I’d hate it when some old-time police sergeant, usually an old white guy but sometimes black, would stand, hand on hip and sigh.

And in the laconic and bitterly ironic tone of Chicago police, he’d make the big speech of five words:

“Gonna be a bad summer.”

I’d cringe, because, well, who the hell doesn’t know this?

People are outside in summer. Rich people go places. But poor people go outside. And in Chicago, guns go outside with them.

Calling it “gun violence” lets local politicians off the hook, because they want to shift the blame away from the lousy schools they’ve provided and taxes that cripple or drive away businesses so there are no jobs.

The proper name is “gang violence,” and the gangs kill people over drugs, money, over revenge, over nothing, over they just felt like it.

It was always going to be a bad summer. But something happened the other day on the West Side that makes me think that old archetype of a sergeant may be right this time.

Authorities confirmed that two police officers — TAC cops, not rookies — were making a drug arrest shortly after 2 p.m. on Sunday.

A mob appeared, threatening the officers, surrounding them, threatening to reach for their own weapons to shoot them dead, and the cops let the suspect go.

What is learned here? The street is officially no longer afraid of the Chicago police.

If the cops had fired their weapons, news media would have been all over them, metaphorically skinning them alive. Politicians would have demanded...

more: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-met-john-kass-chicago-policing-20190321-story.html