Yep - over a 300% increase.
Edit to add: car-jacking frequency has increased in the 'burbs here as well. However, I don’t have those stats on hand. I know that in part of the Metro, the ages of the perps are shockingly young.
There’s a good reason it became politically unpopular and Broken Windows theory(and policing tactics) has been debunked.
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Here is the full recording of last night’s safety forum with CPD Supt. Brown:
I really appreciate D III athletic programs. We should reform the entire system to make the NCAA adopt Division III practices. A great topic which U of C people would understand, but not one that would be easy for SEC or Big 10 fans. But D III schools unfortunately were not a match for me. My performances in 9th grade would have put me at the top of any D III program. Moreover, i was dirt poor with a single mother yet with high scores and grades- kind of rare - I had to go to school on athletic scholarship although I did not particularly enjoy it. In fact, i don’t like athletic scholarships. So many of my rivals slotted themselves without thought into teaching and coaching - a very fine endeavor - but for those of us without talents in that area (me) unhooking from the athletic scholarship life takes some effort - particularly if poor. No way to get financial aid for me unless I waited years - result of a broken family and divorce. No way to swing a private school like U of C (both my brother and I applied and got in and we knew just how good the school was, better in terms of rigor than anywhere else we applied, including Princeton, another place without athletic scholarships). I knew the coach at U of C in the late 90’s - he was an Olympian several times over and and a rival and he ran a great program. The U of C’s track club in the 70’s had Olympians and national champions, and certainly was compatible from a cultural standpoint with the university. I had a goal to break 3 minutes indoors for the 3/4 of a mile in high school and succeeded - in no small part because Ted Haydon immediately responded and was supportive. No way Northwestern or Illinois would have done such a thing. Silly as it sounds these things make for positive community relations. Part of the mantra in participating in the U of C track club was to be careful of your environment. That was new to me, but not unusual for an urban environment. Where I attended college had high crime, and the city itself had likely higher crime than many areas of Chicago, including Hyde Park. But my athletic life was centered around Duke Forest, a forest which was so large one could never navigate its entirety. We routinely ran 11 miles in well under an hour and did not see a single soul except when back on the athletic complex. Anyone who wanted to commit a crime would have had to navigate hills and unmarked trails, all to focus on victims carrying nothing, or nothing of value. And rattlesnakes were common to see, too! Again, just a different place, and a different match for me. I am concerned about the U of C now, and indeed all of Chicago. My father just passed away, and lived in the Gold Coast, obviously a very nice area. I was shocked at the three carjackings in the past six months on his block. He lived around the corner from Pritzker’s no toilet mansion! A rational person with insurance could say, look, I can replace a car which is stolen, so I can live with the odds, but these cars are taken at gunpoint and these crimes are serious enough to impair the way you think and live in an area. I am not running away from anyone now at my age, that’s for sure.
By the way, the AAU XC championships held at Washington Park in the 70’s had almost nothing in common with a road race. It had likely only 150 runners, all fast, with the stragglers running 32 minutes equivalents for 10k - no one to find or wait for, and with far more spectators than runners, many of them from non-urban environments where crime was rare. Frank Shorter won the race, talked to the press, and he and his Florida track club guys were whisked back to O’Hare - just a different experience, and while the danger in Washington Park was likely low, the perceptions over the venue differed greatly than the most often situated course, Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, still the gold standard for cross country races at all levels. I competed quite a bit at the U of C track, in the shadow of the Manhattan project building, and we were told not to run west of the track. Just a different environment, and am sad to see the recent crime spree.
Zheng’s parents arrived in Chicago last night. His mom said she needs to be strong to bring her son back home. I am tearing.
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I really admire Frank Shorter - he’s an Olympic champion marathoner! Totally get that the AAU XC won’t be like a road race lol. Just pointing out that in your day - and mine - thousands probably wouldn’t have gathered in such a manner - and not just because half marathons weren’t as popular! That whole area has really changed from the days when we, too, were told to be careful of our environment. In those days that meant not travelling south of 60th (where the Law School is) but nowadays much of 63rd behind the university is revitalized and there are high-end residential projects sprouting up. The College has opened two additional dorms on 61st, Harris School of Public Policy and Logan Center for the Arts are both on 60th. The Rubenstein Forum and a new Hotel have also joined South Campus. There’s a lot of student foot traffic in that area now, and when I drive through Woodlawn I often encounter students and young families out and about. The university has definitely expanded south - and west with the medical campus (though not across Cottage Grove).
Did you run inside Crown Field House? I used to run there in the winter because the track was open to the public.
A young man was killed during daytime hours. His parents will grieve for the rest of their lives. Am I the only one who finds these comments insensitive, condescending, and callous? And, yes, just maybe, victim-blaming?
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Yesterday you claimed those who live in these neighborhoods have low “cognitive capacities” and no values. Today you refer to the welfare babies trope and compare the South Side to a “Congo jungle trek” full of dangerous “black mambas.” I was going to suggest you say what you really think, but I think you’ve already made that pretty clear, and it has nothing to do with colleges.
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So, you know more than people who have devoted their lives to studying what works and what doesn’t work in crime prevention? You think you have the answers and (let me guess) it involves mass incarceration and targeted enforcement of “black mambas.”
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This conversation has become circular. One can look at almost any college in the country and find a current or former student who has been murdered. There’s nothing new being added to this conversation and it is going off topic.
FWIW, U Chicago doesn’t appear in the top 50 of this list. Other venerated universities do though.
Closing.
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