Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass thinks politicians, including the president, should be paying to attention to the rampant gun violence in the Windy City in addition to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
John Kass, who is an expert on the Illinois political machine, went on CNN to discuss the wave of gun crime in the city, which culminated in 500 homicides this year. According to CNN , 270 children have been killed in Chicago in the last five years.
Chicago has strict gun control laws.
Kass noted that there is a gang war going on in the west and southside of the city, and that Chicago police are undermanned and outgunned.
He insisted, however, that while there has always been guns in Chicago, and there have been gang wars before, the difference now is that the city has spent all the money, and there no resources available for additional law enforcement or other basic services. The police department is down about 1,000 officers at least according to Kass.
“Over 20 years, I can give you a laundry list of corruption and cronyism” by former Mayor Daley and others that wasted taxpayers’ money, Kass declared.
In a reference to reporters who failed to be watchdogs, Kass explained that “there had been people who were papering over and smooching up and making things look nice when they weren’t nice. The city is broke.”
Kass concluded his remarks by saying that in addition to attending memorial services in Newtown, Connecticut, President Obama should return to his hometown to attend funerals for minority children:
“We make the Sandy Hook – which was a tragedy – a big deal. Why don’t the politicians come to the funerals of the dead African-American and Latino kids who get killed by the hundreds and hundreds? The media has ghettoized these children, these homicide victims, pushed them to the side.”
“I’m not diminishing the others. I’m just saying, President Obama, show up at a funeral here in Chicago once in a while too.”
Kass wrote a hard-hitting and heartfelt column about the small business his parents started after Obama made his famous “you didn’t build that” remarks in July.
Watch the John Kass interview on CNN about the murders in Chicago: