Tribune on Mayor Race

The coverage of the runoff in the race for mayor and the intense focus on crime and criminal justice matters exposes bias in the Chicago Tribune and the reporters. In the article we discuss today there are massive assumptions embedded in the article that are presented as facts by the two authors. Also embedded in the article if you look closely are topics for which Chicago journalists continue to fail the public by not making the candidates for mayor provide specific answers to pointed follow up questions regarding their policies. The rhetoric coming from the Vallas campaign about proactive policing and removing restrictions on police foot and car pursuits so they can get the criminals sounds good in a commercial but journalists should be forcing both candidates to provide specifics about their policies so experts can weigh in on what science tells us about the potential impact of their policies. All people of color should be scared of a Chicago Police Department unchained by the accountability system and free to do whatever is needed to get the job done. If anyone remembers what the Special Operations Section (SOS) street unit was doing under Phil Cline imagine that but department wide. It will be like dropping a nuclear bomb in police community relations building efforts. For his part Brandon Johnson is providing more specifics about his plans than Vallas. He is for building up a citywide crisis response to 911 calls involving mental health and drugs that do not require an armed officer to respond. He has also said he will not commit to hiring additional officers to the department and instead wants to invest that money into programs that will have longer-term success. He has backed off of to some degree his support for defunding the police. I think with Johnson he has strategically decided to talk in more nuance about the programs he would fund by diverting police budgets rather that the general defund concepts.

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Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Chicago Justice Podcast. I'm your host, Tracy Siska. I'm also Executive Director of the Chicago Justice Project. You can check out more about us at Chicagojustice.org. If you're listening to the podcast for the first time, please subscribe. If you're on YouTube watching this, please hit the subscribe and like buttons. We'd really appreciate it. Want to get more involved in what we do, cjpnation.org. And if you want to donate the link to our Patreon, which you get exclusive content through our Patreon, will be in the show notes. So today we are covering basically how the tribune's covering the mayor's race. And we're going to take one specific article entitled Crime is a Top Issue for Chicago Voters. Paul Ballas and Brandon Johnson offer sharp contrast to public safety. It is by Gregory Pratt and Alice Yin. So I just want to start off by saying, as we start this deep dive here into this article and the problems with it. Think about the assumptions that are made in these articles. These journalists are saying stuff that are based in their like assumption that we all agree that that is the truth, truth, and that's an issue. To me, it's bad journalism. Okay, so here's the first little paragraph from it. The next mayor will be tasked with implementing a sweeping new Chicago police department strategies aimed at decreasing violence. Ballast has been critical of too many restrictions on police activity, particularly police chases. Why Johnson is a longtime proponent of redirecting police resources to other services, though he has backed off the phrasing during the campaign. What phrasing? Defund. Just say it. Now, the reality is that's probably a more honest way of doing it, the way they've done it. Redirecting police resources to other services. That's basically what a lot of people mean by defund. It has taken out a whole variety of different definitions with the alt-right, getting a hold of it, and some on the left like totally want an abolition, which CJP is not. I am not an abolitionist. I think the criminal justice system needs to be shrunk significantly, but I'm not an abolitionist. But the part in this that I want you to really pay attention, well, two things. One, before I get to the main one, let's talk about Vallas. Vallas has been critical of too many restrictions on police activity. Ladies and gentlemen, he wants unfettered, and that's a BS way of saying it, unfettered police chases. That's right. You can go back in our archive. We have covered the Anthony Alvarez murder. That was a murder. It was a bad shooting. It was a bad shooting set up by bad policy that let that officer chase Anthony Alvarez. It should have never happened. Or at least once he lost sight of him, he should have stopped that chase. Anthony Alvarez would probably be like, be alive today if he had, if that policy were in place. Um, it wasn't too long ago that the city settled