‘This will not be our normal’ West Garfield Park community condemns shooting of boys outside library
The CPD’s Harrison District, which covers most of the East and West Garfield Park neighborhoods, typically experiences the most gun violence of any of the department’s 22 districts. Shootings are often the byproduct of gang disputes over drug turf. The West Side also sees the highest concentration of opioid-related deaths, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
“The event, the shooting, that we experienced here a couple days ago is nothing new to Chicago. It is a continued expression of the disease that we continue to be afflicted with within our communities,” said Theodore Joseph Crawford, executive director of the Garfield Park Rite To Wellness Collaborative.
“The ills of our community are well-documented: drug use, poverty, institutional racism,” Crawford continued. “They are the things that create the environments in which young people have guns in their hands — who naturally are emotional because they are immature emotionally — are gonna respond in ways that oftentimes cause harm to themselves and to others.”
Alees Edwards was elected earlier this year as one of three members on the Harrison District Council, a three-person body that serves as a liaison between the district’s residents and police officers. The district councils, which are in each of the 22 districts, were created by city ordinance in 2021.For the 1st time ever, Chicago voters will elect police councils. Here’s what it means for communities.
“This will not be our normal. We don’t want to get used to these sorts of scenarios,” Edwards said. “This is not just their problem. This is all of our problem.”
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