Chicago police, Mayor Brandon Johnson unveil summer safety plan ahead of Memorial Day weekend
Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial start of summer, so Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling and Mayor Brandon Johnson unveiled the city's safety plan Thursday afternoon.
The city of Chicago, especially downtown, the lakefront, and the city's shopping districts, is a hot destination, attracting not just tourists and locals, but sometimes chaos too.
Memorial Day weekend kicks off the unofficial start to summer, but this weekend and beyond the goal of the city's leaders is to change an old Chicago saying that warmer weather brings more crime.
Snelling said the Chicago Police Department will be proactive over Memorial Day weekend, which kicks off with the Sueños Music Festival on Saturday and Sunday.
Police will focus on keeping the lakefront safe, along with protecting tourists and people in the city's business districts, with a careful eye on teen takeovers, monitoring social media, and protecting the youth.
"Throughout the summer and all year round, our Bureau of Detectives, Bureau of Patrol, and Bureau of Counterterrorism will work hand-in-hand with each other to share resources, and to conduct targeted missions and reduce crime across the city," Snelling said. "We will also have additional resources in our business areas, like the beaches, downtown, and our business corridors."
Both the mayor and superintendent also called on parents to help monitor their children, know where they are during the weekend, and take responsibility for keeping them safe and out of trouble.
"I'm counting on our parents and our adults to do more. Know where your children are, know what they're engaged in," Johnson said. "We have just laid out plethora of activities that they can engage in, and so that's why we are using every single entity of government for our Chicago Public Schools, through our park districts, through our libraries. There's not a place, a neighborhood where activity can exist that won't be available; but our parents, our adults, all of us have to put in the hard work."
Last year was the city's least violent summer in more than half a century, and city leaders are hoping to repeat that success this year.
"Last summer was Chicago's safest summer in 60 years," Johnson said. "And this summer we will continue leaning into what works: our partnerships, our investments, and of course, coordination. All city departments are coordinated in their roles to build safer communities."
Tim Brennan, co-founder of Operation Basketball, a nonprofit dedicated to providing youth with mentoring and career and life skills, said while the attention on youth safety is heightened in the summer, his basketball program operates year round.
"As much impact as we can have with them, they're going to be able to make it," he said. "We get them introduced to leadership opportunities and wellness. We're taking them through our Blacktop to Boardroom program. We're teaching them how to build a resume, how to actually see that these life skills that I have – in the terms of resilience and the teamwork that you naturally learn through basketball – actually translate to career skills."
Operation Basketball has programs on the South, West and North sides for both girls and boys.
"Everything we do is free to the kids," Brennan said.
They also have pop-up events throughout the summer. Brennan rejects any suggestion that programs like his don't impact violence and uplift youth.
"We have 3 million-plus people. You know, so, if we can just continue to whittle away at it, and not expect it to be an overnight change, that's where the long-term solution is."
