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hall event, anything? the cross hairs, from the south shore cultural center in chicago, here is chris hayes. [ applause ] >> good evening from chicago, i'm chris hayes, i am thrilled to be here for a special town hall event in this incredible city. it's america's third-largest city and it's special to me. but lately as someone here put it, it's become the poster child for violence in america. this is due to a real surge of violence but also in part to the perception of this city as expressed so loudly and frequently by the new president of the united states. >> in chicago they've had thousands of shootings, thousands and i'm saying where is this? is this a war torn country? what are we doing? by the way, toughest gun laws in the world, chicago, and people are shooting themselves all other the place, okay? the problem is not that there are too many police, there are not enough police. it's worse than some of the places that we read about in the middle east. we have wars going on. it's so sad. chicago has become so sad. >> last month after apparently watching a news report about the surge in crime here the president took to twitter to threaten if anything doesn't fix the horrible carnage going only send in the feds. with chicago having become a presidential punching bag, we wanted to come to this city and give officials and activists and others who live here a platform toespond to talk about the real problems and the work towards real solutions. perhaps the president will see this because we have a lot of choices in this room that deserve to be heard. i want to introduce a few right now. joining me on stage, four of those voices, andrea zopp, deputy mayor of chicago, also former president and ceo of the chicago urban legal. i have also the superintendent suspect of the chicago police department. thank you for being here. >> good to be here. >> amina matthews, someone who has a lot of experience in trying to interrupt violence that has happened in chicago. [ applause ] . and laurie lightfoot, chair of the police accountability task force. good to have you here. [ applause [ applause ] deputy mayor, i understand why people in chicago don't want to get into a tweet war with the president of the united states and there's a shrug off t shoulders of these implications but to people watching right now who have a very narrow sense of what chicago is and what it's experiencing what do you want them to know what? what do you want the president to know? >> i want the president to know this isn't a topic for tweeting. it's a serious issue. we have challenges here as we have across the country with rising violence. what i want them to know is that we're working to address that violence. we have plans in place that we're doing and we'll talk about that tonight. what i want them know that this is a city that's a lot more than just gun violence. we have people committed to the city, many of them are here tonight in this room. >> do you feel, commission, like -- how do you feel as a person tasked with blissing this city and running a police department here, what is your response to invocations of violence in chicago by folks -- not just the president, by people generally out there. >> what i want people to know is that, listen, chicago has its challenges but let's frame it properly. when you look at violent crime across america, chicago is the only major city that saw an uptick. per capita, we here in the middle of the pack in terms of violent crime, that's the one thing i want people to know. >> do you feel like chicago, which i think is around nine in the homicide rate right now in -- of the 25 major cities, do you feel you're being unfairly singled out? >> yes, some aspects because the violence in chicago, we have our challenges, that's no secret. but i want people to know the city as a whole is in good shape. five districts out of 22 police districts in this city actually drive the violence. out of those five, three -- two on the west side and one on the south side -- are the ones that drive most of our violent crime. >> does that resonate with people in the room? is that generally a feeling? i mean i was looking at some maps and one of the things about what's happening in chicago is an intensification of the inequality of violence there are huge swaths of the city that have homicide rates that are as safe as basically anywhere in canada. and then there are parts that have unbelievably high rates. how do you understand that inequality between the neighborhoods? >> well, it's hard for me to understand it coming from a gentrified family. i was the first black in an all lutheran school. so i can't understand the segregation in this city is that is so beautiful. and has his storally built by us, african-american, latinos loyer class, middle lower class, upper lower class and those communities you talked about that's like canada. so we need to come together and i don't understand what is the whole issue about if you don't we will. we have. we have taken the community even off the record, even off the clock. we've made sure that, yeah, the numbers are unacceptable, however in our community there's people near have done amazing work and it has to be funded so if you want to put funding in our community make sure each and every one of our community activists, our humanitarians, our police, our cps, cpd is funded. so we can be able to maintain our own community. >> that gets to something about what the tenor of this is is like when the president talks about other folks, like what are they doing there? like everyone's just sitting around and no one -- it hasn't occurred to anyone here that the levels of violence are unacceptable, right? and that no one here is doing anything about it. like, how does that hit you when you hear that? >> well, i think what's most important is to focus on what's happening here and engage in solutions to solve the problems. the back-and-forth, the twitter war, that doesn't mean anything to the most vulnerable people in the most crime-plagued neighborhoods that are also some of our most impoverished neighborhoods. what they look to leaders to do is to solve problems, not to paint them in a two dimensional figure but come in, roll up their sleeves and do the hard work of moving forward in a productive way. >> i want a show of hands on the question about solving problems and i want you to be honest. when you hear the president say he's going to send in the feds, raise your shand that sounds like a good idea to you. >> to do what? >> raise your hand if when you hear "send in the feds" that feels ominous, like a threat. someone is saying they should take over the police department. what's your response to that? >> listen, cpd, we have our challenges. and we've done things in the past that were inappropriate. but that was the past. my challenge is to fix the issues because when i look out in the audience a lot of these folks in the audience right now, i've worked with with since becoming superintendent to make it better. those things didn't occur overnight and they won't be fixed overnight but we have to acknowledge them and move forward to correct the issues. [ applause ] >> yeah, give him a round of applause for that. there's a thing going on right now in american cities that's bigger than just chicago. newly confirmed attorney general jeff sessions talked about this today when he made his way to the department of justice. [ audience reacts ] i get where you guys are coming from on the new attorney general jeff sessions. we have seen in the last two years, 2015, 2016, we have seen homicide increases in many of the major cities in this country and in some cases it's been stark, places like st. louis and baltimore which i've covered from the very start. this is after a long period of historic decline. deputy mayor, what is your understanding? what is your theory of the case of what happened? >> well, the question was really that easy to answer hopefully we would be farther along, it's a tough question. i don't think there's an easy answer, we looked at the numbers. i don't think it came overnight. that's the important thing. we have neighborhoods that have been disinvested in, we've had schools that have been disinvested in, we have lack of access to jobs and work. we're paying for that over time. that didn't happen yesterday or in the last five years. wait, let me just get -- so i think those are some of the things we have to focus on. i want to circle back, though, to that federal resources question that you asked about because there are federal resources that we could use that would help. take, for example, youth jobs. the feds have completely cut youth jobs. we have a huge youth job program the city funds but we don't get any federal support. federal law enforcement support. the u.s. attorney's office here has the lowest rate of gun prosecutions of any u.s. attorney's office in the country and so we could use -- there's significant federal support we could use to partner with to address this issue. that's what we're looking for. >> what do you say to people that say you're evading responsibility by pointing to the feds? i've interviewed the mayor himself. he's talked about federal gun laws and things like that. ultimately that has been consistent over the period of time that we're talking, right? so what do you think is changing in this city? >> well, first of all, not true, for example, just on youth jobs. that's been cut, but we're not evading the issue, we haven't stopped doing work, we have a plan, we ve a policing plan, we've invested in our officers, we've invested in technology, we've invested in training, the superintendent can talk to the details of how they're adjusting and changing policing to address this crime. we're investing and mentoring for youth to disrupt young people going into gangs and we're investing in neighborhoods, economic development and job creation for people to help address this lack of opportunity. so we're not waiting for the feds. >> there are folks -- i want to get folks in the room. i know you've been through the wringer on this. you're looking at me with a sort of -- >> i'm waiting. >> anticipatory -- i could hear the murmurs in the room about investment. let me just talk to this gentleman over here. stand up for me, will you? jedediah brown, right? >> yes, sir. >> i saw a youtube video of you. i have a personal theory that part of the president's beef with chicago is that when he tried to come here and talk in the primary -- do people remember this? they're like, yeah, damn right we remember it. [ cheers and applause ] that is not necessarily the perception outside of chicago, i should say. there was a protest, he ended up not speaking. it got pretty gnarly and there were punches