility, their excuses, just like them, don't work, and the truth is they're born cowards with a penchant for violence, but without the guts to change or the intelligence to see the bigger picture. Personally I'd advocate imposing martial law with a curfew, extensive searches to locate weapons, and drug dealers shot on the spot. That's the worst point about civilization though, it allows those that don't respect it to violate it also, and often demands the rest of us to the same in response. 'Blessed be the peacemakers, for they shall inherit the Earth' - just make sure you've got something that'll knock a man clean of his feet at close range though, best to be on the safe side and all that!

[reality-is]

When order collapses, it won't be working class people running through the streets looting and killing. The working classes will be trying to protect what little they have. Gang members have less to lose, and a greater desire to take from others. If the government had the best interests of the population at heart, they would be consistently encouraging people to have a supply of extra food and water on hand, so that if things go south, they don't have to go out on the streets, where a veritable army of gang members will be in control, quickly swamping local law enforcement. Instead they say that people who store food are potential terrorists, even as they run ads telling people to have extra food and water on hand in the event of a natural disaster.

If Chicago's leaders had hearts, they would advocate private gun ownership for the law-abiding. They _cannot_ protect the population from a hostile army in their midst. It is only the lack of a triggering event like the Rodney King verdict that keeps the thin veneer of order intact. Many Chicago families are potential victims of the worst kind of crimes, suffered in a state of anarchy, where even the hope of medical aid may seem dubious.
This situation exists on a smaller scale in hundreds of cities across the country. The end will be like a simple equation: the number of people raped and killed in a given city during a time of 'urban chaos' will be directly proportional to the willingness and ability of people to defend their neighbors and neighborhoods. Those that hunker down are a help to the system: they're not out in the streets, and they're not draining any resources. A sane government would encourage all citizens to have an abundant stock of food and water, and the means to defend their property and lives from aggressors. The fact that ours doesn't - and demonizes those who prepare for the worst - is telling. Either we're governed by gods who never make mistakes (their view) or eventually things will come to a head, somewhere (reality view) and order may crack.

Solicitations have been sent out for guard staff at the Fema camp facilities, which are now admitted to exist. Applicants were told to be ready to deploy on 72 hour notice. A lot can happen in 72 hours. An entire city can be looted of much of its wealth, which will disappear and be spent later by gangs once the police heat backs off. And a lot of helpless, defenseless innocents will suffer and die.
Pepper spray is legal in Chicago. you want the giant bottles for use against bears, which can simultaneously target multiple aggressors (some of whom will be happier if you don't fight back, so they can do whatever they want to you and your beautiful wives and daughters).

What is true of Chicago is true to the same degree elsewhere; the potential for a breakdown of order exists in almost all sizable US cities. The fact that they are not yet as bad as Chicago is meaningless. Instant press coverage will insure a breakdown of order in one city will spread to others.

[MrLagg]

if Obama doesn't give them more, they are going to start taking it.

[RepubsAreFiscallyLiberal]

ping

[RepubsAreFiscallyLiberal]

by last_straw July 12, 2012 5:34 PM EDT
DaShawn is one of those stupid ebonics names that BLACKS give their niglets when they're drunk, high on drugs or too much KFC!

--------

Wow.

laststraw is one serious racist.

Who taught you to hate - your parents? Grandparents???

How DO you keep that sheet and hood SO clean???

[RepubsAreFiscallyLiberal]

So who taught you to hate?

Your parents? Grandparents???

Come on, you two - fess up. Don't be shy - it's not your fault you were taught to hate by hate-filled people.

.

[CHICO_KK]

Come on, Repubs

DaShawn is a stupid name!

[RepubsAreFiscallyLiberal]

So is CHICO_KK. What's your point?

[infantryman1968]

Chicago police sergeant: "Tribal warfare" on the streets


LOL!


Coming to your town if Obama and his followers get re-elected.

Obama's America.

[RepubsAreFiscallyLiberal]

What's funny about this, infantry?