Last night, Chicago Police Department’s (CPD) 14th District and Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) hosted a a community beat meeting at a local church in Humboldt Park: a recurring farce performed by CPD once a month at each Chicago Police district to feign rapport between the pigs and the people. Over 160 people attended this beat with dozens turned away outside—a significant spike from last month’s meeting when only 2 people attended.
Sexual assault survivors and concerned neighbors turned out in force to ask CPD why a recent spate of attacks on women on the street has been essentially ignored. Last year and in the past 2 months, several victims were stalked and assaulted by (likely) the same attacker. They’ve since banded together to support each other and mobilize the neighborhood to share information and stay on alert. Yet CPD has made no progress in solving any of their cases. While they claimed they made an arrest at the meeting, they failed to mention the man they arrested had been released with no charges.
With a sick sense of déjà vu, people at the meeting spoke about how they trusted a system that continues to fail them. Many residents also brought up a series of Logan Square attacks on women in 2022, where victims were assaulted by the same man who also tried to force entry into their homes. These cases also went unresolved. But the pigs could care less. Last night, CPD officials, flustered by the unexpected turnout and media attention, did everything possible to deflect the blame for their incompetence onto other agencies and even suggested that survivors of sexual assault and other neighborhood residents should bear the task of preventing and even solving their assault cases.
Dare to Struggle asked people after the meeting about their thoughts on this unresolved crisis in the northwest neighborhoods. Here’s what they had to say:
“I was attacked on May 22nd 2023 at 3 o’clock in the morning. I got out of an Uber and was on my way into my apartment and I was followed inside and sexually assaulted on the stairwell. I filed a report the next day… [The meeting] kind of went how I expected it to go to be honest. It just felt like a lot of excuses and a lot of expecting the victims and the citizens of Logan Square to do police footwork. Which, to be honest, that was way more successful for me than reaching out to the police. Which is very encouraging from the standpoint that your community cares about you, but it’s very disappointing that we have to do that work. That’s not our job. We have other jobs. There are people who that’s their whole job, and they’re not doing it. So disappointed but not surprised.”
“They encouraged us to come to them, which I understand is how a dialogue should be, and in turn I asked for them to come to us as well, and their response was “Well we’re hiring.”…it’s almost as if the cops are insisting that there is a divide and that they are against us even though we are asking, pleading, wanting their help, for them to do their job and their response is for us to do their job and in fact to join in on the paycheck that they’re cashing. That’s how it felt.”
“In all of my experiences with CPD this is exactly how they always go where the officers get immediately defensive and it’s just excuses. This is the precedent that has been set by the Chicago Police Department, and nothing has changed. And it’s so frustrating. It’s incredibly frustrating.”
“…CPD was basically sitting around not acting with any urgency about this and completely fumbling evidence, fumbling investigations of the crime scene, mislabeling things, miscategorizing crimes,essentially being fully incompetent, right? Basically since some of the survivors went to the media to bring attention to this it seems like CPD then suddenly shifted into PR crisis management mode... What they brought to this meeting was essentially “cut us a break, we’re trying really hard, but these things take a long time. It’s out of our hands, the rape kit backlog, that’s a different agency, so we’re so sorry, but you guys basically look out for yourselves and buy a Ring camera and make sure it surveils as much of the street as possible so that you can basically solve this yourself and wait for more crimes to happen and then call in tips.” The last thing that one of the sergeants said at the table was “you should join the force.” All of these things are insulting. The Chicago socialist alders are sitting there being like “oh the police are trying so hard.”
Over and over, people at the meeting expressed disillusionment at CPD’s incompetence and lack of concern for actual community safety. The survivors who had the courage and resiliency to find each other and demand answers were inspiring, and people recognized how demeaning it is for the pigs to respond to their demands for justice by parroting safety tips that most women learned as teenagers. In attendance were “progressive” aldermen Jessie Fuentes and Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, who were mostly there to take the heat off CPD by telling residents to contact their offices and request measures like more street lighting or building security maintenance—anything but telling the police to do their jobs. Fuentes even suggested that people email Gov. Pritzker to ask for more state budget funds to be set aside for processing rape kits, since the cops kept blaming their lack of action on the slowness of rape kit testing. As if this slowness has nothing to do with the system’s contempt for women and lack of concern for sexual violence.
When we think about CPD’s legacy of murder and brutality, meetings like the one last night reveal a kind of inverse police accountability, where not only do cops get to walk the streets when they commit crimes against the people, but they also get to avoid punishment for failing to do their job (which is, supposedly, preventing and solving crime). We know this because the purpose of the police under this system is to protect the interests of the ruling class, not to “protect and serve” the people. We deserve better than beat meetings where victims of violent crimes have to sit there and listen to excuses of the CPD pigs and their “progressive” defenders, Fuentes and Ramirez-Rosa. We need something more than the performative “police accountability” reforms that just serve to empower the pigs even more in the end. If you are angry and disillusioned with the injustices that the CPD commits and perpetuates, and you’re ready to talk about resisting outside of the tried and true, acceptable outlets of protest and reform, hit up Dare to Struggle to discuss and get more information about our next mass meeting in March.
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