thrown on both sides as far as i could tell. you rushed the stage that the event. why did you do that? >> well, we saw what donald trump's campaign was doing all across the country. we've seen black bodies being pushed around, people getting punched in the face and i didn't shut down his rally, chicago did. [ applause ] because we were not going to allow -- chicago does have its challenge but chicago is one tough city and we was not going allow donald trump to campaign in our city and be unchallenge and we stopped it. >> when you hear about what the deputy mayor is talking about in terms of investment, you were murmuring, i couldn't tell if that was asces assent or disse >> there are a lot of people that have the heart beat of this neighborhood and everything the deputy mayor is saying we have no clue about it because the mayor's office has not engaged the communities that are -- [ applause ] -- the mayor's office has not -- as far as, i'll sayt like this. the mayor's office has stopped reaching out to black voices ever thought he would get caught with the coverup for mcdonald's murder. we don't know anything about that. we can't back them up, we can't say it's true because it's not matriculating down to everyday people. >> i want to give the deputy mayor a chance to respond. i want to say this for the record while everyone watches this. there's not a lot of cities that i could go to where the mayor would send anyone to this town hall. i'm serious about that. or the police commissioner so i want to be clear about the fact that we are having this conversation in this room because they are at the table. >> so, look, we don't agree on all things but the fact is we've had conversations with jedediah and people who represents. in fact, jedediah and i were in the streets marching to try to bring people together when we had a dispute in one of our neighborhoods around -- between communities of color. we sat in a room and talked with each other and other people. he has been in my office to talk about these issues. have we fixed everything? absolutely not. but the idea that we're not talking to people in the community is -- i just disagree. >> there's a lot of -- one of the things jedediah brought up, i know people have a lot of opinions. one of the things jedediah brought up was laquan mcdonald. that hangs over everything happened here. >> no, it just brought it to a head of what has been going on. >> so i want to talk about that. i want to -- what i want to do is take a brequick break, talk about the context that brought us here and we'll be right back. >> to president trump, come here to chicago, see what all of these folks in this room -- black, white, democrat, republican, city official, civic leaders -- are doing in this city. ♪ ♪ when you find something worth waiting for, we'll help you invest to protect it for the future. financial guidance while you're mastering life. from chase, so you can. mattress firmness? fortunately there's a bed where you both get what you want every night. enter sleep number and the ultimate sleep number event, going on now. sleepiq technology tells you how well you slept and what adjustments you can make. she likes the bed soft. he's more hardcore. so your sleep goes from good to great to wow! only at a sleep number store. and right now save 50% on the ultimate limited edition bed. go to sleepnumber.com for a store near you. our coverage of this special town hall event in chicago continues. here again is chris hayes. the city of chicago has a long and rich history, here to talk about that, my friend and colleague tremaine lee. >> i had time to be with natalie moore, wbze reporter, she wrote a fantastic book called "the south side." it's a look into how segregation shaped not just the south side but chicago. we talked about her neighborhood and the rich legacy of black chicago but struggles that isn't limited to gun violence, it didn't start and end with gun violence. let's take a look. so this is a beautiful block. >> yeah. this is where i grew up. >> i don't think people outside of chicago get to see this chicago. so many people it's a war zone, it's sh ee's chiraq. >> there's an incrisability of the black middle-class in this country. this is not an anomaly, this is not a special neighborhood. there cease many neighborhoods that were once white in chicago that turned over black and they maintained a middle-class identity. >> why do you think that gets lost? >> it's not use. >> it's not sexy. >> it's not sexy. >> hi, how are you? how's your meal today? >> the issues we are dealing with in this city are not new. something just didn't magically happen in 2006. there's always been this struggle. >> when you think about the millions of people who fled the south, fleeing jim crow segregation to arrive in places like chicago, to help shape not just the culture of this city but the culture of america, on the other side of that coin, though, especially as of late it's become dominated by this idea of violence how do we reck i don't know the two visions of anything? >> we have to remember that darker legacy didn't just start with conversations about the so-called blackon black violence. when black people arrived in chicago, they were greeted by a host of policies and laws that kept them contained to black areas. people call it jim crow of the north. you couldn't live in white areas, it was illegal to buy a home from somebody white that had a restrictive covenant. black people were met with racial violence when they did integrate neighborhoods. there was redlining, banks didn't want to give you a loan if you were in a black neighborhood. that's at the heart of residential segregation, disinvestment, lack of resources has been something that black people have been contending with for a very long time. >> just last month in this block alone seven people shot. at a vigil memorializing another gun violence victim the mother is shot, teenagers are shot. how did we get to this moment? >> if we look around, like this block was a stable block and this area was stable but look how many boarded up homes are on this block. look how many boarded up businesses are here. so all of that is connect ed. there's that expression if america gets a cold, black america gets the flu. so the economic downturn is being felt here, the housing crisis is still being felt here. these communities haven't climbed out of it the way we think the rest of the country has. >> how do we begin to address that or climb out of it? >> people say these communities have to lift themselves up. i guarantee there are block clubs all around here and people are doing individual things but these are larger structural issues. how do you recruit businesses and do neighborhood improvement plans? that's when city officials, state, federal, all these different layers to come in and help. >> chris, so often headlines are dominated by gun violence but one thing natalie talked about and so many people i've talked to before say the violence is spread beyond gu. poverty is violence. [ applause ] hunger is real violence. the trauma folks are seeing inside the home but the repeated exposure to violence in the streets, people are wound up and traumatized and that is violence but we don't address that violence. >> one of the things that struck me about that, i'd like to see a show of hands, one of the narratives that happened in this election, interestingly enough, in those places in america that voted overwhelmingly for the president was about the same story that natalie was telling that the economic recovery has not actually recovered. that the devastation hit and it rippled and rippled and rippled and you could look at top line economic numbers and say we're back to full employment. do people feel like in their neighborhoods things are back? >> no! >> do they feel like it has recovered? >> no. >> let me talk to you, camilla. tell me your name. >> camilla williams. >> you're someone who has lost people that you love rand close to love lens. >> 29 loved ones as of today. >> what do you feel about where the city is right now? do you feel like it's getting worse? not in the right direction? >> not the right direction. our leadership is failing us. [ applause ] we're begging, we're organizing. like ameena said, we're doing our part but we don't have the support of our leadership behind us. >> what does that mean? >> resources. >> giving organizations that's doing stuff money to continue to do what they need to do. >> how do you understand why the violence is happening? >> it's a lot of stuff but to me, you know, people just being hopeless right now. they -- no other opportunities for them. no jobs, no mental health, i know i have ptsd, it's off the charts and it's no help for us in this city. >> have you ever gotten treatment for that? >> no, university of chicago did a study about ptsd but they didn't com io our community to help us. >> do people feel like they personally have trauma? raise your hand if you have like you have trauma. let me talk to you rachel. thank you. you're wearing the button of someone. >> yeah. he was two -- two people i lost within a week's span. i grew up in grove heights, a little neighborhood south side of chicago, jay's potato chip was the main job in the neighborhood so ha when that factory clouds, kids worked at the potato dhip factory. so when we talk about divestment in the community, we have to look at two things, divestment in jobs, divestment in education and wonder why the violence is so high. [ applause ] so if you're looking at a neighborhood and saying why is the crime rate high, why is this happening but then you see no jobs, no education but barely holding on and we talk about food justice as well. all of those are major components that come into the violence that happens here. >> gloria, how does that sound to you? >> when people are hopeless, when they have unemployment that's off the charts, 50% in some of our neighborhoods, where people have never had a job, have no prospects of getting a job you lose your sense of self and hope and dignity. >> we're going to take a break, i want to talk about policing more specifically. it's obviously important here and across the country. i know that people have extremely strong views in what's happening, we'll come back with more on that, don't go anywhere. [ applause ] >> i'm just just the superintendent, i'm a black person that lives in chicago. i raised my kids here, i grew up here, i have relatives here. yeah, 103. well, let me ask you guys. how long did it take you two to save that? a long time. then it's a fortune. well, i'm sure you talk to people all the time who think $100k is just pocket change. right now we're just talking to you. i told you we had a fortune. yes, you did. getting closer to your investment goals starts with a