for $15 million. Um, with a family who, in a police chase, an officer got into an accident, police car chase got into an accident and basically killed slash murdered a mother of four whose little kids will never have a mother the rest of their lives because of this chase. Dallas is all for that. You want to talk about bad Gregory Pratt and bad, uh, I want to get a name on Alice Yin. Stick a mic in Paul Vallis's face and get an answer. What does he say about these murders and accidents and and deaths that occur for police chases for no good reason? What does he say? What does he say to that family? You're for police chases, then go and meet with that family and tell them why you are in favor of it. In favor of a policy that wiped out their mother for no goddamn good reason. Of course, they're not going to do that. But the real part of that paragraph, it's particularly loaded, is the first line. The next male will be tasked with implementing sweeping new Chicago police department strategies aimed at decreasing violence. Really? Do we need sweeping new ones? And you say, well, violence is up. Ladies and gentlemen, I've wrote about this in Cranes and an op-ed. What is happening in the US is crime, crime and violence went up during the pandemic. I've talked about that many times. I'm not going to go into it here about why violent crime did certain categories of violent crime. All other crime categories plummeted. As we're getting out of the pandemic and getting more towards normal activity, the crime categories that were down are going back up, reverting back to the mean, reverting to pre-2020 levels. Homicides, carjacking, shootings that skyrocketed during the pandemic are now dropping. Where they're starting their slow creep back towards pre-pandemic levels. And it's called reverting to the mean. It's reverting to the mean in both directions, depending on the crime category, right? For the ones that went up, it's reverting back to the mean down. Um, for crime categories that plummeted are now going back up because interactions are skyrocketing. That's reverting back to the mean, but up. That's all that's happening. So why sweeping? Why? Why do we need sweeping? Does anyone know? Do we really need sweeping? I think that shows a little bit of a police bias and a little bit of a bias towards valice. As police in the criminal justice system being the answer to everything. Right? That's I think this that part of the story was early on, is a tell. Let's go to the next section. Whoever is elected also will need to address police reform, including through the ongoing federal consent decree that is supposed to overhaul police policies and practices under the supervision of a federal judge, as well as in a few years executing a new police contract that offers protections for cops. Last line. Someone tell me. HOPA, Citizen Office of Police Accountability that investigates civilian complaints or most of them, completely useless. Internal affairs, just as useless. The accountability system, soft, not hard. But what you get in that line is a tell of police-like thinking that the system, the accountability system, and the system is too hard on cops. They need protections. Proud boys cop, white uh oathkeepers, white supremacist cops still on the job, but the system is way too hard. It's unbelievably bad. It's a horrible tell, right? It certainly seems like you're you're seeing the pre-pol, the really pro-policing in Pratt and others at the Tribune, and maybe LSN seeping through into the article into making them so comfortable with it. They're writing things that they just assume everyone agrees with. Those are not, they're writing them as if they're facts and they're not. Sweeping strategies need to be done. Is that a fact? The police need new protections. Is that a fact? That's an opinion. They all are opinions. They're their opinions that we they think everyone agrees with, but it shows you their bias. Back to the article. In recent years, Illinois policymakers and public officials have argued policing alone can't solve crime and pointed to the need for major spending in disinvested communities as a sustainable strategy. But some pro-police advocates say police cops are demoralized. Oh, Chicago cops are demoralized and less proactive, helping to embolden criminals. Is there proof of that? Someone said it, so it just is. Is there proof of it? Very Trumpian. Some pro-police advocates say really who? Quote them, my friend. Then we can judge the credibility of that statement about them being demoralized and less proactive. Ladies and gentlemen, I have been doing this since 1996. Not the pod, but policing and police reform and transparency work since 1996. 