Friday, July 6, 2012

Garry McCarthy makes it to Chatham



Chicago Reader's Mick Dumke was at last Saturday's GCA Q & A with Garry McCarthy.
McCarthy appeared at the front of the church, smiling, his graying hair and mustache neatly trimmed, wearing a dark suit and red tie. Without making any reference to his previous no-show, he grabbed a wireless mike and paced back and forth at the front of the pews, preaching his views of policing.

“We have an unacceptable level of violence and it’s been going on too long,” he said. While cops can’t address the poverty and family crises at the root of violence, “This is a police problem . . . and I’m accountable.”

This sort of personable, straight-shooting approach has become McCarthy’s trademark, and it generally wins audiences over—even when he’s not actually saying much beyond the company line. And so he answered residents’ questions with things he and Mayor Rahm Emanuel have stressed before: we’re redeploying police from desks to the street; police are waging a "ground war" on drugs, corner by corner; despite perceptions that crime is out of control, overall numbers are down dramatically from years past.

But McCarthy also knew when to speak plainly and talk tough. When asked what residents could do to help, he looked at the audience as if weighing whether they could keep a secret. “I’m going to get into trouble here," he said, "but don’t let your children sit on the porch next to high-ranking gang members. That’s where I’d start.”
BTW, the photo at the top of this posting was taken on my cell phone. I do wish it was much clearer but oh well.

Read the whole thing! Hat-tip to @Strannik_REB45

2 comments:

  1. Here's the good and bad on the GCA Police Superintendent meeting:


    Good

    He is a plain speaking guy who comes off as sincere.

    He has a practical, common sense mind.

    He believes that, in addition to police, parents and communities share responsibility in solving the crime problem.

    As of the writing of this post, the Mayor vowed that city departments will do a better job standing by communities which are begging for help. If he really means it, then fantastic! I think the GCA Police Superintendent meeting may have influenced this statement. BRAVO, GCA!


    Bad

    Although he is the Police Superintendent, he is, first and foremost, a politician who needs to say the things of which his master, Mayor Emanuel, approves.

    He seems to cater his discussions to whatever audience is in front of him.
    For example, when asked about Concealed Carry, he brought up the Florida shooting to make the point that he is against it. He seemed to think that we Black folks in a Black church are so SIMPLE-MINDED that bringing up the Florida shooting will make us disapprove of Concealed Carry. He followed up with a conversation about crime in Texas. He was told that, after Katrina, crime rose in Texas for a short time, until the criminals realized that law-abiding citizens shot back. Sounds like a success story to me, but the Superintendent's response was an indignant "Oh, just great, more killing!" Contrast this with a statement McCarthy made previously. "I think that we can protect the Second Amendment rights of people to bear firearms while at the same time preventing the illegal flow of firearms into our urban centers." So, which position represents the real Superintendent McCarthy on the Concealed Carry issue?


    My Observations

    I think the Superintendent is a REAL MAN in a city of effeminate, weak, phony, fraudulent, politically correct morons. He has to do the political dance of double-talk in order to survive in Chicago.

    He seems to have lots of common sense views on how to deal with Chicago's crime problem. He worded the response of "more parental and community involvement" in a non-threatening way, but I suspect he would like to put his foot up the rear ends of parents who raised these "monsters of evil". And, if that's true, I'm totally with him!!!

    If he ever decided to run for office, I'd be inclined to support him.

    ReplyDelete
  2. He had to tone it down. His frankness which is sometimes misunderstood got Corey Booker on the phone calling in a favor. It got him on the first train out of Newark. So he learned from that experience.

    ReplyDelete

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