conversation. schedule a complimentary goal planning session today. there's a more enjoyable way to get your fiber. hey, it's the phillips' lady! try these delicious phillips' fiber good gummies, a good source of fiber to help support regularity. mmm...these are great! my work here is done. phillips', the tasty side of fiber. explore your treatment options with specialists who treat only cancer. every stage... every day.... at cancer treatment centers of america. learn more at cancercenter.com/experts juswho own them,ople every business is different. but every one of those businesses will need legal help as they age and grow. whether it be help starting your business, vendor contracts or employment agreements. legalzoom's network of attorneys can help you every step of the way so you can focus on what you do. we'll handle the legal stuff that comes up along the way. legalzoom. legal help is here. [ applause ] we're back talking about some of the context for what's been going on in this city. lori, you were tkingbout the state budget cuts which were quite severe. there's a lot of -- the city has been both sort of fighting for resources and also has made its own cuts and you wanted to say something jedediah. >> i wanted to say another thing that's happening is our leadership have left young people literally to be in a place of having to survive and fight for ourselves and those most pressing issues in our neighborhood, we read there's a person being shot, racial tension, we have to fight for ourselves. and there have been times where i've been willing to allow the city who shows up to engage, but the city has never been proactive in providing resources and chances for individuals on the ground fighting to improve the quality of life here. >> what does it mean when you say you feel like you're on your own. when you're talking about something like violence, for instance, how does that operationalize. what does that mean on the ground where you feel like we have to take care of this or no one will. >> it's in every facet of our life. the mayor's office is completely shut out to individuals who are critical of what his administration has and has not don done and anybody who isn't going to get going to. people who don't do the mayor's bidding, that i become block from accessing -- we don't want to engage him, we want the resources to improve the quality of life but they are unaccessible. and they've mastered their talking points. >> i want to talk about policing and the police. i want to start with something the mayor said about a theory he had about why policing has gotten more difficult. can we play that quote from the mayor? >> i heard one officer say i want to think about what happened on the news and what i want with my career. what happened post ferguson is having an impact and i gave the example of laquan fisher which is why other police officers and police chiefs applauded. so i believe the recent events over the last year or 18 months have had an impact and officers will tell you that. >> first of all, you, superintendent. do you think that's true? >> well, what i think we have is a situation where officers see what's going on, not just in chicago but nationally. i'll be the first to tell you, cpd has done some things incorrectly. our challenge is to make sure that doesn't happen. the majority of officers -- >> i want to ask a specific question. do you feel it is the case that the increased scrutiny on police behavior through cell phones, through publicity around laquan mcdonald particularly, do you think it has affected police behavior in such a way that they feel they can't do their job? >> no, and i'll give you a statistic to support that. in 2015 we had the laquan mcdonald release video. we had a change in leadership in the police department and we had a change of state laws. so 2016 we got off to a really rocky start but what i can tell you is this. the one thing police officers do everyday is arrest bad guys with guns. that's the most dangerous thing we can do. when you look at the statistics from 2016, we did it 9% over what we did in 2015. this year we're almost doubled in arrested bad guys with guns so that tells me our overall stops with citizens has plummeted and it should because we're doing it the right way. we should be focused on arresting the right people for the right reasons at the right time [ applause ] >> go ahead, go ahead. [ applause ] lori, do you agree with that? stops in the city have plummeted according to statistics. do people feel like they have lived that? do you feel like you felt the stops -- >> they're down 80%. investigatory stops are down 80%. arrests are down but the statistic that the superintendent quoted i think is right which is the officer is still throughout taking great risk to take guns off the street. i think this whole issue of -- it's been called the ferguson affect does officers a disservice but more to the point it does the people a disservice. we need the police to be proactive, to be respectfully engaged with the community and we need to do their job in a constitutional way. they are absolutely under a level of scrutiny that probably has never been seen before in policing and that won't go away. what you hear in this conversation tonight is people whose interest has been raised, whose attention has been raised and who have a level of expectation about the quality of policing they should be getting in every single neighborhood in the city. that's not going to go away. the challenge for policing and for the superintendent is to articulate a path forward for individual officers so they're not afraid to do their job because they're afraid to be captured on video. that's not going to change. they have to figure out the path forward and leadership i think will point them in the right direction. >> i want to ask people in this room a yet about how they feel about the police, how much they feel they can trust the police right after we take this quick break. don't go anywhere. we'll be right back. >> nobody has really said it but his name is emanuel and this mayor that we have in the city of chicago does not care about black people and i'm going to put that on the record. if you have moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis like me, and you're talking to your rheumatologist about a medication... ...this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain... ...and 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standard. experience amazing. a body without proper footd needssupport can mean pain. the dr. scholl's kiosk maps your feet and recommends our custom fit orthotic to stabilize your foundation and relieve foot, knee or lower back pain from being on your feet. dr. scholl's. you know how painful heartburn can be. for fast-acting, long-lasting relief, try doctor recommended gaviscon. it quickly neutralizes stomach acid and helps keep acid down for hours. relieve heartburn with fast- acting, long-lasting gaviscon. the department of justice has concluded there is reasonable cause to believe that the chicago police department engages in a pattern or practice of use of excessive force in violation of the fourth amendment to the constitution. these are serious problems. and they bear serious consequences for all chicagoans. >> former attorney general loretta lynch announcing the consent decree that had been entered into by the city of chicago's police department and department of justice after a patterns and practices look into the department. the chicago police department has had a long history of violations of civil rights. there was a torture center being run out of the south side of chicago for years by infamous detective john burge. there has been report after report about theft, about abuses of power. this is just one little parent from the department of justice report, cpd will take a young foreign a rival gang neighborhood and either leave the person there or display the youth to rival members, immediately putting the life of that young person in jeopardy by suggesting he provided information to the police. this comes on top of the shooting of laquan mcdonald and the possible pending charges for five of those officers who filed false police reports that later were revealed to be false by the video. i want to talk a bit about how this department can police this city in the wake of that history that the superintendent has been talking about. jamal, how do you feel about whether or not this department in this moment can be trusted. >> so first of all if you want to talk about the trust with police and black people, there's never been trust. all right, so that's number one. number two is that if you look at the numbers, 75% of murders go unsolved so obviously they're not doing their job and they haven't been doing their job in years. but hopefully superintendent eddie johnson can do something about the police culture. but if we're talking about violence, police isn't the answer. you can put 100,000 police officers on the street that will not reduce violence in the city of chicago because police are only there to react. they're only there to rell act. you have to put money into prevention and right now nobody has really said it but his name is rahm emanuel and this mayor that we have in the city of chicago does not care about black people and i'm going to put that on the record. [ applause ] when you can invest $100 million into depaul basketball arena when they can practice at the united center for free and $16.4 million to build upscale apartments, when you can build new bus stops downtown but walk in our neighborhoods and not a million is coming. we walk past boarded up schools, boarded up houses, they're knocking down with red xs with no plan to redevelop, mental health facilities shut down, the unemployment rate is the highest in chicago than around the country, if you want to talk about violence, you've got to talk about the economics, not police. [ cheers and applause ] >> there's two things i want responses on. there's two things i'd like to hear responses on. i want to talk about something that jamal said that i think is a really important thing for folks to recognize which is the clearance rate.'mal said that is a really important thing for folks to recognize which is the clearance rate. there's a sense in which people experience policing in a day to day stop and frisk as it's called in new york, being pulled over, people feel like they're being harassed and the most serious crime that a person can commit which is taking another person's life, right? this city's clearance rate for homicides is -- >> somewhere now about -- a little over 30%. >> folks in this room know that number because they feel like it's an indictment of the department. what do you say to people that is an indictment of the