County Commissioner Wants Rauner To Declare 'State Of Emergency' Over Shootings
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A Cook County commissioner and others have called on Gov. Bruce Rauner to declare a state of emergency in Chicago, after shootings and murders skyrocketed last month.
Commissioner Richard Boykin (D-1st) said he's sending a letter to the governor, asking him to declare a state of emergency in the city, as a step toward quelling the alarming level of violence on the streets.
Chicago police have said nearly 300 people were shot last month, more than double the total from January 2015; and 51 people were murdered, an increase of 75 percent over last year.
Boykin said the public has lost trust in the Chicago Police Department, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel has been weakened by the political fallout from the fatal police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald and other police controversies.
"There is a vacuum of leadership, and so what we're doing today is we're calling on the governor to declare a state of emergency, with respect to gun violence, and trigger federal resources to come in," he said.
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The commissioner said declaring a state of emergency in Chicago could help bring federal resources into high-crime neighborhoods.
"These individuals deserve the same level of protection that everyone else gets throughout the city on the North Side and downtown," he said.
Boykin said he wants federal teams to come in to help stabilize violence-wracked neighborhoods, and help police crack down on gang violence. However, did not call for help from the National Guard.
In the past, Boykin has said the solution to gun violence in Chicago is not to militarize crime-ravaged neighborhoods, but to come up with a multifaceted strategy. He has called for measures such as strictly enforcing curfew laws, expanding drug courts and mental health services, increasing penalties for illegal gun possession, offering more jobs training programs, and charging shooters and their co-conspirators with domestic terrorism.
