By Bill Cameron, WLS News
(CHICAGO) Despite the winter weather, Chicago violent crime has reached record numbers so far this year. In the just concluded month of January, the Police Department says there were 242 shootings, a 103 percent increase from the 119 shootings in January of 2015.
Police also reported 51 murders so far this year, a 75 percent jump from the 29 murders last January.
The Police Department issued a statement calling the increases “unacceptable” and attributed most of them to gang conflicts and retaliatory violence.
However some officers on the street tell the Chicago Sun Times they blame a city agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union that requires officers to fill out two page forms every time they stop a citizen.
The officers say that requirement, and the increased scrutiny they have been facing in the wake of the release of the LaQuan McDonald shooting video, means officers are pulling over fewer people, because they fear getting in trouble.
One South Side sergeant tells the Sun Times that fact has emboldened many criminals who know officers are hamstrung by the extra attention they are facing.
@ 2016 WLS-AM News