department. >> well, you know what? the clearance rate is not a cpd clearance rate, it's a chicago clearance rate. the simple fact is that ja'mal is right about what he said needs to be invested in. he's correct about that, but the simple fact is, until we -- listen, i'm not just the superintendent, i'm a black person that lives in chicago. i raised my kids here, i grew up here and i have relatives here. but the simple fact is this, cpd, we have to do a better job of facilitating that relationship and building that trust back and to that end i've been getting out there since i became superintendent to do that because without the trust in the community, cpd is only as good as the faith the community has in it [ applause ] >> let me ask a question in this room. show of hands. if you see something that's happening in your neighborhood, criminal act, maybe a theft, maybe something more, violence of some sort, who here in this room feels comfortable picking up 911 and dialing the cops? whoa, whoa. and how many people -- how many people don't feel comfortable? can i talk to you for a second? >> sure. >> tell me your name. >> dimitri roberts. >> you were a chicago police officer for a while? >> i was, many years. >> i thought what ja'mal said was interesting. one of the things that ends up happening when these conversations happen is you watch the resources flow towards police departments. right? i think, frankly, police departments that i've covered around the country are very good pat getting those resources. the argument police departments make is crime is low, we've been beating crime, give us resource so we can keep beating crime. crime is up, we're losing crime, give us resources so we can beat crime. are you confident that policing -- that there is a policing problem or not? >> well, before i answer that question, chris, i have to acknowledge why there's so much tension in this room. it's because people are hurting. people -- by show of hands, noum this room have either been a victim of violence or know somebody that's been a victim of violence in the city of chicago? i know i have. so now we have to acknowledge that people are hurting in these communities. and then on behalf of the police, as somebody who wore a badge but i also served my country in the military but before that i was a young black man who grew up not too far from here and i saw the blood of my fellow peers spilled on 47th street. i saw the blood of my peers spilled on the streets of iraq, and i saw the blood of my fellow police officers spilled in inglewood. so can we all agree at that at the end of the day can we unify behind the fact that we all bleed the same color? at the end of the day, can we all unify just behind that one point and regardless of what side of politics we come from, regardless of what hashtag we promote, regardless of what we've come through, the better days are ahead of us. and as long as we in this room stand together and unify, chris, that's what we're going to see some solutions. >> what does that mean, though? >> to your point, the folks in this room, regardless of whether your program has been resourced or not, people are going out everyday, there's -- they're continuing to put their lives on the line and continuing to fight for the sanctity and the dignity of the people and violence to be reced in the city of chicago. so what can we do? we have to unify behind something. and if we can agree that we all want to see one chicago unified we can all leave here today feeling like when we go out tomorrow we're going to make chicago better as a result of us being here today. >> okay. let me ask this question, can unity -- can people feel like there can be unity or trust in -- unless there is accountability? do people feel like the chicago police department is an accountable department? >> so here's the deal. superintendent eddie johnson has come in, he's diversify it had command staff, but before all of this takes place there needs to be an apology that happens to every single person in this room and as somebody who swore an oath to my country and community i can stand here with you today and i can apologize to you, each one of you, on national tv and say i'm sorry we have not fulfilled the oath that we swore to you, we have not protected our communities in the ways we should. and further, to president trump, come here to chicago, see what all of these folks in this room, black, white, democrat, republican, city official, civic leaders are doing in this city and they need the resources of the federal government to ensure there's no more blood, not a police officer, not a community member spilled another day in this city from this day moving forward. >> i want to talk about what solutions here will look like if the sky was the limit. if there was a real commitment on the madison square gardnatio places like chicago. >> my challenge to trump, trump, bring your rump into the city of chicago. (vo) do not go gentle into that good night, old age should burn and rave at close of day; rage, rage against the dying of the light. do not go gentle into that good night. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ why pause a spontaneous moment? cialis for daily use treats ed and the urinary symptoms of bph. tell your doctor about your medicines, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, or adempas® for pulmonary hypertension, as this may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess. to avoid long-term injury, get medical help right away for an erection lasting more than four hours. if you have a sudden decrease or loss of hearing or vision, or an allergic reaction, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis. we're back here to talk about solutions and i have with me congressman bobby rush, a legendary figure in many respects, the only person to ever beat barack obama in an election. [ applause ] that's a good piece of trivia, and represents the south side. if you thought about this idea, the idea to end? the needs the broadest and most constructive sense, if you read that as a commitment by national leadership to do whatever it can to reduce trauma in the city of chicago, increase flourishing and thriving, what would the look like. >> well, first of all, chris, let me say this, i am a fan. i live here, i worship here, i love here and what i'm witnessing today is this is way we do it in chicago. there are a lot of strong opinions but most of the people here they are empowered through their love of this city and their love of their community and they're just passionate about it. [ applause ] i don't know what trump means when he says bring in the feds. first of all, my challenge to trump, trump, bring your rump into the cityfchicago. [ cheers and applause ] go to kes communities and hear what these people who are on the front lines day by day, hear what they have to say about their community and their aspirations for their community. i think that we need to take a moment to look beyond the violence and see what is occurring beyond the violence. if we look beyond the violence, we'll not only see the school that are closed, we'll see -- and that are being threatened and closed but we'll see that chicago at one time had nine black-owned banks and now we're down to one. [ applause ] that's a federal policy. i'm saying that most of my problems that i've heard here today and that i've thought about over the years, be it housing, be it education, be it mass incarceration, all of these are federal policies and we have not yet at this moment, including eight years of obama, had someone in the white house who really cared about this city and about these problems here in the city of chicago. [ applause ] >> thank you, congressman. congresswoman, can i talk to you because -- that's -- i just want you to respond to what your colleague just said. including the eight years of barack obama we have not had a president that actually cares about chicago. >> well, i'm not going to say i all together agree with what he's saying. i look at it as like nothing stops a bullet like an opportunity and we need to make sure we're giving our young people and our citizens opportunities. yes, it's government, when i think of bringing in the feds, we feed to bring in resources to help businesses, to help -- there's a lot of people in this room that are doing good things like diane, like kelly and college pebbles, we need to scape up those programs. this young man here with his program. if we could bring in money to scale up those programs so they can help more people but also not just government, let's look at the businesses that we support. do they have businesses in our community when they come to d.c. and see mend want my help, i say do you hav businesses south? not just south side of chicago, i respect the south suburbs, too, there's some of the same retail red lining there, so we don't have jobs and mentoring. >> wham what am i doing? >> they're talking about an infrastructure bill in washington, d.c. and the idea behind a washington, d.c. infrastructure bill would be to create construction jobs throughout the country, right? do you feel like -- would you have any faith that this would come to chicago? that that must be would come to chicago? >> no. >> no. >> congresswoman just talked about the work that you do, tell me your name? >> my name is jamal coal. >> what work do you do? >> a lot of chicago teenagers never been downtown, see a lake, helicopters land into their houses at night. their whole world view is shaped by the infrastructure of their neighborhoods. i take them on educational field trips and we expose them to different cultures, different professions and cuisines so if you ask a kid what they want to be they say "i want to a b a rapper" but if i take them to gatorade and they talk about consumer engagement, the kids never knew that exhibited. that's what we do. we do it by sell zelling hoodies and t-shirts online. that's what we do. [ applause ] >> commissioner boykin, tell me your name, sir. >> richard boykin, cook county commissioner. >>. [ applause ] >> you have some fans here. there's a legacy of isolation. there were structural policies put in place, red lining,cted c been layered upon itself for decades. it's produced pockets of concentrated poverty that happened in the city of chicago. what would it look like if america made a decision that that was an unacceptable to thing to happen? >> i think we have to make that decision. our babies are dying, our communities are dying. the reality of it is we must focus on parenting. work with the faith-based community, work with organizations that do professional parenting, we can turn this thing around. a lot of tit begins -- everythig begins at home. and what we have here is black people killing black people in many instances. 