27 years. And in every one of those goddamn years, I've heard about cops being demoralized and less proactive, helping to embolden criminals. Once again, another top. I don't give a shit what some people are saying. Quote them or don't put it in. Some people says is bullshit. You might as well be run for president, uh, Greg and Alice. Go run for president. That's a that's a Trump statement. It's a hack statement. Back to the article. Also of note, this is great. So they're completely, I don't know why they even put this in. Also of note, Chicago police superintendent David Brown is leaving after neither three years, giving the next mayor an opportunity, reshape the department from within. Wow. I didn't know. Did you know? Superintendents have um, what's that? That's lifetime appointments in Chicago, right? Because the new mayor wouldn't have been able to fire David Brown, would he? He or Sweet, now it's he, right? Would they? I mean, they got David Brown in a lifetime appointment. I mean, Paul Vallis and Brandon Johnson, they wouldn't have the guts to fire them, would he? Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I think Gregory Pratt and Alice don't know what the goddamn hell they're talking about. Every candidate, and they've already printed in the trip, every candidate that was running except for Brown, uh except for Lightfoot has already said they were getting rid of Brown. They've all said it. What do you mean? Well, because of his departure, they get to reshape the department. What are you talking about? They all said on the record already they're leaving, they're they're getting rid of him. What are you talking about? We go from one set of hacks to another. This guy's a professional hack. Now, before I get into this, Walter Katz, quoted here as a criminal justice expert, I think was in San Jose and as a somewhere in the police accountability. He was like a he ran their version of POPA. It says off police accountability, but their version of that that investigated civilian complaints or something like that, I believe. He may have been an auditor. Uh, our version would be the deputy public safety inspector general in Chicago. Um, all right, so that's context. And he had a really good reputation as a reformer and legit and independent and all that. He came to work in Chicago, not to run COPA, not to run the police board, but he came in as Rahm Emanuel's Deputy Public Safety Inspector General. That's right, ladies and gentlemen. That's right. And what didn't what did that what did he do? Nothing. Walter Katz in Chicago is a complete hack. He has absolutely nothing to point to as an achievement in Chicago, other than he worked for Rahm Emanuel. Now, most progressives would say that's a negative, but he touts it as just he touts it as a as a as a an achievement. He has to because he did nothing here. So let's get to the quote now. Can I tell you a little inside story about Mr. Katz and his impact in Chicago that few people know? Here's the article. Walter Katz, a criminal justice expert who works at the research and advocacy philanthropy organization, Arnold Ventures. Arnold Ventures has a lot of problems, including paying for drones over cities, including Baltimore and I think San Diego, as a criminal judge that was like videotaping 24 hours a day. Yep. So hackery. I have problems because they've never funded us. So I have issues with the Arnold Ventures. But, anyways, organization Arnold Ventures that served as Rama Manuel's Deputy Chief of Staff for Public Safety said the question should be effective policing, not necessary more policing. Now he's not wrong there, to be completely honest. He's not wrong with that quote. But the question is: has anyone in power to affect policing that was supposedly an expert in it done less for Chicago and reforming the police department than Walter Katz? I can't think of one. He came in with this. When I heard, and I remember talking to some high-ranking Chicago police officers at the time, when we heard he was coming in, we all thought he was going to run COPAR. I think at the time it was still Ipra. I don't think it has switched yet. This is before 16, I believe. That he eventually came in. We thought he was coming in to run COPAR or the police board, and he was going to shape them up and really reform them. No, he comes in as Ram's political hack. And ladies and gentlemen, his time in Chicago was complete complete hackery. Complete hacker. He got used for his reputation. He got pimped out by Ram Emanuel. Nothing more. I'm bringing in this progressive reformer, changed person. Look at me. And then did nothing. Now, here's the little tidbit that you won't get from the mainstream media because they're not involved in this and they're so far away from it. It's unbelievable. So when I'm in DC now, but when I lived in Chicago and I had just started up CJP in 2009, we joined the Chicago Coalition for Police Accountability. And that organization had already two years earlier pushed for and got legislation passed to create the independent police review authority. Yay. Trying to push reforms. So at the time the let me think of the timeline here. So at the time at the beginning stages of