One Chicago alderman is speaking out against city leaders after police urged him to abandon a city pledge to camp out in high-crime neighborhoods because of rising violence.
17th Ward City Councilman David Moore had been camping out in a tent in an abandoned neighborhood in West Englewood for two nights, trying to draw attention to a suspected open-air drug market, when gunfire rang out close by, ultimately killing one person. After the incident, Chicago police vowed to work with Moore to come up with a plan to end drug violence in the area.
“We need this administration and specific policies to take the handcuffs off police,” Moore told “Fox & Friends” on Monday. “We need to make sure police have the tools, including equipment called shotspotters, that can detect gunfire, and make sure they have the tools they need to fight these problems. We need to stop listening to activists who are making a lot of money from white progressives telling black people what to do in their neighborhoods and telling them to stop doing things like stopping cars to get guns and drugs off our streets.”
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“These policies hurt our communities, preventing young people from going outside to play and seniors from sitting on their porches,” he continued.
Moore’s goal in camping in the crime-ridden neighborhood was to root out drug trafficking in the area, and he vowed to work with Chicago Police Department officers to ensure they implement plans to curb violence in the city.
Chicago City Councilman David Moore was asked to abandon a pledge to sleep outdoors to curb the open-air drug market. (Screenshot from “Fox & Friends”)
Moore said he had continued to hear threats that morning before the shooting, but he wasn’t too concerned because he had a security guard with him at the time.
He said a woman approached him and said she was planning to have a Father’s Day barbecue on the block where he was camping, and shortly thereafter, gunfire rang out. He claims there was a rival group fighting over turf with another group. One person was wounded in the shooting.
Moore said law enforcement has been fighting crime and violence for years, but ultimately it hasn’t been enough to curb the bloodshed.
Co-host Lawrence Jones asked Moore what Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a progressive who describes himself as an activist, has been doing to combat this current trend.
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“There’s nothing wrong with being an activist — I’ve been an activist — but you have to be working on the right issues, and working on the right issues means listening to the people in your community, not listening to your ideology or the people that put you in office, which are usually wealthy white progressives who see poverty as beneficial and want to push policies to keep poor people down,” Moore replied.
According to Chicago police, Moore’s Ward alone has already seen 13 murders, 136 aggravated assaults and 92 substance abuse violations.
Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee plans to hold its 2024 convention in Chicago in August, which is expected to draw thousands of tourists and delegates.
“Do you think having the tournament there would bring the problem to light, or do you think they could find a way to clean up the city just for the tournament?” Jones asked Moore.
“That doesn’t bring the issue to light broadly because this administration wants to expand, as I talked about ShotSpotter at the DNC, but they don’t want it after the DNC. So we want ShotSpotter to protect senior officials and dignitaries, but we don’t need it to protect the general public,” he replied.
“The Democratic National Convention will not be held on West 73rd Street. They’ll be held in a beautiful downtown area with a lot of police, a lot of state police, a lot of federal police. So you’re going to see a different Chicago, not the two Chicagos that we know,” he continued.
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