80% of the people killed in the month of january were african-americans. 56 people killed, 46 african-americans. the other 10, eight latinos, two whites. and so we've got a serious crisis in the city of chicago. it's a virtual state of emergency. we need federal assistance, we need additional fbi agents, dea agents, atf, police, though, we can't police our way out of poverty, i agree with that. but we need them to help solve this clearance rate. we need to -- we've got recycled killers. look one of the things that i did recently is i introduced the neighborhood revitalization act. that would provide free homes for police officers, teachers, firefighters and paramedics to live in these communities that are epidangered for five years. if they live and work in those communities, it does several things. we've got 80,000 vacant lots and abandoned buildings in the city of chicago. things that are boarded up. we have to put those back on the tax rolls. we have to put professionals back in the community. we have to revitalize and rebuild these communities and what ems it does, it requires developers to use 30% of at risk youth, 16 to 24 in those communities to do the rehab and the redevelopment. [ applause ] >> commissioner, thank you very much. at the beginning of this town hall we came out here -- i lived in chicago for a while, learned to be a reporter in this great city. and the first thing i said to these folks here, and if you're watching at home was we were going to do this hour and everyone was going to walk away frustrated because we didn't get to one one hundredth of what this complex place is about. but i hope for the people that have been -- that are outside chicago who have watched this city be talked about rather than talked with that you learned a little bit more about what this city is about, the challenges it faces and it's not alone, it's something that every major city in this country is facing right now and is going to -- those challenges are going to intensify so i want to thank you to the people of chicago, to the folks that came here, deputy mayor, superintendent, ameena matthews, lori lightfoot, thank you very much. thank you to everyone that participated and the great city of chicago and the south side cultural sent, thank you for having us. [ applause ] thanks for joining us tonight, happy friday. nice to have you with us. look at this awesome picture from 1968. i love every single thing about this picture. this is the central middle school band from orville, california. this is the majorettes part of the band and they are marching through downtown orville, california, on may 1, 1968. this picture is perfect. and this picture the property of the california department of water resource the reason the california departnt ofater resources had a photographer on site taking pictures that day of the majorettes in
New-yorkUnited-statesCanadaCook-countyIllinoisIraqWashingtonTown-hallCaliforniaMadison-squareSouth-shoreChicago the cross hairs, from the south shore cultural center in chicago, here is chris hayes. [ applause ] >> good evening from chicago, i'm chris hayes, i am thrilled to be here for a special town hall event in this incredible city. it's america's third-largest city and it's special to me. but lately as someone here put it, it's become the poster child for violence in america. this is due to a real surge of violence but also in part to the perception of this city as expressed so loudly and frequently by the new president of the united states. >> in chicago they've had thousands of shootings, thousands and i'm saying where is this? is this a war torn country? what are we doing? by the way, toughest gun laws in the world, chicago, and people are shooting themselves all other the place, okay? the problem is not that there are too many police, there are not enough police. it's worse than some of the places that we read about in the middle east. we have wars going on. it's so sad. chicago has become so sad. >> last month after apparently watching a news report about the surge in crime here the president took to twitter to threaten if anything doesn't fix the horrible carnage going only send in the feds. with chicago having become a presidential punching bag, we wanted to come to this city and give officials and activists and others who live here a platform to respond to talk about the real problems and the work towards real solutions. perhaps the president will see this because we have a lot of choices in this room that deserve to be heard. i want to introduce a few right now. joining me on stage, four of those voices, andrea zopp, deputy mayor of chicago, also former president and ceo of the chicago urban legal. i have also the superintendent suspect of the chicago police department. thank you for being here. >> good to be here. >> amina matthews, someone who has a lot of experience in trying to interrupt violence that has happened in chicago. [ applause ] and laurie lightfoot, chair of the police accountability task force. good to have you here. [ applause ] deputy mayor, i understand why people in chicago don't want to get into a tweet war with the president of the united states and there's a shrug off t shoulders of these implications but to people watching right now who have a very narrow sense of what chicago is and what it's experiencing what do you want them to know what? what do you want the president to know? >> i want the president to know this isn't a topic for tweeting. it's a serious issue. we have challenges here as we have across the country with rising violence. what i want them to know is that we're working to address that violence. we have plans in place that we're doing and we'll talk about that tonight. what i want them know that this is a city that's a lot more than just gun violence. we have people committed to the city, many of them are here tonight in this room. do you feel, commission, like -- how do you feel as a person tasked with blissing this city and running a police department here, what is your response to invocations of violence in chicago by folks -- not just the president, by people generally out there. >> what i want people to know is that, listen, chicago has its challenges but let's frame it properly. when you look at violent crime across america, chicago is the only major city that saw an uptick. per capita, we here in the middle of the pack in terms of violent crime, that's the one thing i want people to know. >> do you feel like chicago, which i think is around nine in the homicide rate right now in -- of the 25 major cities, do you feel you're being unfairly singled out? >> yes, some aspects because the violence in chicago, we have our challenges, that's no secret. but i want people to know the city as a whole is in good shape. five districts out of 22 police districts in this city actually drive the violence. out of those five, three -- two on the west side and one on the south side -- are the ones that drive most of our violent crime. >> does that resonate with people in the room? is that generally a feeling? i mean i was looking at some maps and one of the things about what's happening in chicago is an intensification of the inequality of violence there are huge swaths of the city that have homicide rates that are as safe as basically anywhere in canada. and then there are parts that have unbelievably high rates. how do you understand that inequality between the neighborhoods? >> well, it's hard for me to understand it coming from a gentrified family. i was the first black in an all lutheran school. so i can't understand the segregation in this city is that is so beautiful. and has his storally built by us, african-american, latinos loyer class, middle lower class, upper lower class and those communities yotalked about that's like canada. so we need to come together and i don't understand what is the whole issue about if you don't we will. we have. we have taken the community even off the record, even off the clock. we've made sure that, yeah, the numbers are unacceptable, however in our community there's people near have done amazing work and it has to be funded so if you want to put funding in our community make sure each and every one of our community activists, our humanitarians, our police, our cps, cpd is funded. so we can be able to maintain our own community. >> that gets to something about what the tenor of this is is like when the president talks about other folks, like what are they doing there? like everyone's just sitting around and no one -- it hasn't occurred to anyone here that the levels of violence are unacceptable, right? and that no one here is doing anything about it. like, how does that hit you when you hear that? >> well, i think what's most important is to focus on what's happening here and engage in solutions to solve the problems. the back-and-forth, the twitter war, that doesn't mean anything to the most vulnerable people in the most crime-plagued neighborhoods that are also some of our most impoverished neighborhoods. what they look to leaders to do is to solve problems, not to paint them in a two dimensional figure but come in, roll up their sleeves and do the hard work of moving forward in a productive way. >> i want a show of hands on the question about solving problems and i want you to be honest. when you hear the president say he's going to send in the feds, raise your shand that sounds like a good ideao you. >> to do what? >> raise your hand if when you hear "send in the feds" that feels ominous, like a threat. someone is saying they should take over the police department. what's your response to that? >> listen, cpd, we have our challenges. and we've done things in the past that were inappropriate. but that was the past. my challenge is to fix the issues because when i look out in the audience a lot of these folks in the audience right now, i've worked with with since becoming superintendent to make it better. those things didn't occur overnight and they won't be fixed overnight but we have to acknowledge them and move forward to correct the issues. [ applause ] >> yeah, give him a round of applause for that. there's a thing going on right now in american cities that's bigger than just chicago. newly confirmed attorney general jeff sessions talked about this today when he made his way to the department of justice. [ audience reacts ] i get where you guys are coming from on the new attorney general jeff sessions. we have seen in the last two years, 2015, 2016, we have seen homicide increases in many of the major cities in this country and in some cases it's been stark, places like st. louis and baltimore which i've covered from the very start. this is after a long period of historic decline. deputy mayor, what is your understanding? what is your theory of the case of what