I'm talking in Chicago about a federal consent decree, Rom floats that he is going to engage in some agreement, but not have it overseen by a judge, a federal judge on top of it. So the Chicago Coalition of Please Accountability goes to meet with Walter Katz because he's Rom's Rom's deputy chief of staff for public safety. He's his man. I was not at the meeting, I was teaching at the time. My colleagues were, one of my board members was. My current board members was in that meeting. And Walter says, My my my let me back on a second. Also, and Walter Katz, my friends are my colleagues written friends, are saying, Hey, there is, you know, this you're coming into some agreement that's got no teeth. It ain't overseen by the court, especially a federal court. No, no, no, we don't want it. This is a joke. This is a Chicago, this is a Chicago special. And Walter Katz gets angry. And he starts verbalizing that anger. And admits during that conversation that ensues, that the agreement, I guess I'll call it the fake consent decree because it was not overseen by a court or a judge, especially a federal court, the fake consent decree was his idea. At least that's what he wants us to think. And he thought his credibility as being this reformer, you know, in San Jose and was gonna convince my colleagues to just trust him. And because we're Chicago and he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, who the hell he's dealing with, we don't trust anyone. My colleagues didn't trust him. And they're like, you're out of your mind. No way. We want a car-ordered one. We don't give a shit whose idea it was. It's your idea, tough crap. We don't want it. We're not doing it. Get a consent, get a court-ordered consent decree, like overseen by the federal judge of the chief chief. Ah. Um the federal district court, Northern District of Illinois, at the time, the chief judge of the district would oversee it. No, no, no. No, no. He argued against it significantly. It was his idea. We should all just trust him. Oh boy, he didn't know a lot about Chicago. Okay, we're gonna move on in the article. So that's a little bit about Walter Katz. We're gonna move on to a recent guest of the pod, Susan Lee. She's quoted in here, and it's uh, I want to read it to you because I think it's uh very insightful. Susan Lee, Mayor Lightfoot's ex-D deputy mayor for public safety, who now works at the Chicago Credit Anti-Violence Group, said it can't be forgotten that the city has one of the highest ratios of police officers per resident in the nation, topping New York and Los Angeles. Yet Chicago has more homicides than both cities. And here's a quote from her What is it about the way we are deploying our workforce that is not leading to effective policing, we said. I have had, I have a hard time believing that it's just about hiring more officers. So I would hope that both whoever sits in the mayor's office takes the time to really understand what workforce challenges the CPD system presents and how they're going to solve that. For Vallas, not a chance. You are looking at 1980s policing for sure. Johnson's a little bit more of an uh um an enigma about what he's going to do. He's been very pro-defunding, but not defunding. Um, but definitely Dallas is going back to 1980s style policing. Uh, breaking heads, you're talking burger-esque policing. You're going, you're going to go back to the uh Stone Age policing. Back to the article. Ballas proposes proposals lean into what he said is proactive policing and replenishing the department's ranks while Johnson's espouse shifting emphasis from traditional crime fighting strategies towards programs that try out new approaches. Johnson, pro-defund, but basically what that means is he's more for building up systems like crisis response that doesn't involve cops and building up programs that in the long run pay off and don't involve the cops. Very, ah, very balance, very pro-FOP and very pro-FOP current leadership. And they are extreme right-wingers, extreme right-wingers, insurrectionists, insurrectionist supporters, Proud Boy members, uh, Oathkeeper members. That's the FOP leadership era. Okay, bullshit. BS to the maximum. He's lying. Lying, lying, lying. They're not going to care once he gets in. They're not going to have to care because he ain't going to bring any reform. He is a stone age policing person. He will bring in an at least extreme conservative cop to run the department. Um, I couldn't imagine who would come in. We'll see if he sticks with you know the the search for a new superintendent's ongoing with the community commission. Now it's no longer in the police board hands. Um, Dallas or Johnson could do exactly what Lifewood did. And I'm not Lifewood, but um exactly whatever other mayor in history has done that I know of, at least in recent history, it's just skip the police board's candidates. So it'll be the community commission. Can they really do it? We don't know. Back to the article one last time. On Chicago police staffing, Vallas has vowed to restore the total number of sworn members to the just over 13,000 positions included in this year's city budget. There are currently about 1,500 vacancies. He plans also include increasing the number of detectives and supplementing detective work by bringing back retired officers he thinks will return in droves after he's elected mayor. They won't. Sorry. And the one time you got to throw a cop under the bus who beat someone or killed someone or raped someone or murdered someone, you're done. And they're not gonna come back in droves, dude. You're crazy. Next it seems to me that when you look at people like Pratt and LSGN, all the kind of police reporters, crime reporters, why can't any of these idiots put a mic in the these mayoral candidates' faces, all romantic faces, the the mayor, current mayor? Where the hell are the staffing studies so we find out how many cops we need? Do any of them have any clue where the number of 13,000 or so positions came from and what the name the number was before Rom cut 1,400 positions and where that came from? I've done research. I know where it came from. It came from a meeting with then superintendent Phil Klein and Alderman. It was a political number that came up. We have no idea how many cops we need. And by the way, ladies and gentlemen, I believe David Brown. Had an opportunity to work, was working with the crime lab at the University of Chicago, and they were going to do a policing study, and he pulled out. Also, in the article, and this is true, Vallas is against um treatment, not trauma. That ordinance, and basically it's building up a crisis response that don't involve cops. He's against it. Don't worry that major cities all over the country are doing it. Dallas is against it. Once again, Stone Age policing. He's also against 2% of the CPD budget for violence prevention initiatives not connected to law enforcement and incarceration. Yep, against it. Dallas talks about being all for truoting treating root causes. He's just not actually excuse me. He's just not actually um in favor of doing anything about it. He's just a rhetoric guy. It is Stone Age policing. He's got good ideas about financing, he should be maybe in the finance office, how to fund things. But otherwise, he is pretty scary, in my opinion. Um, Brandon Johnson, more ideas than I agree with, but he's unproven, in my opinion. I don't care. Cook county board member does not prepare you. It's a more or less a do-nothing job for many people. And uh being a CPS teacher, not every CPS teacher's uh fit to be mayor, so he's kind of a little scary in my butt. Whatever it is, early in April, please go out and vote. Hopefully, by then the tribune will have done their jobs. Ballast being pro unrestricted police chases, unrestricted foot chases, not getting asked about Anthony Alvarez or all the accidents from police chases is uh journalism malpractice. But hey, I brought it up to a journalist at channel 11. Oh my god, I forgot her name. I'll give it to you next time. WTTW. And she, when I asked, she was talking, writing an article about a recent $15 million settlement the CPD engaged in to pay that family work because the officer got into an accident in the chase and basically Kurt killed the mother of four youngsters, too, by the way. And I send to her, she wrote about it. I'm like, why are you not? This is during the beginning early stages of mayoral election. Lopez, Alderman Lopez was in, Ballas was in. It's like, why are you not asking them about this? Their platform is unrestricted chases. Don't you think you'd ask them? And she blocked me, because that's what you get when you ask a journalist in Chicago to do their job on social media, they block you. Um, I think she interpreted as me being male and telling a female what to do. And in and and in my def in her defense, if she was totally clueless about what goes on in Chicago and CJP's role in it, especially around policing and accountability and what we do on Twitter and Facebook and our research. And I've been on 2579-Fox32. I've been on Chicago Night a few times. Uh damn, I did um Dr. Phil. I've been in the NPR with the White House correspondent, the New York Times, The Guardian. I've read dozen op-eds and cranes. Totally clueless. It might seem like an attack from a male onto female reporter, but that would mean that for the last um since 2009 on social media, she's been paying no attention to what the organization does. That's pretty scary. All right, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much. I will be back with you next week. Once again, if you want to find out more about what we do, cjpnation.org. I mean, that's if you want to get involved with what we do, cjpnation.org. Our website at chicagojustice.org. If you want to get be a supporter, patreon.org. The link will be in the show notes. Thank you so much. I'll talk to you next week.