Chicago Area Local News

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Mayor Richard M. Daley is asking for your help to solve the violence in Chicago.

CBS 2's Dorothy Tucker reports the mayor is pleading with Chicagoans to call, to e-mail, to send a letter to share their thoughts and ideas on what can be done to stop the killing.

Daley invited about a dozen local leaders from the fields of education, religion, law enforcement and community activism to a meeting on the 11th floor of City Hall. It was a chance for everyone to discuss the recent shootings and murders across the city – more than 40 people have been shot in less than a week.

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The mayor talked about programs that already exist to keep children out of trouble, but he said everyone needs to be involved to make a difference.

"We have to keep our young people occupied in close contact with responsible adults," Daley said. "That has been the theme of all the meetings so far. But I also respectfully say that I don't want people to wait for Mayor Daley to call a meeting. I want you to call a meeting in your home, with your children and loved ones."

Those who attended the meeting also offered some suggestions.
Tio Hardimon of anti-violence group CeaseFire said, "We need to meet with the business community out here and try to find employment for a lot of these young men and women. We need to go to the corners and find out what some of these young men and women want to do, identify some employers that are willing to hire maybe 30 from this neighborhood... and try to get them hired somewhere and get them off the corners."

Daley said Friday's was the first of many meetings he plans with local leaders, and he hopes to get others involved.

Police plan to put extra patrols on the streets this weekend and will assign a gangs unit, SWAT teams and police helicopters to the city's hotspots, in an attempt once again to curb violence.

Earlier on Friday, Mayor Daley was presented a birthday cake to celebrate his 66th birthday – which was on Thursday – as he welcomed international business leaders and positioned Chicago as a leader in the global community. The occasion was the British-American 2008 Transatlantic Business Conference.

Mayor Daley talked about this country's friendly relationship with the United Kingdom, and thanked British Consul General James Clark for his guidance in helping Chicago with its bids for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

The rash of violence over the past week that has been so severe, some have been afraid it might jeopardize the city's chances to land the 2016 Summer Olympics, but Daley says that is not why he is taking action.

"I'm not worried about the Olympics, but as a quality of life," Mayor Daley said. "There has to be an outrage by people living on the block. I can outrage; be passionate. They have to say, 'Why is this happening on my block?'"

The rash of killings, not all of them gang-related, have prompted a demand for answers across the city. Most infamous among them was the murder of five young adults on Wednesday in the South Side's Chatham neighborhood.

In a news conference Thursday, police discussed three homicide investigations that have unfolded in the last week. They said the quintuple murder at 7607 S. Rhodes Ave., appeared to be planned, happened over a period of time, and were carried out by more than one person.

Killed in the shooting were lifelong friends Donovan Richardson, 25, and his cousin, Chicago Public Schools janitor Reginald Walker, 23; computer analyst Anthony Scales Jr., 27; Richardson's girlfriend Whitney Flowers, 22; and Lakesha Doss, 17.

Detectives have no motive in the case, but have called on specialized police units, including vice, prostitution, and narcotics.

The Rhodes Avenue massacre was the city's worst mass murder since 2003, but it came following a rash of violence over the past week that has been so severe, some have been afraid it might jeopardize the city's chances to land the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Gun violence last weekend claimed the lives of at least seven people, among at least three dozen who were shot. In the time since, the number shot has climbed to more than 40, the number killed to 12.



 Map Of The Shootings






Two more shootings were reported on Thursday night. On the West Side, a stray bullet struck a 42-year-old woman parking a car in the 5300 block of West North Avenue around 8:30 p.m. Witnesses said two people exited a building on North Avenue and fired several shots at group of men walking east. The bullet struck the woman, who was in the crossfire, while she was parking a car, police said.

In the 200 block of West 119th Street on the city's Far South Side, a 16-year-old boy was shot in the shoulder while standing outside around 9:30 p.m. He was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in an unspecified condition.

An emergency summit prompted by violence is rare, but not unheard of. Mayor Daley also called such a summit in October 1992, after Dantrell Davis, 7, was shot dead by a sniper as he walked from his home in the Cabrini-Green public housing development to Jenner Elementary School just across the street.

Homicides in Chicago have declined every year since 1992, when 943 people were slain in Chicago. The record for homicides in the city was set in 1974, when 970 people were murdered.

CBS 2's Joanie Lum and Joanie Lum, and the STNG Wire contributed to this report.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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