happened? >> well, the question was really that easy to answer hopefully we would be farther along, it's a tough question. i don't think there's an easy answer, we looked at the numbers. i don't think it came overnight. that's the important thing. we have neighborhoods that have been disinvested in, we've had schools that have been disinvested in, we have lack of access to jobs and work. we're paying for that over time. that didn't happen yesterday or in the last five years. wait, let me just get -- so i think those are some of the things we have to focus on. i want to circle back, though, to that federal resources question that you asked about because there are federal resources that we could use that would help. take, for example, youth jobs. the feds have completely cut youth jobs. we have a huge youth job program the city funds but we don't get any federal support. federal law enforcement support. the u.s. attorney's office here has the lowest rate of gun prosecutions of any u.s. attorney's office in the country and so we could use -- there's significant federal support we could use to partner with to address this issue. that's what we're looking for. >> what do you say to people that say you're evading responsibility by pointing to the feds? i've interviewed the mayor himself. he's talked about federal gun laws and things like that. ultimately that has been consistent over the period of time that we're talking, right? so what do you think is changing in this city? >> well, first of all, not true, for example, just on youth jobs. that's been cut, but we're not evading the issue, we haven't stopped doing work, we have a plan, we have a policing plan, we've invested in our officers, we've invested in technology, we've invested in training, the superintendent can talk to the details of how they're adjusting and changing policing to address this crime. we're investing and mentoring for youth to disrupt young people going into gangs and we're investing in neighborhoods, economic development and job creation for people to help address this lack of opportunity. so we're not waiting for the feds. >> there are folks -- i want to get folks in the room. i know you've been through the wringer on this. you're looking at me wh a rt of -- >> i'm waiting. >> anticipatory -- i cou hear the murmurs in the room about investment. let me just talk to this gentleman ov here. stand up for me, will you? jedediah brown, right? >> yes, sir. >> i saw a youtube video of you. i have a personal theory that part of the president's beef with chicago is that when he tried to come here and talk in the primary -- do people remember this? they're like, yeah, damn right we remember it. [ cheers and applause ] that is not necessarily the perception outside of chicago, i should say. there was a protest, he ended up not speaking. it got pretty gnarly and there were punches thrown on both sides as far as i could tell. you rushed the stage that the event. why did you do that? >> well, we saw what donald trump's campaign was doing all across the country. we've seen black bodies being pushed around, people getting punched in the face and i didn't shut down his rally, chicago did. [ applause ] because we were not going to allow -- chicago does have its challenge but chicago is one tough city and we was not going allow donald trump to campaign in our city and be unchallenge and we stopped it. >> when you hear about what the deputy mayor is talking about in terms of investment, you were murmuring, i couldn't tell if that was assent or dissent. >> there are a lot of people that have the heart beat of this neighborhood and everything the deputy mayor is saying we have no clue about it because the mayor's office has not engaged the communities that are -- [ applause ] -- the mayor's office has not -- as far as, i'll say it like this. the mayor's office has stopped reaching out to black voices ever thought he would get caught with the coverup for mcdonald's murder. we don't know anything about that. we can't back them up, we can't say it's true because it's not matriculaing down to everyday people. >> i want to give the deputy mayor a chance to respond. i want to say this for the record while everyone watches this. there's not a lot of cities that i could go to where the mayo would se aone to this town hall. i'm serious about that. or the police commission si want to be clear about the fact that we are having this conversation in this room because they are at the table. >> so, look, we don't agree on all things but the fact is we've had conversations with jedediah and people who represents. in fact, jedediah and i were in the streets marching to try to bring people together when we had a dispute in one of our neighborhoods around -- between communities of color. we sat in a room and talked with each other and other people. he has been in my office to talk about these issues. have we fixed everything? absolutely not. but the idea that we're not talking to people in the community is -- i just disagree. >> there's a lot of -- one of the things jedediah brought up, i know people have a lot of opinions. one of the things jedediah brought up was laquan mcdonald. that hangs over everything happened here. >> no, it just brought it to a head of what has been going on. >> so i want to talk about that. i want to -- what i want to do is take a quick break, talk about the context that brought us here and we'll be right back. liberty mutual stood with me when i was too busy with the kids to get a repair estimate. liberty did what? yeah, with liberty mutual all i needed to do to get an estimate was snap a photo of the damage and voila! voila! (sigh) i wish my insurance company had that... wait! hold it... t ld ibo. there's supposed to be three of you... where's your brother? where's your brother? hey, where's charlie? charlie?! you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you. liberty stands with you™ liberty mutual insurance but with my back pain i couldn't sleep or get up in time. then i found aleve pm. the only one to combine a sleep aid plus the 12 hour pain relieving strength of aleve. and now. i'm back! aleve pm for a better am. ...stop clicking around...travel sites to find a better price... the lowest prices on our hotels are always at hilton.com. so pay less and get more only at hilton.com. >> to president trump, come here the city of chicago has a long and rich history, here to talk about that, my friend and colleague tremaine lee. >> i had time to be with natalie moore, wbze reporter, she wrote a fantastic book called "the south side." it's a look into how segregation shaped not just the south side but chicago. we talked about her neighborhood and the rich legacy of black chicago but struggles that isn't limited to gun violence, it didn't start and end with gun violence. let's take a look. so this is a beautiful block. >> yeah. this is where i grew up. >> i don't think people outside of chicago get to see this chicago. so many people it's a war zone, it's chiraq. >> there's an incrisability of the black middle-class in this country. this is not an anomaly, this is not a special neighborhood. there cease many neighborhoods that were once white in chicago that turned over black and they maintained a middle-class identity. >> why do you think that gets lost? >> it's not use. >> it's not sexy. >> it's not sexy. >> hi, how are you? how's your meal today? >> the issues we are dealing with in this city are not new. something just didn't magically happen in 2006. there's always been this struggle. >> when you think about the millions of people who fled the south, fleeing jim crow segregation to arrive in places like chicago, to help shape not just the culture of this city but the culture of america, on the other side of that coin, though, especially as of late it's become dominated by this idea of violence how do we reck i don't know the two visions of anything? >> we have to remember that darker legacy didn't just start with conversations about the so-called blackon black violence. when black people arrived in chicago, they were greeted by a host of policies and laws that kept them contained to black areas. people call it jim crow of the north. you couldn't live in white areas, it was illegal to buy a home from somebody white that had a restrictive covenant. black people were met with racial violence when they did integrate neighborhoods. there was redlining, banks didn't want to give you a loan if you were in a black neighborhood. that's at the heart of residential segregation, disinvestment, lack of resources has been something that black people have been contending with for a veryong time. >> just last month in this block alone sevepeop shot. at a vigil memorializing another gun violence victim the mother is shot, teenagers are shot. how did we get to this moment? >> if we look around, like this block was a stable block and this area was stable but look how many boarded up homes are on this block. look how many boarded up businesses are here. so all of that is connected. there's that expression if america gets a cold, black america gets the flu. so the economic downturn is being felt here, the housing crisis is still being felt here. these communities haven't climbed out of it the way we think the rest of the country has. >> how do we begin to address that or climb out of it? >> people say these communities have to lift themselves up. i guarantee there are block clubs all around here and people are doing individual things but these are larger structural issues. how do you recruit businesses and do neighborhood improvement plans? that's when city officials, state, federal, all these different layers to come in and help. >> chris, so often headlines are dominated by gun violence but one thing natalie talked about and so many people i've talked to before say the violence is spread beyond guns. poverty is violence. [ applause ] hunger is real violence. the trauma folks are seeing inside the home but the repeated exposure to violence in the streets, people are wound up and traumatized and that is violence but we don't address that violence. >> one of the things that struck me about that, i'd like to see a show of hands, one of the narratives that happened in this election, interestingly enough, in those places in america that voted overwhelmingly for the president was about the same story that natalie was telling that the economic recovery has not actually recovered. that the devastation hit and it rippled and rippled and rippled and you could look at top line economic numbers and say we're back to full employment. do people feel like in their neighborhoods things are back? >> no! >> do they feel like it has recovered? >> no. >> let me talk to you, camilla. tell me your name. >> camilla williams. >> you're someone who has