Community groups to join in effort to prevent teen takeovers in Chicago
Over the weekend, Chicago -police warned of another possible teen takeover, but no such thing manifested like others we've seen — which have involved young people jumping on cars and crowding in the street downtown and in other areas.
Meanwhile, the City of Chicago has launched a different approach to preventing such teen takeovers from happening. For the first time ever, city agencies are trying to partner with community groups to be on the scene as takeovers start.
CBS News Chicago on Monday got a sneak peek at how they are planning to map out their response.
"The community-based organization element would be new," said Manuel Whitfield, director of violence prevention and community safety for the Mayor's Office of Community Safety. "We've never done it before."
CBS News Chicago joined Whitfield and members of other city agencies and community groups in Streeterville, where two separate teen takeovers led to shootings back in March.
On March 9, a 46-year-old woman and her son were caught up in a teen takeover near the AMC River East movie theater when the woman, a tourist, was shot in the arm.
On March 28, a 15-year-old boy suffered a gunshot graze wound to the leg during a teen takeover in the same area, near Columbus Drive and Illinois Street. A 14-year-old boy has since been charged with shooting the 15-year-old.
Ogden Plaza, a multi-level concrete space with trees and benches, is where teens often congregate.
"Youth usually start gathering here on Illinois Street, and then they start moving," Whitfield said. "They usually end up here [at Ogden Plaza], and what happens is we already preplanned, have had CPD in all of these set areas."
The city has tried fencing and community alerts. But the newest method is community organizations — with representatives who would walk alongside those of city agencies.
The community organizations are now preparing by scoping out the scenes of the large gatherings.
"What makes this approach different is we're actually all working together," said Deputy Mayor for Community Safety Garien Gatewood.
As Gatewood explained, representatives of the groups would walk around and talk to kids. They would explain the curfew and offer resources, community involvement, and job opportunities.
"Ultimately, having those conversations person-to-person, and that really helps drive down the anger and angst sometimes out," Gatweood said. "You have to be integrated, because look, there's sometimes hundreds of kids down here — and you have to be part of that work, and actually physically being out here."
There is one group whose voices have not yet been part of the conversation — young adults who might attend a takeover.
"Me as a young person, I just feel like people are describing us as wild animals — and that's not what we are," said Jaqueza Thomas of the Mayor's Youth Commission. "Young people like myself just want a safe space to have fun and enjoy themselves."
Thomas said young people come downtown because the neighborhoods where they live are lacking.
"A lot of the neighborhoods that we grew up in are pretty much really underserved and underfunded," he said, "and so we come downtown because downtown has things to offer that some areas like Parkway Gardens, for example, like they don't have some of those things."
The young adults can also explain what they're looking for when they go downtown.
"We don't want to come like down here, downtown, to destroy anything or cause chaos," Thomas said. "We just really want to enjoy our time as young people."
The Chicago Police Department has also played a large role in planning with community groups and other city agencies. Police would verify a teen takeover event, reach out to the person who posted about it, and ask them to take the post down. In theory, resources that would include the local community groups would then be deployed.
"How do we get community-based organizations to come out, right when we know that we have a preplanned large gathering happening, to help with that positive messaging around, 'Hey, you can be down here, but like, there's a certain way you need to show up in this space,'" Whitfield said.
Police would also make a resource plan for traffic control and curfew enforcement.
As they toured Streeterville Monday, all the stakeholders reiterated that their goal is to educate — not to have teens arrested when they are downtown having a good time.
Interestingly, people kept walking up to the group of city and community representatives as they walked around Streeterville Monday, asking what they were doing. They were all happy to see the work going on, having been watching the teen takeovers from their windows.
