#mick dumke

[chicago-reader]

Chicago decriminalized pot two years ago. Still, eight out of ten arrestees for possession are African-American. 

[chicago-reader]

If facts are taken into account, Rahm's budget claims don't all add up

Fact-checking Mayor Emanuel's budget speech

[chicago-reader]

Given the state of the city's finances, you could argue that the mayor doesn't have any choice but to cut. But the facts show that the city's policies are contributing to the development of two different Chicagos distinguishable by race and employment—not to mention by levels of violence, which in turn costs everyone more in tax dollars.

Mick Dumke on a report that shows Chicago's job creation policies are leaving black communities out in the cold.

[chicago-reader]

For two years, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has been fighting to keep the public from seeing a public document on the use of taxpayer resources. That may not sound fitting for the mayor who has repeatedly promised to create "the most open, accountable, and transparent government that the City of Chicago has ever seen." But it's the truth—as I can attest after suing the city over the issue, and then listening to city attorneys make a series of arguments in court against releasing the three-year-old report on police staffing. Yet the issue goes well beyond a single obscure—and, by this time, potentially outdated—document from 2010. On Friday the Illinois Appellate Court ruled that the city was required to disclose the report—and in doing so, the court appears to have strengthened the state's Freedom of Information Act in favor of openness for citizens and the press. Mayors can't publicly tout their work to improve the city, then turn around and claim the records of that work are private. Well, they probably will, but now it might be a little harder for them to get away with it.

Mick Dumke fought city hall ... and won.

Continue reading about his court victory here.

[mediamattress]

Anatomy of a heroin ring

By Mick Dumke, Chicago Reader (February 14, 2013)

At first it seemed like just another senseless shooting in an already violent summer. A little after 4 AM on Monday, August 18, 2008, two men were fired on as they sat in a Mercedes outside the Rock 'n' Roll McDonald's. By the time police arrived four minutes later, the Mercedes was on its way to Stroger Hospital. The 29-year-old driver had been shot five times; the passenger, his younger brother, was declared dead on arrival at Stroger. From the little information police were able to piece together at the time, the slaying seemed to have stemmed from an altercation at Excalibur, the popular nightclub a couple blocks away.

Area residents and bar patrons expressed alarm, noting that shootings don't usually happen in low-crime River North, and certainly not at heavily trafficked tourist stops like the landmark McDonald's. To some, it was the latest sign that bloodshed seemed to be spreading everywhere that summer—even the Taste of Chicago had been marred by a deadly shooting as thousands of people left the fireworks show on the Fourth of July. The city was well on its way to more than 500 murders for the year, the highest total since 2003. Even more troubling, police were able to identify suspects in only about a third of them.

The slaying outside the McDonald's would remain one of the open cases. What led to the gunfire—and how it was connected to a string of other violent acts around the city—wouldn't become evident for another two years, after an investigation led deep into a highly profitable heroin ring on the west side that employed dozens of residents, served thousands of customers from around the midwest, and had ties to Mexican drug cartels.

What turned out to be most notable about the operation, though, was how typical it was. The DEA estimates that 80 percent of the heroin and cocaine sold in Chicago originates with the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico. Distributors here extend the cartel's reach by connecting with street gangs. The gangs, in turn, hasten the decline of distressed communities into open-air drug markets through their skillful use of product promotion, their ability to offer job opportunities where there are few, and their willingness, when necessary, to use violence to stay in business.

The survivor of the River North shooting had the attention of authorities even before he left the hospital. His name was Dana Bostic, and he was the older brother of Curtis Ellis, who'd been fatally shot in the seat next to him. Not long after Bostic was hospitalized, Mahogany Barbee, his longtime girlfriend, rushed in to see him. The couple lived together with their children in suburban Aurora, not far from where she worked as a nurse's assistant. To her and the couple's friends and family, Bostic was loyal and generous, known for lending money when anyone was short and organizing block parties or boat outings for special occasions.

Police, though, knew him as "Bird," a big guy—6'2" and heavyset, with a large round face and a scar on his forehead—who was a longtime member of the New Breeds street gang based on Chicago's west side.

Read More

[chicago-reader]

Can anyone beat Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2015? "Even in Chicago politics, there's always the possibility of an act of God or an upset"

[chicago-reader]

"Now eventually we want to reach out to the kids on the corner. Because there's talent on the street. They've got a product, a distribution system, and a revenue stream. If they can do it illegally, imagine what they could do legally."

Chet Jackson, executive director of the nonprofit West Humboldt Park Community Development Council, hopes legit commerce can conquer street-level drug sales in his neighborhood.

[youreadwhatiread]

Somewhere in there it is admitted that the system is broken and there is little hope for those who find themselves in the communities that have these drug/violence related problems.