lost people that you love rand close to love lens. >> 29 loved ones as of today. >> what do you feel about where the city is right now? do you feel like it's getting worse? not in the right direction? >> not the right direction. our leadership is failing us. [ applause ] we're begging, we're organizing. like ameena said, we're doing our part but we don't have the support of our leadership behind us. >> what does that mean? >> resources. >> giving organizations that's doing stuff money to continue to do what they need to do. >> how do you understand why the violence is happening? >> it's a lot of stuff but to me, you know, people just being hopeless right now. they -- no other opportunities for them. no jobs, no mental health, i know i have ptsd, it's off the charts and it's no help for us in this city. >> have you ever gotten treatment for that? >> no, university of chicago did a study about ptsd but they didn't come into our community to help us. >> do people feel like they personally have trauma? raise your hand if you have like you have trauma. let me talk to you rachel. thank you. you're wearing the button of someone. >> yeah. he was two -- two people i lost within a week's span. i grew up in grove heights, a little neighborhood south side of chicago, jay's potato chip was the main job in the neighborhood so ha when that factory clouds, kids worked at the potato dhip factory. so when we talk about divestment in the community, we have to look at two things, divestment in jobs, divestment in education and wonder why the violence is so high. [ applause ] so if you're looking at a neighborhood and saying why is the crime rate high, why is this happening but then you see no jobs, no education but barely holding on and we talk about food justice as well. all of those are major components that come into the violence that happens here. >> gloria, how does that sound to you? >> when people are hopeless, when they have unemployment that's off the charts, 50% in some of our neighborhoods, where people have never had a job, have no prospects of getting a job you lose your sense of self and hope and dignity. >> we're going to take a break, i want to talk about policing more specifically. it's obviously important here and across the country. i know that people have extremely strong views in what's happening, we'll come back with more on that, don't go anywhere. [ applause ] >> i'm just just the superintendent, i'm a black person that lives in chicago. i raised my kids here, i grew up here, i have relatives here. 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>> i heard one officer say i want to think about what happened on the news and what i want with my career. what happened post ferguson is having an impact and i gave the example of laquan fisher which is why other police officers and police chiefs applauded. so i believe the recent events over the last year or 18 months have had an impact and officers will tell you that. >> first of all, you, superintendent. do you think that's true? >> well, what i think we have is a situation where officers see what's going on, not just in chicago but nationally. i'll be the first to tell you, cpd has done some things incorrectly. our challenge is to make sure that doesn't happen. the majority of officers -- >> i want to ask a specific question. do you feel it is the case that the increased scrutiny on police behavior through cell phones, through publicity around laquan mcdonald particularly, do you think it has affected police behavior in such way that they feel they can't do their job? >> no, and i'll give you a statistic to support that. in 2015 we had the laquan mcdonald release video. we had a change in leadership in the police department and we had a change of state laws. so 2016 we got off to a really rocky start but what i can tell you is this. the one thing police officers do everyday is arrest bad guys with guns. that's the most dangerous thing we can do. when you look at the statistics from 2016, we did it 9% over what we did in 2015. this year we're almost doubled in arrested bad guys with guns so that tells me our overall stops with citizens has plummeted and it should because we're doing it the right way. we should be focused on arresting the right people for the right reasons at the right time [ applause ] >> go ahead, go ahead. [ applause ] lori, do you agree with that? stops in the city have plummeted according to statistics. do people feel like they have lived that? do you feel like you felt the stops -- >> they're down 80%. investigatory stops are down 80%. arrests are down but the statistic that the superintendent quoted i think is right which is the officer is still throughout taking great risk to take guns off the street. i think this whole issue of -- it's been called the ferguson affect does officers a disservice but more to the point it does the people a disservice. we need the police to be proactive, to be respectfully engaged with the community and we need to do their job in a constitutional way. they are absolutely under a level of scrutiny that probably has never been seen before in policing and that won't go away. what you hear in this conversation tonight is people whose interest has been raised, whose attention has been raised and who have a level of expectation about the quality of policing they should be getting in every single neighborhood in the city. that's not going to go away. the challenge for policing and for the superintendent is to articulate a path forward for individual officers so they're not afraid to do their job because they're afraid to be captured on video. that's not going to change. they have to figure out the path forward and leadership i think will point them in the right direction. >> i want to ask people in this room a yet about how they feel about the police, how much they feel they can trust the police right after we take this quick break. don't go anywhere. we'll be right back. >> nobody has really said it but his name is emanuel and this mayor that we have in the city of chicago does not care about black people and i'm going to put that on the record. mom, i just saved a lot of money on my car insurance by switching to geico. i should take a closer look at geico... you know, geico can help you save money on your homeowners insurance too? 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[ applause ] when you can invest $100 million into depaul basketball arena when they can practice at the united center for free and $16.4 million to build upscale apartments, when you can build new bus stops downtown but walk in our neighborhoods and not a million is coming. we walk past boarded up schools, boarded up houses, they're knocking down with red xs with no plan to redevelop, mental health facilities shut down, the unemployment rate is the highest in chicago than around the country, if you want to talk about violence, you've got to talk about the economics, not police. [ cheers and applause ] >> there's two things i want responses on. there's two things i'd like to hear responses on. i want to talk about something that jamal said that i think is a really important thing for folks to recognize which is the clearance rate.'mal said that i a really important thing for folks to recognize which is the clearance rate. there's a sense in which people experience policing in a day to day stop and frisk as it's called in new york, being pulled over, people feel like they're being harassed and the most serious crime that a person can commit which is taking another person's life, right? this city's clearance rate for homicides is -- >> somewhere now about -- a little over 30%. >> folks in this room know that number because they feel like it's an indictment of the department. what do you say to people that is an indictment of the department. >> well, you know what? the clearance rate is not a cpd clearance rate, it's a chicago clearance rate. the simple fact is that ja'mal is right about what he said needs to be invested in. he's correct about that, but the simple fact is, until we -- listen, i'm not just the superintendent, i'm a black person that lives in chicago. i raised my kids here, i grew up here and i have relatives here. but the simple fact is this, cpd, we have to do a better job of facilitating that relationship and building that trust back and to that end i've been getting out there since i became superintendent to do that because without the trust in the community, cpd is only as good as the faith the community has in it [ applause ] >> let me ask a question in this room. show of hands. if you see something that's happening in your neighborhood, criminal act, maybe a theft, maybe something more, violence of some sort, who here in this room feels comfortable picking up 911 and dialing the cops? whoa, whoa. and how many people -- how many people don't feel comfortable? can i talk to you for a second? >> sure. >> tell me your name. >> dimitri roberts. >> you were a chicago police officer for a while? >> i was, many years. >> i thought what ja'mal said was interesting. one of the things that ends up happening when these conversations happen is you watch the resources flow towards poce departments. righ i think, frankly, police departments that i've covered around the country are very good pat getting those resources. the argument police departments make is crime is low, we've been beating crime, give us resource so we can keep beating crime. crime is up, we're losing crime, give us resources so we can beat crime. are you confident that policing -- that there is a policing problem or not? >> well, before i answer that question, chris, i have to acknowledge why there's so much tension in this room. it's because people are hurting. people -- by show of hands, noum this room have either been a victim of violence or know somebody that's been a victim of violence in the city of chicago? i know i have. so now we have to acknowledge that people are hurting in these communities. and then on behalf of the police, as somebody who wore a badge but i also served my country in the military but before that i was a young black man who grew up not too far from here and i saw the blood of my fellow peers spilled on 47th street. i saw the blood of my peers spilled on the streets of iraq, and i saw the blood of my fellow police officers spilled in inglewood. so can we all agree at that at the end of the day can we unify behind the fact that we all bleed the same color? at the end of the day, can we all unify just behind that one point and regardless of what side of politics we come from, regardless of what hashtag we promote, regardless of what we've come through, the better days are ahead of us. and as long as we in this room stand together and unify, chris, that's what we're going to see some solutions. >> what does that mean, though? >> to your point, the folks in this room, regardless of whether your program has been resourced or not, people are going out everyday, there's -- they're continuing to put their lives on the line and continuing to fight for the sanctity and the dignity of the people and violence to be reduced in the city of chicago. so what can we do? we have to unify behind something. and if we can agree that we all want to see one chicago unified we can all leave here today feeling like when we go out tomorrow we're going to make chicago better as a result of us being here today. >> okay. let me ask this question, can unity -- can people feel like there can be unity or trust in -- unless there is accountability? do people feel like the chicago police department is an accountable department? >> so here's the deal. superintendent eddie johnson has come in, he's diversify it had command staff, but before all of this takes place there needs to be an apology that happens to every single person in this room and as somebody who swore an oath to my country and community i can stand here with you today and i can apologize to you, each one of you, on national tv and say i'm sorry we have not fulfilled the oath that we swore to you, we have not protected our communities in the ways we should. and further, to president trump, come here to chicago, see what all of these folks in this room, black, white, democrat, republican, city official, civic leaders are doing in this city and they need the resources of the federal government to ensure there's no more blood, not a police officer, not a community member spilled another day in this city from this day moving forward. >> i want to talk about what solutions here will look like if the sky was the limit. if there was a real commitment on the national polity to help places like chicago. >> my challenge to trump, trump, bring your rump into the city of chicago. ♪ you know how painful heartburn can be. for fast-acting, long-lasting relief, try doctor recommended gaviscon. it quickly neutralizes stomach acid and helps keep acid down for hours. relieve heartburn with fast- acting, long-lasting gaviscon. and helps keep acid down for hours. the search for relief often leads... here... here... or here. today, there's another option. drug-free aleve direct therapy. a tens device with high intensity power that uses technology once only available in doctors' offices. its wireless remote lets you control the intensity, and helps you get back to things like this... this... or this. and back to being yourself. aleve direct therapy. find yours in the pain relief aisle. we're back here to talk about solutions and i have with me congressman bobby rush, a legendary figure in many respects, the only person to ever beat barack obama in an election. [ applause ] that's a good piece of trivia, and represents the south side. if you thought about this idea, the idea to end? the needs the broadest and most constructive sense, if you read that as a commitment by national leadership to do whatever it can to reduce trauma in the city of chicago, increase flourishing and thriving, what would the look like. >> well, first of all, chris, let me say this, i am a fan. i live here, i worship here, i love here and what i'm witnessing today is this is way we do it in chicago. there are a lot of strong opinions but mt of the people here they are empowered through their love of this city and their love of their community and they're just passionate about it. [ applause ] i don't know what trump means when he says bring in the feds. first of all, my challenge to trump, trump, bring your rump into the city of chicago. [ cheers and applause ] go to knees communities and hear what these people who are on the front lines day by day, hear what they have to say about their community and their aspirations for their community. i think that we need to take a moment to look beyond the violence and see what is occurring beyond the violence. if we look beyond the violence, we'll not only see the school that are closed, we'll see -- and that are being threatened and closed but we'll see that chicago at one time had nine black-owned banks and now we're down to one. [ applause ] that's a federal policy. i'm saying that most of my problems that i've heard here today and that i've thought about over the years, be it housing, be it education, be it mass incarceration, all of these are federal policies and we have not yet at this moment, including eight years of obama, had someone in the white house who really cared about this city and about these problems here in the city of chicago. [ applause ] >> thank you, congressman. congresswoman, can i talk to you because -- that's -- i just want you to respond to what your colleague just said. including the eight years of barack obama we have not had a president that actually cares about chicago. >> well, i'm not going to say i all together agree with what he's saying. i look at it as like nothing stops a bullet like an opportunity and we need to make sure we're giving our young people and our citizens opportunities. yes, it's government, when i think of bringing in the feds, we feed to bring in resources to help businesses, to help -- there's a lot of people in this room that are doing good things like diane, like kelly and college pebbles, we need to scape up those programs. this young man here with his program. if we could bring in money to scale up those programs so they can help more people but also not just government, let's look at the businesses that we support. do they have businesses in our community when they come to d.c. and see me and want my help, i say do you have businesses south? not just south side of chicago, i respect the south suburbs, too, there's some of the same retail red lining there, so we don't have jobs and mentoring. >> wham what am i doing? >> they're talking about an infrastructure bill in washington, d.c. and the idea behind a washington, d.c. infrastructure bill would be to create construction jobs throughout the country, right? do you feel like -- would you have any faith that this would come to chicago? that that must be would come to chicago? >> no. >> no. >> congresswoman just talked about the work that you do, tell me your name? >> my name is jamal coal. >> what work do you do? >> a lot of chicago teenagers never been downtown, see a lake, helicopters land into their houses at night. their whole world view is shaped by the infrastructure of their neighborhoods. i take them on educational field trips and we expose them to different cultures, different professions and cuisines so if you ask a kid what they want to be they say "i want to a b a rapper" but if i take them to gatorade and they talk about consumer engagement, the kids never knew that exhibited. that's what we do. we do it by sell zelling hoodies and t-shirts online. that's what we do. [ applause ] >> commissioner boykin, tell me your name, sir. >> richard boykin, cook county commissioner. >>. [ applause ] >> you have some fans here. there's a legacy of isolation. there were structural policies put in place, red lining,cted co been layered upon itself for decades. it's produced pockets of concentrated poverty that happened in the city of chicago. what would it look like if america made a decision that that was an unacceptable to thing to happen? >> i think we have to make that decision. our babies are dying, our communities are dying. the reality of it is we must focus on parenting. work with the faith-based community, work with organizations that do professional parenting, we can turn this thing around. a lot of it begins -- everything begins at home. and what we have here is black people killing black people in many instances. 80% of the people killed in the month of january were african-americans. 56 people killed, 46 african-americans. the other 10, eight latinos, two whites. and so we've got a serious crisis in the city of chicago. it's a virtual state of emergency. we need federal assistance, we need additional fbi agents, dea agents, atf, police, though, we can't police our way out of poverty, i agree with that. but we need them to help solve this clearance rate. we need to -- we've got recycled killers. look one of the things that i did recently is i introduced the neighborhood revitalization act. that would provide free homes for police officers, teachers, firefighters and paramedics to live in these communities that are epidangered for five years. if they live and work in those communities, it does several things. we've got 80,000 vacant lots and abandoned buildings in the city of chicago. things that are boarded up. we have to put those back on the tax rolls. we have to put professionals back in the community. we have to revitalize and rebuild these communities and what ems it does, it requires developers to use 30% of at risk youth, 16 to 24 in those communities to do the rehab and the redevelopment. [ applause ] >> commissioner, thank you very much. at the beginning of this town hall we came out here -- i lived in chicago for a while, learned to be a reporter in this great city. and the first thing i said to these folks here, and if you're watching at home was we were going to do this hour and everyone was going to walk away frustrated because we didn't get to one one hundredth of what this complex place is about. but i hope for the people that have been -- that are outside chicago who have watched this city be talked about rather than talked with that you learned a little bit more about what this city is about, the challenges it faces and it's not alone, it's something that every major city in this country is facing right now and is going to -- those challenges are going to intensify so i want to thank you to the people of chicago, to the folks that came here, deputy mayor, superintendent, ameena matthews, lori lightfoot, thank you very much. thank you to everyone that participated and the great city of chicago and the south side cultural sent, thank you for having us. [ applause ] thanks for joining us tonight, happy friday. nice to have you with us. look at this awesome picture from 1968. i love every single thing about this picture. this is the central middle school band from orville, california. this is the majorettes part of the band and they are marching through downtown orville, california, on may 1, 1968. this picture is perfec and this picture the property of the california department of water resources. the reason the california department of water resources had a photographer on site taking pictures that day of the majorettes in orville is because that day the governor of california and his wife came too orville, california, to tour a really big awesome new piece of
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